It didn't seem dangerous at the time, but MAN that hurt!

[Pine Fresh Scent]

Inspired by the other thread, what about the times we weren’t so lucky?

For me, it was stepping on a nail while playing “Sergeant Rock” in a house under construction. I spent the rest of August playing Atari.

[Winston Smith]

July 4, 1994, I was lighting single firecrackers with a cigarette, and tossing them in the air to pop. One had a really fast fuse and popped before I let go. My index finger bled a lot and didn't heal for days, and felt like I hit it with a hammer.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

August 18th, 1974, I was having fun flying a plane high enough to see across Lake Michigan. Thanks to some incomplete flight instruction from my dad, and general inattention, we augered into an oat field shortly thereafter.

I watched a LOT of TV in that hospital bed.

[Fetchund]

I was just slamming the door tight... too bad my hand was on the glass window and not the wood. Actually, it didn't hurt too badly at the time, which is how I immediately figured out I had severed the medial nerve, along with 5 tendons in my wrist.

[bbs2k]

I gave myself frostbite in a stupid situation.

One of the -80 degree Celcius freezers we have in the lab, used to store froze units of rare blood types went down, and I had to move all the units into a new freezer without letting them thaw.

I wore a set of protective latex as well as freezer gloves over them and still managed to freeze-burn all my fingertips. I didn't even realize it until the next day.

[Pine Fresh Scent]

Kinda sorry I started this thread...but please, continue (shudder).

[yams!!]

I was riding my bike, through the bush, in the dry season, and decided that riding a bike was not enough of a challenge for me, and so I would try my hand at picking the big, dry reeds by the side of the road, while riding. These big dry reeds, though, are hard enough to pick with both hands, and both feet planted firmly on the ground, and picking one via bicycle resulted only in me breaking one of the reeds and tearing my finger on the resultant jagged edge. It tore through the skin and the muscle/fat, and the skin around the cut was all buckled like a collapsed highway - it totally would have needed stitches, had I been anywhere close to a hospital. As it was, I wrapped my hand in a dirty tshirt I had in my bag and continued on to my friend's house - she had been expecting me, but was surprised when I arrived with a blood-soaked tshirt wrapped around my hand.

I still have a cool scar, but it is on the inside of my finger where I never get a chance to show it off.


love
yams!!

[Shagnasty]

We had a lot of land when I was growing up and I loved nothing more than woodsmanship. For my 10th birthday I ask for an ax and got one. My mother got it from the Green Stamp store. I proudly took it off to go chopping and brought down small tree after small tree. I them moved up to the medium sized boys. I made it most of the way through an 8 inch diameter specimen when I decided to hit it the hardest I could and bring it down.

Unfortunately, the hard blow bounced off and hit me in the knee cutting through my pants and bringing on a river of blood. I couldn't walk so I had to do the army crawl several hundred yards back to the house where I had to bang on the door furiously to get anyone to answer. The stitches and the recovery on crutches took about two months and I couldn't walk well for about 6 months. I still can't feel about 8 inches spanning my left knee and leg.

[Mindfield]

We were doing nothing so dangerous as moving the computer desk to another room. Unfortunately, it was to become an object lesson in removing all movable objects from any large, heavy object you plan to transport before actually doing so. Halfway through the move, having tipped the desk on an angle to navigate a corner, the keyboard drawer picked that moment to slide out and fall four feet to the floor and on to my foot. The big toe of my right foot, specifically. Corner-wise. That would be the corner of the steel runner. I spent the next five minutes in the fetal position, cradling my toe and incapable of speech because all of my available efforts were being poured into not screaming. I couldn't want properly for three weeks -- or at all for the first couple of days. The nail blackened and fell off after the first week. It never grew back quite right.

I can safely say it was the most painful experience of my life that was not a toothache. It was an order of magnitude more painful than the time I stupidly managed to shove a box cutter straight through my index finger.

[KGS]

When I was a child, the worst ever California drought broke with a sudden summer thunderstorm -- something like 5 inches in one hour, that kind of storm. Me & my family ran barefoot through the flooded streets, sloshing through overflowing gutters, singing Christian hymns and telling stories about Noah (yes, I know...)

After the rain abated, I started walking home, looked back and saw bloody footprints extending all the way back down the sidewalk. And that's when I noticed the two-inch shard of glass in my foot.

MAN, that hurt!!!

[outlierrn]

Riding a mountain bike on a trail I've done 30-40 times, but with a new fork I hadn't dialed in yet, set too soft. Drop into a gully and bury the front end, flip over the handlebars with a whipcrack acceleration. Thank Og I "only" hit flat hard pack dirt. It would have hurt if I wasn't concussed, with a broken helmet, and a broken collar bone. When I could stand without trying to faint, I tried to use my right arm, then it hurt.


still riding

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by Mindfield

We were doing nothing so dangerous as moving the computer desk to another room. Unfortunately, it was to become an object lesson in removing all movable objects from any large, heavy object you plan to transport before actually doing so. Halfway through the move, having tipped the desk on an angle to navigate a corner, the keyboard drawer picked that moment to slide out and fall four feet to the floor and on to my foot. The big toe of my right foot, specifically. Corner-wise. That would be the corner of the steel runner. I spent the next five minutes in the fetal position, cradling my toe and incapable of speech because all of my available efforts were being poured into not screaming. I couldn't want properly for three weeks -- or at all for the first couple of days. The nail blackened and fell off after the first week. It never grew back quite right.

I can safely say it was the most painful experience of my life that was not a toothache. It was an order of magnitude more painful than the time I stupidly managed to shove a box cutter straight through my index finger.

I've done that. It seriously hurts like a bastard. My toenail didn't turn black and fall off, though. I think I've hurt myself on keyboard drawers three or four times, actually. They're a hidden menace.

[buttonjockey308]

As a wee Scout, I asked for a scout knife for my birthday, the parents reluctantly agreed, as long as I was able to get the Totin' Chip card. I did, and I did. The following week at a fall jamboree, as I was attempting to then whittle a canoe from a block of wood to make one of these kind ofneckerchief slides I whittled a little too hard on a stubborn strip of wood, that when it finally gave way, let loose the factory sharpened knife blade on the middle finger of the opposite hand, which whittled a two inch strip of meat and skin down to the bone, which was both the most frightening and coolest thing I had seen to date. I still bear a scar there.

[gigi]

Originally Posted by Mindfield

I spent the next five minutes in the fetal position, cradling my toe and incapable of speech because all of my available efforts were being poured into not screaming. I couldn't want properly for three weeks -- or at all for the first couple of days. The nail blackened and fell off after the first week. It never grew back quite right.

You wouldn't think putting the groceries away would pose too much of a threat, but then you drop a liter bottle on the nailbed of the big toe, from waist height. Shivering shock, blackened toenail. It looks all normal now, though.

[tdn]

Originally Posted by gigi

You wouldn't think putting the groceries away would pose too much of a threat, but then you drop a liter bottle on the nailbed of the big toe, from waist height. Shivering shock, blackened toenail. It looks all normal now, though.

You wouldn't think that turning around in someone's apartment would pose much of a threat either, but that damned coffee table jumped up and bit me.

It was the end of the world for that toenail. Buh bye.

[OneCentStamp]

So, this one day I had my handy Hoover Dustette out and was using it, you know, to tidy up a bit. Hey, did I mention I was naked? Well, it was laundry day too, you see. Anyway...

[Dorjän]

You know those firecrackers that spin around on the ground, glowing red-hot while throwing off sparks? I once thought it would be a coooooool idea to tie one to a length of string so that it would "spin around" in a controlled arc over my head.





It wasn't. I still have a scar where it attached itself quite firmly into my right bicep and stuck, burning like a little piece of napalm.

[Beadalin]

Originally Posted by tdn

You wouldn't think that turning around in someone's apartment would pose much of a threat either

Making Rice Krispie treats. Dropped the glass baking dish so it landed corner-wise on my big toe's nail bed. The most pain I have ever been in, ever. The nail fell off eventually and I had a lovely Frankentoe for my wedding.

[tdn]

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

So, this one day I had my handy Hoover Dustette out and was using it, you know, to tidy up a bit. Hey, did I mention I was naked? Well, it was laundry day too, you see. Anyway...

"Tidy up a bit"? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

[jjimm]

Soaking a big bottle rocket in gasoline for a week then setting it off is an exceptionally informative experiment, or so my next-door-neighbor and I thought. (We actually soaked two, in my buddy's dad's gallon can, but one of them dissolved off the stick - he then put it in his car because my buddy was too scared to tell his dad.) Problem was, the gas burned through the saturated stick faster than the fuse burned up to the rocket, so when we took it out into the field and put it in a bottle, by the time the powder finally ignited it had no directional apparatus. And was a ball of fire, flaming with all the gasoline.

After flailing around in an aimless direction for a few seconds, it suddenly gained a sense of purpose and flew straight up my shirt. It burned its way though my collar, set fire to my hair, and exploded, but thankfully after I'd managed to pitch it about two or three feet above my head.

I had a huge burned patch on my neck, a melted shirt, no hair on the back of my head, and my ears rang for days afterwards. To add literal insult to literal injury, my friend's mom dressed the burns with some bizarre cream that was bright, turmeric yellow.

At the time, I was working in a store, and had to go in and serve customers the next day with a bright yellow neck, half-bald head. Saying "Eh? Pardon? What?"

The sad thing? I was 20 at the time.

[Audrey Levins]

Riding my bicycle over a speed-bump one-handed.

I was six, and thought I had conquered my brand new bicycle.

Sad thing is, I wasn't even with friends to show off for. I was all by myself, down the street from my house at a corner store, and they had a big ol' speed bump in the parking lot that I felt the urge to ride over, ONLY ONE HAND! Oh the skill! Oh the bravery!

Fell over and skidded painfully through loose gravel on top of asphalt.

The guy who ran the store heard me crying and had to come out and carry me into the store and manage to get my mother's phone number out of me, through all the sobbing. Got some free candy out of it, as I recall.

I still have the scars on my knee and foot....apparently loose gravel really shreds. Not so much fun to remove, either.

I didn't tell anybody for years that I'd fallen because I'd tried it one-handed. I thought my mom would get mad.

hijack--

We should start a thread about injuries we hid from our parents to avoid getting in trouble.

/hijack

[OneCentStamp]

jjimm, are you English by birth? That adventure just sounds so American to me.

[jjimm]

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

jjimm, are you English by birth? That adventure just sounds so American to me.

No, English, though I did go to elementary school in Houston for a few years.

It was actually "petrol" not "gasoline" and his "mum" not his "mom", but I translated for you.

[OneCentStamp]

Originally Posted by jjimm

No, English, though I did go to elementary school in Houston for a few years.

It was actually "petrol" not "gasoline" and his "mum" not his "mom", but I translated for you.

It wasn't the language, it was the idea of you having to show up at work deaf and burnt to a crisp...at age 20. Pure USA male. The years spent in Houston go a long way towards explaining it.

[Miller]

I was walking my dog in the Autumn cold once, with both my hands in the pocket of my jacket, when my mixed-breed Pyranese caught a whiff of something he had to smell right away, and lunged at a flower bed some fifteen or twenty feet ahead of us. I was caught off guard and pulled off my feet, and couldn't catch myself 'cause my hands were in my pockets. I landed on my left elbow. It hurt like a sumbitch, but wasn't incapacitating, or anything, so I got up, dusted myself off, and continued the walk.

When I got home, I took off my jacket to find that the left sleeve was filled with blood, and that there was a divot about the size of a piece of candy corn in my elbow. It still didn't hurt much, but being able to see into my elbow made my knees go all rubbery.

On the toenail front, on graduation night, my highschool had a big party at a local country club. The idea being, if all the kids were at this (alcohol-free) party, they wouldn't be out at some other party drinking themselves into a coma. Surprisingly, this worked pretty well, and most of the graduating class showed up and partied for the duration. At one point, I took a dive in the pool. While climbing out, I managed to somehow catch my big toenail on the rim of the pool and tore half of it out of my foot. The nail didn't fall off, though. It was still attached, with a ninety degree bend right in the middle. Hurt like hell, and I was too much of a pussy to try to trim the nail off, so for the first month of that Summer, I went around in sandals, throughly grossing all my friends out with my unnaturally angled nail sticking straight up from my big toe.

[gigi]

Originally Posted by Miller

When I got home, I took off my jacket to find that the left sleeve was filled with blood, and that there was a divot about the size of a piece of candy corn in my elbow. It still didn't hurt much, but being able to see into my elbow made my knees go all rubbery.

I shut the trunk of my car one day and walked off toward the house. I had vaguely bumped my hand on the trunk's way down, but like you said, temporary sting. Until I saw the blood and the inside of my hand. I think it was the bottom of the V in Civic hitting my knuckle just right.

[Tupug Anachi]

Walked down a set of three steps in a pair of veeeerrrrrryyyy high platform shoes. Turned ankle at bottom step. Heard snapping of many tendons, etc. Saw stars. Stopped breathing. Went down. Nearly passed out from the pain. Never found missing pronouns.

[Projammer]

Aside from the infrequent bashing of a fingernail with a hammer to see if it still hurts to do that...

I guess the one thing I will never do again even on a bet is to piss on an electric fence. I swear it curled up just like a little pig tail. I sure squealed like one!

[gigi]

Originally Posted by Tupug Anachi

Never found missing pronouns.

[TheMerchandise]

Sledding’s fun, right?

Well, on one occasion when I was 16, sledding was not so fun. After sliding down a steep hill, I crashed into a fence erected by the city for the express purpose of catching sledders. Got a big fat lip, two black eyes, and a sprain in my wrist. A day later, I noticed black spots swimming in my vision. A day after that, went to the eye doctor. Hitting the fence had detached the retina in my left eye.

Six awful eye surgeries later and I'm still blind in that eye.

Saves money on contacts though! Twice as many for the same price!

Sledding sucks.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

In 65 or so, I, as a toddler, opened the basement door, fell down the stairs, & landed head first on a nail.

Mom tossed me in the stroller, dashed to the Fire Station (1 block away), & off we went to the hospital.

But I'm feeling much better, now....

[FourPaws]

Oh, where to begin.

Lessee...

Must have been about 10. Was trying to take the broken pedal off my bike and it wouldn't cooperate. I got really pissed and figured I needed to break it off. I looked for a sledgehammer, but not finding one, I used the next closest thing; a splitting maul. for the uninformed, it looks like a sledgehammer on one end and an axe on the other. I hit it, and it promptly bounced back into my knee -- right to the bone.

At Boy Scout camp, my bunkmate in the tent left his swiss army knife open on his bed. I heard a noise outside, and jumped on his bunk to lok out the tent flap. Got a nice ride to the local hospital for that one, and two stitches in my left knee. Looks like a little alligator.

Then, I had just gotten my very own swiss army knife for my birthday a few months prior. My parents were in the other room, and I decided I wanted tocarve the back of the pumpkin on the windowsill. Unfortunately, the pumpkin was mostly rotten and I put too much force into it. I've got a nice scar above my left knee from that one.

There was the time I was in high school, and riding a bike no handed as I had done many times before. Except this time, I decided I needed to take my sweatshirt off. Again, which I had done many times before while riding no-handed. Except this time, this sweatshirt sleeve promptly got caught in the front wheel, which decided to stop moving. I went head over heels and slammed down on my forearms. They were tingly for a week.

Or the time I was in college, climbing a tree to take an aerial view of my girlfriend. I was about 40 feet up standing between two trees, when one limb snapped. Down I went through all the tree branches, slamming flat on my back. When I came to, I looked over to my right and there was an iron pipe sticking out of the ground not a foot away. I walked hunched over for a week, and have a nice scar on my @ss from it.

Also in college, I was working at a restaurant. When the trash can got full, we always climbed up and jumped onit to push it down. This time, it was too close to the vent hood for the fryers and when I jumped up I hit my head. Didn't think much of it, till I touched it and it was bleeding. A LOT. It bled for about a week, off and on. Didn't bother with the hospital. Got a bump and a scar from that one.

Playing with my four wheeler, I got too close to the edge of a ravine and it rolled over. Many times. I was thrown free after it rolled over me twice. I got up, swearing, and rolled it right side up and rode it back up the hill.

Snowstorm. Driving my old 2wd Toyota truck. Slipped on the ice, the truck spun, caught the soft shoulder, and rolled. When I came to, I was upside down. Had to get out my Leatherman (tm) and cut my seatbelt, crashing down on the roof. Have a nice scar on my head form that one, too.

We were building an addition onto the house. There was a piece of plywood with a few boards underneath that was serving as a set of stairs / ramp. I walked up it barefoot, as I had done many times before. This time, however there was a lot of sand on the plywood. My left foot slipped and the top of my foot ran down the edge of the plywood, opening up my foot for four inches ina nice jagged pattern. Thank god for butterfly bandages. I've got a good scar from that one too.

Of course, I saved the best for last. I was cutting down small saplings with my cousin on his new property, as we'd done before; 3-4 inch trees. So you sort of slash with the chainsaw and go onto the next one. We were making good progress until the wind suddenly picked up, and the tree I was cutting bent back, kicking the running chainsaw into my right knee. Severed several tendons and cut meat out completely down to the bone. Ever cut a log with a chainsaw and stop about halfway? that nice 3/8" gap it leaves where there was once wood? That was my knee. The Dr. wouldn't let me look at it, but when he left the room, I did
I've got a nice scar on my knee and bone growth that looks like a second kneecap slightly below the first. The Dr.'s said I'd never gain full mobility again. WRONG. I'd counter that it can handle at least as much weight as my"good" knee.


I think that's about it. It's amazing I'm still alive, as I'm so accident prone.

[Bobotheoptimist]

There I was, 1:00AM, the rest of the house sound asleep, and I have a pot of boiling honey on the stove. As I go to pour the honey in the primary fermenter (I was making mead), I suddenly realized that tipping the pot towards me could be hazardous so I tip it away and watch in horror as the molten honey runs down the side of the pot and onto my cotton-socks clad feet. Any sudden moves would only aggravate the situation, so I calmly and carefully finished pouring. As I was preparing to go to the ER, I realized that I couldn't drive. I washed down a handful of Tylenol, aspirin, and/or Advil with several beers and inched my way to the couch to wait for my wife to wake up, many agonizing hours later. 2nd degree burns over 60% of one and 80% of the other foot.

Trying to teach myself to catch swords by the blade was nothing compared to that. The guy at the gas station didn't bother to charge me for the box of Band-Aides, but I never did learn how to catch them without bleeding.

[lizardling]

I'm not sure my particular scar can hold up next to some of THOSE stories. Chainsaw, for one thing... *cringe* I've told this story before, but I'll bring it up again.

Basically, wee!lizardling was trying to help tiny!lizsis cut a slit in a cardboard box with our mom's good sewing scissors. Unfortunately, I did it the wrong way - by putting my fingers on the open blades to help push.

Snick.

Next thing I remember is my mom frantically trying to stanch my dripping hand in a dishtowel while on the phone with my dad over the sound of both us kids screaming our lungs out.

The doctor that saw me as a professional courtesy to my dad put the severed bit back on and put my entire thumb and forearm in a cast that I had to keep elevated for about six weeks to let it heal. I still have the scar right in the middle of my thumbprint.

[Projammer]

FourPaws recounting of the plywood reminded me.

When I was around 14 or 15 we had a porch on the front of the house. No railing, just basically a wood platform.

About 6 feet to the left of it was a large pine tree under which was a large cable spool serving as a table.

I was standing on the spool and tried to jump to the porch. Tried. As I elegantly sprang into the air the spool rocked a bit which caused an ever so slight alteration to my trajectory.

My right foot made it solidly onto the porch, my left toe caught on the edge. My right foot slid forward, my left, down. Scraping the front of my shin down the edge of the wood. I was wearing jeans and over the calf socks so my immediate reaction was "ow, that hurt. I probably scraped some skin off with that one."

I walked into the house and into the bathroom and set down to assess the damage. Rolled jeans up and sock down and found myself looking at 5 inches of bone where the flesh had been effectively split and pressed away.

My next comment was, "Dad, I've got a problem here." He looked in the door, "Yep, I think you do." I grabbed a towel and off to the ER we went. 20+ stitches for my trouble.

[Boyo Jim]

I lost my fingertip in a slamming door in a college dorm, seeming to delight my dad by validating his warnings about fingers and doors since my childhood.

I ran into the dorm bathroom to run my finger under the water, and another guy came in carrying the fingertip, saying maybe it could be reattached.

He dropped it into the palm of my hand, where the water promptly washed it into the sink. As we stared dumbly, it did a couple of orbits and disappeared down the drain. We laughed hysterically all the way to the ER.

Um, later, it HURT.

BTW, this is the only funny amputation story I have ever heard.

[percypercy]

I think I was trying for the Darwin Awards...

So it was October 19, 2003, almost 4 years ago now. I was visiting my parents out at their farm as it was my dad's birthday weekend.

My mom had just put lunch together, but my dad was way out in the pastures mowing, and he'd been gone for a while. I offered to ride out and find him(I swear, my brain was functioning). Horse and I trot off as he roars up, of course.

Here's where it gets really stupid. So by now horse and I have made it to the lake. I signal her into a canter back to the house. The nieces and nephew think that's fab, seeing a horse move past walk. With a bit of cajoling(not much) I agree to circle around so they can see us again.

As we come around the first bend, she drops shoulder, and I start to slide off and fast. Now I, well, I'm not wearing a helmet, so I decide I'd better twist to avoid hitting my head. Instead, I landed on my right arm, breaking my shoulder and knocking the wind from me.

Shit that hurt.

-Lil

[olivesmarch4th]

I'm pretty lucky that I don't really have any stories of my own to share. I've never even broken any bones.

I have a former relative who was trying to drill a hole through an engine block with a drill press, left the cable (or whatever, I'm not a mechanic) right on there. The cable was caught by the drill press, sucked his hand right in and took off a good portion of his index finger.

My Uncle on my Dad's side, when I was little, was setting off a bottle rocket and ended up in ER with severe burns to his left hand. They had to remove skin from his thigh and graft it to his hand, to this day his hand is all wrinkly and burned-looking.

My family does have a remarkable penchant for doing stupid and dangerous things. I'm not much of a risk taker myself.

[ForumBot]

I'm twenty years old and having crazy monkey sex with my then-girlfriend. Hours of it, I mean, in strange positions. Strangely enough, it was the missionary position where it happened. I threw out my back. I, a perfectly fit twenty year old guy, threw out my back.

I spent a week loaded up on painkillers, pitifully begging anyone to make me waffles, my roomates snickering at me and loudly boasting about the wonderfully quiet night they enjoyed while I was out of commission. It was the worst week ever.

[Mama Tiger]

I had a total knee replacement in February. I had read that it would be many weeks before I'd be able to kneel and that I should be very careful of tripping hazards. I tried very hard to be careful, but in a moment of carelessness found out why: about six weeks after surgery, I managed to snag my foot on something on my bedroom floor and fell hard onto my knees.

I was incapable of speech, but apparently some hideous wailing was coming out of my mouth because my daughter came running from the other end of the house in a panic. I was able to speak a bit just in time to prevent her from calling 911. As it was, I managed to split my incision open, and when I finally was able to move the entire front of that leg my jeans was drenched with blood.

Fortunately, I did myself no permanent damage. But in spite of numerous surgeries and assorted other injuries, I have to say I have never, ever felt pain like that before, and certainly hope never to again.

[OneCentStamp]

Originally Posted by FourPaws

Oh, where to begin.

Lessee...

<snip endless tales of nauseating carnage>

I think that's about it. It's amazing I'm still alive, as I'm so accident prone.

Super Dave? Is that you?

[Aholibah]

OK, I've got two.

Under the "seemed like a good idea at the time" heading, we have:
me at 12 years old, deciding to take my sweet Labrador retriever for a walk. She was around a year old, and the two of us had already taken many a walk together, so I'm feeling pretty ok with this, even though she outweighed me by a few pounds. So okay, in fact, that I decide to give her a really good workout on this outing. So I lace up my roller skates and away we go. We hadn't made it a block before she saw a squirrel and discovered her life's ambition. As it turned out, her life's ambition was to "GET THAT SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!"

Now, ordinarily I would have been able to have a pretty reasonable discussion with her about squirrels and ambitions and whatnot. We'd been to training together, and she knew the concept of 'heel.' And she had always seemed like a dog who was amenable to reason. What I had not taken into account, however, was that in our previous discussions on related topics, I had had not only reason but gravity and friction on my side. Reason still availed. Gravity was still extant. Friction, on the other hand, was noticeably unavailable.

She took off after the squirrel and I had no recourse but to hold on to the leash and hope for the best. Actually, gravity kicked in pretty noticeably when I hit the ground belly-flop style. At which point friction joined back in to the equation.

There were some pretty impressive scrapes from that little imbroglio. Once I was able to sit up and take notice again, I unlaced the roller skates, slung them over my shoulder, and hobbled the fifty yards back to the house. Our walk was over for that day.

Anecdote two features friction even more prominently. But I'm gonna have to save it for another time -- this post is already TLDR.

[Mindfield]

Here's one about my dad.

He worked as an offset printer. Mostly smaller single-colour models-- AB Dick 360s and 9810s with the T-Heads. (I've done my own share of offset.) He worked two jobs quite a lot, and this particular time he was working late at one job he did at night. A simple 360 with a gripper delivery system; for those that don't know, the delivery system is a chain-drive conveyor with metal grippers spaced at even intervals to grab the sheets as they come off the press and carry them down to the delivery bed. They are used when the ink needs extra drying time before it's laid on the pile so the ink doesn't stick to the back of the page below it. You can mix a quick-dry solution into the ink sometimes, but if the weather is humid, even this doesn't quite cut it. It's also necessary when you've got the speed cranked up because the ink has less time to dry before it hits the pile.

At any rate, he was letting the press run as normal, and all was going fine. He was pulling proofs (snatching one "hot off the press" before it's laid on the pile) just to make sure the ink was fine and there were no hickeys (blemishes) or faded areas that would require cleaning the rubber blanket or adjusting the flow in certain areas at the well. Pretty well every pressman does this. Technically, it goes against safety procedure, but it's of the sort no one ever pays attention to. That night however, as he went to grab a proof as he had done thousands of times before (he had 20+ years of experience), he apparently made a slight miscalculation. In this case, "slight" translated into getting his thumb caught between the gripper and the safety cage as it rolled up to return whence it came. There's very little clearance there -- a few millimeters at best, and as a result, it ripped the top of his thumb almost completely off -- almost down to the first knuckle; it was hanging by a thin flap. Bone was exposed. There was a lot of blood.

At first he was in shock so he didn't feel anything. He called 911 and they picked him up. While in the ambulance however, the shock wore off, and he described the pain at that point as being startlingly spectacular. They couldn't even shoot him up with opiates until they got to the hospital for one reason or another (presumably so they could ascertain if he had any allergies or was taking any medications that might conflict or cause complications.) He did eventually get his relief though.

They ended up having to graft his thumb into his chest so it could grow new skin around the bone. He spent several months with his arm in a sling and his thumb welded to his chest. To this day his thumb is little more than a featureless knob, save for the fact that it grows a few chest hairs.

[BaneSidhe]

I rode my horse, Mickey, outside for the first time a few weeks after I got him.

Without a helmet.

Mickey hates ATMs with a passion and a couple of the neighborhood kids came roaring up the trail near the barn. Mick flipped out, reared up and I wasn't able to stay in the saddle (it was an English saddle). And of course stupid me thought "Oh, I'll be out for a minute, I don't need a helmet..."

I think I laid on the ground for 15 min before I came to. I don't remember how I got home but the next clear thing I remember was realizing I was in the ER and was getting ready to go thru a CAT scan. I had the headache from hell for several days and a pretty good concussion too.

[Spoons]

I was about nine years old when this happened.

In a local park, a tree grew out of a hill. Somebody hung a rope from the tree, and we all took turns swinging on the rope. You'd grab the rope, run down the hill, and let the rope swing you up. Given the slope of the hill and the direction of the swing, you'd probably be fifteen feet off the ground at the top of your swing, and horizontal. It looked like plenty of fun for our group of nine- and ten-year-olds, and it was--I can still remember swinging out, with the ground far below.

But on one of my swings, my hands slipped when the rope hit the top of its arc. I fell from the height, in a horizontal position. I couldn't get my feet under me and landed face-first. On a big rock.

I think we can all agree that a broken nose would hurt. But trust me on this one--a smashed nose goes beyond the simple meaning of "hurt." It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life, before or since.

[AngryIrishLass]

While nursing a broken ankle and broken wrist one summer from a nasty uneven bars fall, my brother felt sorry for me and offered to give me a ride on his new bike. So, I hop out to the patio to get on the bike, but it becomes obvious that he can't get the bike to the gravel roadway with me on it (did I mention we lived in BFE?). So, off I hop. He drags the bike to the roadway, comes back, gives me my crutches, and I do the hobble to the road.

He straddles his bike to make it steady. I get on the bike, set free the crutches, and we take off. I remember how great it felt to feel the wind in my hair. Then we hit that first curve. Something went horribly wrong and the bike goes down. I land about 5 feet away and my brother is tangled in the bike. So there we are lying in the road wailing when our neighbor (a NY State Trooper) shows up. After he pulls the pedal from my brother's knee (it had been imbedded), he loads us into his cruiser and takes us back home to my mother, who takes us to the ER. Oh yeah, my brother was a thrasher...blood was flying every where (mom ended up cleaning the cruiser!). Brother gets 10 stitches and a scar that looks like Yoda near his knee. I get another cast. On my good ankle.

The rest of the summer was spent inside.

My ankles haven't been the same since. I broke the left again in gymnastics before I decided to drop that entirely. Then again, while delivering a pizza during a rain storm, I fell and broke it. I had to drive back to the store to check out before I could go to the ER (of course being the single college gal, I went to my apt first to shave my leg (note singular) in case my doctor was cute). I broke the left ankle again a couple of years ago while standing in the kitchen opening the fridge and grabbing a sippy cup. That event is still a mystery.

[Lok]

In 5th grade, my neighbors got 3 wheel ATMs for Christmas. This was back when we actually got a decent amount of snow all winter, so we took turns dragging each other behind an ATM on a plastic toboggan. I was lying on the toboggan on my stomach and my neighbor took me down in front of my house before turning around. Unfortunately, the toboggan made a wider turn than the ATM, and our mailbox was there on that side of the road.

The plastic of the toboggan gave a bit, and I slid forward about a foot. It has been 35 years, and I still have a very vivid memory of the ground, with the post from the mailbox just to the right of my head. While my body slid forward, I was holding on tight to the toboggan, and my hands stayed where they were. After I ran screaming into the house and they god my heavy coat off, it was very easy to see the place where the bone was displaced about and inch in my left forearm. The other bone was also broken, as was the ulna in my right arm, but those didn't show until they developed the X-rays. Casts on both arms is not a fun experience.

[jjimm]

I was not the injured party, but I was there. It's worth repeating because it's so ghastly.

We were six, and we were Cub Scouts, waiting for the Scout hall to open. We'd all been told "never play in building sites". One of the problems I recall at that age was I was frequently not told why one shouldn't do one thing or another. I'm sure there was a generic "they're dangerous" admonition, but no specifics. (Like "don't cross the street beteen parked cars" - I puzzled for years why this should be a rule; it seemed arbitrary to me.) My friends seemed to think the same way. So we thought it a fine way to spend the time before Cubs, playing on the building site next door.

All went well for about two minutes, until Simon jumped off a pile of timber. There was a stray piece of timber on the ground at the bottom of the pile. It had a 6" nail sticking out of the end, and Simon's foot found it. He landed square on it, and it impaled him, right through the middle of the foot, from the sole and out the top of his shoe.

It gets worse.

The piece of timber was lying on another piece of timber, which acted as a fulcrum. As Simon was impaling his foot, he flipped the wood up in the air, and the other end of it smacked him hard in the face. And knocked out all his front teeth.

He was a bit of a mess when the ambulance came and rushed him to hospital with the wood still stuck to his foot. They called his parents, removed the nail, gave him a tetanus shot, made sure of no permanent damage, then sent him to a dentist for emergency reconstruction treatment (someone had helpfully picked up all the bits of tooth, so they glued them back together in a glue mold).

These days there'd have been lawsuits and the troop would have been shut down. Back then, he returned to cubs three weeks later, limping a little but proudly showing off his cool Frankenstein teeth.

[slumtrimpet]

If we're doing second person I'd like to present my dad;
- there was the time he tried to stop one car in our gently sloped driveway from rolling into the other car, but sadly left his hand between said cars resulting in a crushed wrist.
- and the time he left his thumb on the piece of wood running through the table saw until the blade was up to his knuckle, split that thumb right down the middle.
- but the best story was when he showed up at Christmas with what looked to be a rope burn running halfway around the front of his neck, right below the adam's apple. When asked about this (visions of hanging himself dancing through my head) he said it wasn't a big deal, just that the chainsaw had kicked back while he was cutting wood on the back forty.

[Jimson Jim]

I was 19 in the Army Reserve Artillery. My section's M-110 had broken down in the rain and the mud. It was miserable. I was a fresh young private and was sent to get additional tools from the back of the ammunition vehicle. I stood up from where I was kneeling on the gun. Walked quickly along the deck and stepped down on to one of the empty projectile trays on the spade of the gun. Being muddy and rainy I slipped, falling forward very quickly. The top of the spade struck me mid thighs and pitched me head first to the ground. I don't remember the impact but I came to a few seconds later screaming in pain. My neck was on fire and my right arm felt like it had been ripped off. Then it got sort of numb and tingly and I couldn't move it. Fearing the worst the medic attached to the unit put me in a hard C collar and then had me very carefully but firmly duct tapped a large piece of plywood (we didn't have a back board) and transported me to the hospital. Sprained neck, Sprained shoulder and a pinched nerve. My right little and ring fingers still tingle on occasion.