Despite first appearances at the scene of the accident, Ballard is quite badly injured.  He must spend time convalescing in a hospital bed, as his leg is treated, and the scars on his face and chest heal.  The ward in which Ballard has been placed is clinical, clean, yet strangely empty.  His is the only bed out of twenty-three that is actually being used.  It transpires that this ward is set aside for the care of air-traffic victims, somehow Ballard has found himself in the aeronautical fantasies of his wife.  Catherine sits beside him, she whimsically wonders if she will also find herself in one of the beds, should she crash during her own flight lesson. 

It is almost as though the doctors have sensed something obscure has infected Ballard, and that it is best not to allow him close proximity with other, more vulnerable, patients.  Distance from this obscure infection of idea is preferred and paramount.  Ballard’s leg has been smashed, his wears a brace full of pins, holding the bones in place.  The camera pans across the wounds, across the metal braces.  In this sense the injured leg looks to have taken on some of the characteristics of the vehicle in which it had been damaged, as though the steel had begun to grow out of the lacerations. 

The metal brace is supporting Ballard, aiding in his healing.  He has already become accustomed to his bodies need to have these feats of engineering as part of his life, to be with him at all times, to help him come back together.  We never once see him cringe or show any outward signs of pain, despite the enormous damage that has been afflicted.  Indeed, he seems rather matter-of-fact about the entire thing. 

Catherine sits beside the bed, smoking on her cigarette, showing little concern that her husband might have perished.  Beside the tangle of supports, drainage tubes and bandage, she seems to be convinced that this is part of a theatrical show, as though the injuries were merely make-up.  The metal intrusions into Ballard’s body don’t attract her attention.  She still looks drugged, in a haze, but this isn’t caused by the accident, it’s merely a carry over from that initial scene in the aircraft hangar.   

Ballard is aware of the inevitability of the crash, as though the stories he had heard in the past were prophetic, a telling of everyone’s future.  In a moment of reflection he states:  “After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda, it's almost a relief to have found myself in-an actual accident.”  Catherine does not remark on this, but as the film develops she too will go in search of release by way of vehicular suicide.  Ballard is both one step ahead of her, actually having experienced an event first hand, and one step behind, having never previously tied together his bored sex life with machinery.   

Catherine’s devotion is obvious, however.  She is at her husband’s bedside, caring for him, keeping him company.  He has now been removed from his world of work, sex, and idle remembrance.  He will never be able to get back to it, he has changed both physically and mentally.  We will never again see him carefully picking over storyboards and helping on set.  Instead, he is distracted by the smallest of things, and already answers to Vaughan, whom he has yet to meet.  Catherine follows in Ballard’s wake, floating just above the surface of things, not sure what it is they’re getting into, but knowing that she’ll inevitably follow.