Roughly 50% of people will break a bone at some point in their lives.
But whether the cause is as mundane as a slip on the ice or as dramatic as a tightrope walking accident, broken bones tend to heal the same way.
The human body's 200 plus bones come in many shapes and sizes referred to by medical professionals as short bones, long bones, flat bones, and the catch-all category of irregular bones.
Despite their differences, bones generally have a rigid structure composed of a protein matrix that's dotted with bone cells and reinforced with minerals containing calcium.
Inside these stiff exteriors is spongy marrow containing stem cells that can divide and differentiate into specialized cell types.
Bones are also penetrated by blood vessels and nerves, which relay the searing pain signal associated with a break.
Since these nerves are encased in hard tissue, they're very difficult to study, so we still don't know exactly why broken bones hurt so much.
But we do know that long bones are the most likely to break since they often take the brunt of the impact from a fall.
Whether an accident causes a clean break or a splintering crack, any kind of fracture makes the blood vessels inside the bone rupture, causing internal bleeding and inflammation.
This signals the body to start the first step of the healing process, the inflammatory phase.
