One Fall Changed How I See Aging and Injury

I never understood why so many older adults had trouble with falling. Until I had my own rude awakening

Chip Brown,

AARP

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Published December 08, 2025

an illustration shows a man lounging in a large body of water on a raft shaped like a crutch

Injured after a fall, author Chip Brown says he no longer looks askance at the number of older adults who experience declining health after falling.

Michelle Kondrich

Until I missed a step and fell last June at the end of a vacation in Venice, I am ashamed to say I was mystified to the point of exasperation by the prevalence of falls among older people. I wasn’t unsympathetic, just baffled. Who were all these geriatric klutzes, and what was the matter with them that they were toppling over like scythed wheat?

My 96-year-old mother, for instance. Never an exceptional athlete, she called to say she’d had a fall in her apartment. An X-ray at the clinic showed a hip fracture, so she would be going to the hospital for a 40-minute surgery. Four days later, still in the hospital but now with pneumonia, she telephoned her kids to say she’d had enough, was declining antibiotics and removing her oxygen mask. She died that evening.

Or my father, who was an athlete — in his 40s he once won an Irish blackthorn cane for coming in second in a walking race in New York City. He was still playing golf and tennis and croquet when, five years before my mother, he fell — I’m not sure why or how, but before he died he had lost even the ability to stand up.

And my father-in-law, too. The injuries from a fall in 2011 culminated in his death a month later.

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My relatives are — or were — in good company. None of their stories would surprise gerontologists. Falling turns out to be the leading cause of injury for people over 65. One in 4 older Americans reports they have fallen, and 1 in 10 falls leads to a serious injury. Preventing, detecting and managing falls is a multibillion-dollar business.

The reasons we fall as we get older aren’t all that esoteric. They range from vision problems and foot pain to vitamin deficiencies, general weakness and balance issues. Uneven steps are also a common culprit.

Not that I was thinking about any of this as I lay on my side, holding my right knee and cursing. I’d gotten up at 12:30 a.m. to un-jam a bathroom door that wasn’t stuck but just opened out, not in. Gotta love Italy. Having solved that nonproblem, I started back to bed. I skipped flawlessly down the first three steps of the staircase, then abruptly found myself sprawled on the floor, with pain knifing my right knee.

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I’m still not sure how it happened, and I had the whole summer and autumn while recuperating to think about it. That night I just knew I couldn’t walk, and I was as scared as I’d been in years.

Back in the U.S., I didn’t think of seeing a doctor until the obligatory male 10-day period of pretending-nothing’s-wrong-that-won’t-fix-itself passed. I finally got an appointment with an orthopedist, who told me I'd torn my right quadriceps tendon, I needed surgery as soon as possible and a minimum of eight weeks of physical therapy if I didn’t want to limp around like Captain Ahab the rest of your life.

So I passed my first summer as an invalid. I no longer look askance at the abundance of geriatric klutzes — my name tops the list.

It is another comeuppance, another of those rude awakenings that press home the mortal reality of life that most of us assiduously turn away from. It is humbling in so many other ways, not just the physical constraints but the emotional vulnerability, the swallowed pride of acknowledging dependency, of needing to ask for help. Help getting something to eat. Help putting on a sock. Help not being terminally glum that I may not fully recover the mobility I had before and be able to do what I had heedlessly taken for granted. Things that once seemed like chores — bagging the garbage or walking the dog — suddenly look like privileges. It takes but one fall to bring you closer to the truth that sooner or later, everything falls. Leaves, trees, lions, fathers, mothers, families, friends — all falling in falls great and small. Hemlines, empires, stars.

I recently came across a Japanese proverb: “Fall seven times, rise eight.” That seems a bit extreme — why make a habit of it? As my summer as an invalid ripened into fall, I would say this instead: Fall one time and bless whatever you believe in if you can rise at all.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.

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Chip Brown, 72, is the author of two books and has written for numerous national magazines, including Outside and National Geographic, as well as The New York Times.