Are you the litter lout who broke my wife's arm?

I sometimes marvel at what seems to me to be the total lack of natural justice in the world. Let me explain why I am especially feeling this right now Once or twice a month I join the Mill Hill Litter Pickers on a mission to clean up and tidy the streets, open spaces and parklands of Mill Hill. I don't do it because I particularly enjoy it (although there are some lovely people I've met through the group). I do it because I live in Mill Hill and I want it to be a nice place. This is the same motivation for the other topics I cover on the blog. I don't enjoy blogging about the bad things in our community. I do it because I care. Whatever you may think of my views and opinions, I hope that there is a degree of recognition that I care about our neighbourhood.

I've never liked litter. I've always believed that people who drop it are anti social and selfish. Our family have always kept dogs and on several occasions they have suffered cut paws where selfish people have left glass which has broken and caused a hazard. Have a look at the picture. A bit of chord used for packing, dumped by Mill Hill Circus Roundabout.  What possible harm could such a piece of plastic cause? Well on Sunday night, I was walking our dogs with my wife at around 11.30pm. As she went to step onto the slip road this became entangled around her feet and she fell, dislocating her shoulder and breaking her humerus bone (in her arm). As I write this (on Monday afternoon), she is having emergency surgery in Barnet General (God bless the NHS and all its staff).

At the time I was more concerned with getting her to hospital, but as I made my way back from admissions, I thought about it. I had wantonly left a dangerous trip hazard by the roundabout last night. So I went back, took this picture and put it in one of two litter bins adjacent.

There is no excuse for litter ever. Whilst it wouldn't have occurred to me that a small piece of plastic like this could be so devastating (my wife is facing months of physio, even if the op goes well). Please put all your litter, especially litter such as this in the bin.

As I am superstitious, I will not be posting this until I know the outcome of her procedure, but I always work on the principle that you can salvage some good out of bad things. If one person reads this and puts such an item in the bin, saving someone from a future injury, it is worth it. And if you are the litter lout who discarded this on Mill Hill Circus Roundabout, please be more considerate next time. I am sure you didn't want to break my wifes arm, but now you know what damage your actions have caused.

And finally, to my friends at Barnet Council, please clean our streets and please educate our children as to the consequences of what they do.