# I AM SO SORRY! and other tales of accidental injury **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 3, 2004, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358 "2004-07-03T07:40:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/21 "2004-07-04T04:13:46Z")
Many years ago, I worked at a factory that had a lot of foot-operated pneumatic equipment. The foot pedals were covered with a box-like thing so you couldn’t make the machines start up by accident. In other words, you had to stick your foot into the front of the box to hit the pedal. They’re bolted to the floor. One day one of the older women in my area was just about to leave early. She was walking past a row of machines when my co-worker asked her a question. She decided to show us what to do but instead of coming around the machines, she came through a gap where one of them had been removed. She didn’t see the box which remained. She caught her foot on it and WHOOPH! toppled over and crashed to the floor! Trying to stop her fall, she tried to grab of edge of the conveyor belt just a few feet from me. Though in retrospect, it was clear that she was hurting, my panicked mind wanted to her to be ok so bad that as my co-worker took one her arms, I took her other and we hauled her to her feet. Our supervisor got her a chair and called an aid car. She was very quiet. The aid car people called her an ambulance and she went to the hospital. We found out later that she had dislocated her shoulder, probably when she tried to grab the conveyor. I’ve always felt so bad about us hauling her up and probably hurting her even more. I still don’t know which shoulder got dislocated but I hope it wasn’t the one on my side. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![interface2x](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c0e974/32.png) [@interface2x](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/interface2x)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/22 "2004-07-04T05:26:30Z")
When I was a youngster (six maybe?), I was playing baseball at the neighbor’s house. They had a pretty big back yard, a million kids (I think the total was eleven), and I was a pretty damn good little hitter considering my age. Well, I was up to bat with a nice aluminum bat waiting for the pitch. Little did I know that the youngest child of the family got away from his sister, who was watching him. He had to be about one or so, maybe a little older. The pitch came and I swung full on - completely nailing the kid in the back of the head. I still remember the feeling of the aluminum vibrating, even 20 years later. They rushed him to the hospital and all, but I don’t really remember what happened. He turned out to be star athelete in high school, so I’m reasonably certain he was (and still is) okay. ---
**Author:** ![Chimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@Chimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimpy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/23 "2004-07-04T11:11:36Z")
I also did the same thing as **interface2x** , I was taking a practice swing and the teacher who was backstop got clonked in the back of the head. Hard. She left the school at the end of that year… ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/24 "2004-07-04T19:39:31Z")
I was mini golfing at someone’s birthday party (I forget who) when I was about 7. I accidentally hit some kid (didn’t know him then, still don’t) in the lip as I was swinging. Split his lip right open. I was scared and crying because my dad yelled at me that their family would sue us. I didn’t know what sueing was then, but it didn’t sound good! ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2004, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/25 "2004-07-04T19:55:14Z")
When I was a teenager, I had a guy friend who was basically like a brother to me. We would fight, pick on each other, hit each other, basically just goofing around. One day he and I were walking somewhere and I was smoking a cigarette. He made a smart assed comment so I turned around and made as if I was going to flick my cigarette at him. I had no intention of doing it, it was just a stupid threat. Unfortunately, my forefinger slipped (if you’ve ever flicked a cigarette, this makes sense) off my thumb, and _flick_ right into the eyebrow. He wasn’t too badly hurt; it didn’t even turn red. But I felt horrible, because obviously I could have hurt him pretty badly. I never did use that as a threat again. Funny how one’s aim is infinitely better when you actually have no intention of making your target. ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/26 "2004-07-05T07:49:35Z")
I believe I’ve already mentioned this incident on the boards, but anyhoo… When I was still in elementary school, I used to hit golf balls into the back field from my back yard (trying _not_ to hit the horse). One day, my sister snuck up behind me, and I nailed her on the backswing with my favorite club - a seven iron. Chipped a couple of her teeth and split her upper lip open. Apparently, she was stunned, and didn’t really cry too much. I, on the other hand, was terrified, and ran like hell. I had taken off without even getting a good look at my sister; everything was a blur. My neighbor chased after me while my parents apparently tended to my sister. He chased me across the road and almost got hit by a car. :eek: I finally collapsed in a field, exhausted and crying. I actually feel worse today in a sense, because the stitches didn’t heal well. The vertical scar just above her actual lip, and at least four distinct stitch holes are very noticable when it’s cold. The fact that she has blood circulation problems doesn’t help either; she’s always cold. And using that seven iron was never the same again. Anyhoo… ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/27 "2004-07-05T10:06:35Z")
I accidentally burned my best friend’s arm with a cigarette once. This was well over a decade ago and she still has a scar. Bad burn ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2004, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358/28 "2004-07-05T12:23:46Z")
> [@TellMeI'mNotCrazy](#): > > Funny how one’s aim is infinitely better when you actually have no intention of making your target. No kidding. In the seventh grade our classroom was emptying out for recess. I was the last one in the room, so when a friend of mine needed to jot something down quickly she called to me. “Hey, Crayons, toss me a pencil.” I did. She still has a “graphite tattoo” under her eye where the pencil briefly had embedded itself before dropping to the floor. I saw her years and she seems to have forgotten about _asking_ me to toss a pencil because she said “you know, I still have a mark where you threw that pencil at me.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-so-sorry-and-other-tales-of-accidental-injury/253358.md?page=1)