At 6-foot-5, Jefferson County Republican Rick Enstrom was trying to get in the back row when supporters for Sentate candidate Jerry Natividad took the stage at the Colorado Republican assembly Saturday.

Enstrom took a step backward to the stage curtain but discovered there was no stage left.

He went straight down 4 feet — missing a pole by a mere inches –and  landed on concrete. He broke three ribs in his back.

“I think my ego is as badly broke as my ribs after taking a digger in front of 6,000 people,” Enstrom said. “Jerry felt so bad. He was back there holding my hand and I said, ‘Get out there and talk to people.’”

Enstrom is convalescing at his Lakewood home.

“I’m not even close to OK. I have to get off the couch on my hands and knees,” he said. “It’s ribs. There’s nothing you can do about it but tough it out.”

His wife, Linda Enstrom, saw him disappear from the stage at the World Arena in Colorado Springs.

“I kept waiting for him to pop back up,” she said.

When that didn’t happen, she figured her high school sweetheart was just waiting for Natividad and his crew to finish.  Then friends told her she needed to go backstage.

Enstrom said the police and medical response at the arena was “fabulous.” He was rushed to Memorial Hospital, where Linda initially feared he would have to spend the night. He insisted on going home.

“I don’t fit in hospital beds that well,” Enstrom said. “I’d rather be miserable on my own couch.”

Earlier that morning, I received a text from that read, “Exit … stage rear!” When I asked where he was, Linda responded on her husband’s phone that he was at the hospital.

On the way home, Enstrom was able to send me a text. “I am wrecked. Wow. Lemme know vote?”

Adding insult to injury, Natividad failed to receive 30 percent of the delegate vote so he didn’t make the ballot. The candidate was not alone. El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn took a whopping 70 percent, keeping off everyone else who went through the assembly process to try to get on the ballot.

Enstrom works for his family’s candy business, which generously donated 674 pounds of food to Food Bank of the Rockies as part of a Super Bowl bet made by Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams. Enstrom said he had no idea when he can return to work at Enstrom Candies.

“Concrete doesn’t give at all,” Enstrom said, and started to laugh before the pain got to him.

To read more posts by Lynn Bartels, visit her official blog at the Colorado Secretary of State website.