After the Fall, Things Really Started to Get Ugly

Mose was intrigued this past week when he came across this online hed:

AP source: Paterno fractures pelvis after fall

The story confirmed the news:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) – Joe Paterno fractured his pelvis again following a fall at his home but will not need surgery, a person close to the family told The Associated Press on Sunday.

But nowhere in that article did Mose learn how Paterno broke his hip.

Oh, we realize that he fell. But that slip, apparently, didn't cause the fracture.

After all, both the headline and text explained that the break occurred after Paterno fell.

Joe Pa must have got up from the fall, then was hit by a truck or something, which caused the hip injury.

Obviously, that's not what happened.

But Mose often sees that confused construction in the news.

His website recently broke the news that a local man had been “killed after being hit by a truck.”

Maybe after the victim dusted himself off from the accident, he started to walk away and was struck by lightning.

Any confusion could be avoided by writing that Coach Paterno broke his hip when he fell.

And the accident victim was killed when he was hit by a truck. Or maybe he died after being hit, depending on whether death was instantaneous or delayed by a few hours.

In accident stories, it's not always immediately clear when death occurred, so we might report that the victim was “declared dead” at the scene or, later, at a hospital.

In any case, be careful with after to avoid leaving doubt as to whether a second incident was responsible for the injury.