on getting out of the car

[Soseki]

Hello,

He broke his leg on getting out of the car.
https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/prepositions/o.htm

Does on in the sentence mean 25 in the dctionary?

on prep
25 WHEN STH HAPPENS
on doing sth
What was your reaction on seeing him?
(Longman Dictionary)

Thank you

 

[teechar]

Yes, that's what it means.
However, I'm more likely to omit it in that sentence.

He broke his leg, getting out of the car.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'd omit "on" too but I wouldn't use a comma. The implied word, for me, between "leg" and "getting" would be "while" or, if somehow getting out of the car were the cause of the break, "by".

 

[teechar]

I think the comma is needed.

We have a participial phrase at the end of a sentence, and that phrase is modifying a word (he) which it (the phrase) does not directly follow.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/627/02/

Here's another source which states that a non-restrictive participial phrase should be set off with a comma.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/commas-with-participial-phrases

Moreover, consider the following example in which I used that same sentence but changed "broke" to "saw" and "his leg" to "Sam" just to demonstrate a point.

The sentence then becomes:

He saw Sam getting out of the car. [Here, it's Sam who is getting out of the car.]
He saw Sam, getting out of the car. [Here, it's "he" who is getting out of the car.]