“A funny thing happened to me on the way to the forum…”
So ironically, I had one of these just last night! After a bout of insomnia, I went looking for a book of mine, and tripped rather … More dramatically than a normal stumble. As I was falling, I realized my foot was going to twist badly, and though, “Okay. Yeah. Hurt incoming.”
I ended up tearing off my left big toenail, and am now in a lot of pain.
Holy! :eek: Glad you both were [relatively] okay!! What a scare you must’ve both gotten. There’s nothing as gut wrenching (IMO) as that feeling when a horse starts to fall under you! I got on a horse who had a kissing spine - not that anyone realised it at the time, and he dropped like a stone under me, and rolled on his side. I thought he’d dropped dead!!!
(And I really wish I hadn’t read that post before I went riding!!!)
I had a “moment” today on my horse. he was feeling full of the joys of spring and acting the maggot, so I was letting him walk around on a long rein till he calmed down. I ride in an indoor arena that has a double sliding door, which don’t close properly and there is a 2-3" gap between them. So I’m riding 'round and Mr Poopy Head is gawping at the gap in the doors and generally on his toes. I ride a change of rein across the diagonal and halfway across the school his back legs go from under him.
I felt that gawdawful frozen time/slow motion thing as I saw his near fore ‘groping’ for purchase (as if we were going backwards off a cliff) I grabbed his mane, kicked my left leg forward he was ‘falling’ to the left) and waited for the inevitable flumph and was hoping he wouldn’t roll on me when we hit the dirt.
All of a sudden time snaps back to normal, and he’s upright, all four legs where they should be! I’m a gibbering wreck, I look around to see what the chuff he’d fallen in/over (you do hear stories about long abandoned wells suddenly opening up and swallowing an unsuspecting passer-by or their dog!!) out of the corner of my eye I can see a car manoeuvring outside (via the gap in the doors).
Yup, Mr Poopy Head had actually been spooking at the car. :smack:
Took me a good five minutes to get my heart rate back under control!
(to add to his woes I think his teeth need to be rasped!)
2 car accidents - where I got hit in the back, but saw them coming 1st. Maybe it was the tires squealing, or just knowing we were in stop & go traffic, where I stopped and paranoidally check my rearview to see the dipshit behind me still going. In both cases, time slowed down, and seconds felt like minutes waiting for the inevitable impact ( 1 time it was a SUV, another time a van). In both cases, there was nowhere to go - I was in the leftmost lane, and traffic was coming the opposite direction. I did exactly the wrong thing - tensed up, grabbed the wheel, and put myself in the crash brace position, like they show in the airplane instructional video. Both times, I was hit at ~ 30 m.p.h. (based on the insurance adjuster’s calculations from the damage to my car’s rear). For what it’s worth, both times I was thrown forward, but wearing the seatbelt. Airbags not deployed, this was the early 90s and not yet mandatory in my state. I’ve since learned that if you have time to see it coming, don’t brace - this leads to more nerve & muscle damage. Put the car in park, & let yourself go limp. Supposedly, long as you’re belted, this’ll make the impact easier on the muscles & nerves.
P.S. both times was shaken up & sore, but nothing broken (on me, that is - both times extensive damage to the trunk, and rear bumper, fenders, panels, & window).
Oh yes, indeedy. I’ve written about my major car smash before, so I won’t waste bandwidth…
I was walking down some stairs while carrying my first-born child who was maybe 8 months old at the time. I felt something go wrong with my feet and just KNEW I was falling. Nobody else was in sight, but I knew there were some people on the other side of the stairwell so I screamed. I was maybe 4-5 steps from the bottom, so I tossed the kid towards the rug at the bottom and tried really hard not to fall on him. (Yes, I threw my child down the stairs!) I made sure he was checked out first (totally OK) and then went to the nearest immediate care clinic to be sure I hadn’t broken my ankle.
Yet another coming-off-a-horse tale. Fortunately no worse ending than having the breath knocked out of me, and being a bit stiff the next morning.
I was cantering down a woodland trail with a friend riding behind me. There was a stick lying across the path ahead. I thought, “Hmmmmm… Ben might jump it rather than simply cantering over it, so I should be ready for” – and that’s when my pinhead Thoroughbred shied violently to one side.
Off I went, projected over his right forehand as he ducked out from under me. I remember watching his neck and shoulder slide past me as I rotated from riding position into back-first. I recall the withies into which I was falling waving gently over me during the slow descent. Then WHOMP I was on the ground, and Ben was skidding to a stop a good twenty feet away as my friend swung her horse around to block the trail back to the barn.
When I got my breath back and assured myself nothing was broken, I got back on Ben (who stood like a polite rock for the mounting-blockless scramble) and we had a lovely walk and trot amble for the rest of our route.
Oddly enough, I had no time at all to contemplate how much it was gonna hurt when, while striding along at a good clip, I once tripped over a shovel and went face-first onto pavement, left hand leading, and cracked the head of my ulna.
Seems like horses are the flavour of the thread: I’ve got another one!
Many years ago we visited a friend who had a ‘pet’ ex-racehorse named Fred. Fred was apparently a docile creature, and my kids each had a nice ride on him before I decided to get up and have a ride myself.
At that point, our family dog decided he did not like at all the prospect of me sitting atop this creature, so snapped at Fred’s ankles…whereupon Fred bolted. Nothing I could do would bring him up, so I thought I’d just jump off, mid gallop.
Well, I got one foot out of the quick release stirrup, but my other foot got stuck, so I was hanging off the side of this bloody horse, bumping up and down on the ground as he belted through the bush. At one point, he’d brought his hind-leg down straight upon my (free) ankle, and that hurt…but nothing compared to what I was expecting as I saw a tree looming up, RIGHT in the path of where my head was going to be in five…four…three…two…and then he stopped dead. :eek:
My ankle was smashed to bits, but my head stayed connected to the rest of me. 
I was riding on my quad two separate times when this happened to me.
Once was at the dunes. I was jumping over a dune, and accidentally took it at a bit of an angle. As I flew through the air, I did a sort of barrel-roll, and as I realized the quad was going to come right down on top of me, I thought to myself “oh wow this is going to hurt.” I really did feel like I was flying through the air forever, and when I hit the ground, it ended up hurting a lot less than I thought it would. The quad slid off of me, and I got scraped up, but nothing too bad. I do still remember the exact sound my helmet made as it hit the sand though. A lot louder than you might imagine squishy, moving sand would make with a helmet.
Another time, I was riding on some old logging roads in oregon with my sister. I tried to take a turn too quickly, and as the quad toppled over I had the same sort of feeling. Except this time it pinned me. Right on my groin. I thought for sure my testicles had been ripped off. I tried with all my strength to get the quad off of me but I was pinned and couldn’t move. I waited calmly for my sister to come back, which she did (and oddly, it didn’t seem to take forever despite the amount of pain and discomfort I was in). She helped get the quad off of me, and I managed to ride it back to the campsite. I refused to check my injuries for a while because I was so scared of what I was going to find given the amount of pain I was in, but luckily it was just some scrapes, nothing too bad.