1.   Cracked vertebra.

2.   In the essay, he recounts an incident in which the stepfather threw his younger sister, Lynn, across the room, cracking a vertebra in her back.

3.   The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and, fortunately, only three vertebrae were cracked.

4.   He cracked a vertebrae in his lower back while on vacation in France during the summer.