Ah, another hammer victim. A friend of my SO’s fractured her skull by hitting herself in the face with a hammer… Not the handle though, the actual hammer head (thankfully, NOT the claw.)
She is in fact a skilled carpenter and builds everything from furniture to houses for a living. The accident happened not on the job site however, but at home. One dawdling Sunday, she decided to fix the porch railing of the old house they’d bought. Because of the way it had been nailed together she had to tap the railing free by tapping it from underneath, towards herself to loosen the nails that had been pounded in from the top.
For the most part, it went smoothly. At each post she went tap-tap-tap from underneath, tugged upwards and the rail was free, the nail sticking out underneath the railing like a fang, and a hole in the slighlty-rotted post where it had been attached.
One nail just would not free itself from its nail hole. Tap-tap-tap… Nothing… TAP-TAP-TAP… Nothing… BANG-BANG-BANG… Nope. That nail was still snuggly in place and the railing would not come free.
The claw of the hammer didn’t fit over the rail for prying. She should have gone looking for a more accommodating pry-bar, but no…
Instead, she wound up… 1… 2… 3… swung the hammer underhand like a powerful softball pitcher’s throw… Sah-wing battah!
And like Casey at the bat she swung that hammer so as to knock that railing right up into the heavens above–
– missed the wood surface of the railing entirely and bashed herself in the face next to her eye.
Her hand covering her pained face, she howled for her partner and said “I’m gonna uncover my eye, tell me if it’s bad.” With lightening speed, she pulled her hand away then covered the bleeding injury up again. Her girlfriend went pale and said “it’s bad.”
Then they went grocery shopping.
Everyone at the supermarket looked at her head like they thought she really ought to be dead. The cashier was aghast and said “you have to go to the hospital.” So our dear friend and her partner shrugged and went to the ER.
They confirmed that she’d fractured the bone at the outer edge of her eye socket, but couldn’t do much other than prescribe better painkillers. At the hospital they kept asking her “do you know who did this to you?” To which she answered “Yeah… I did!” Thinking she was the victim of spousal abuse (not realizing that her same sex spouse was the one that came in with her), the hospital staff persisted and kept asking if she wanted to speak to a counselor. “Do you know who did it?” “Yeah… Me!”
Even the police were called to the ER. To this day, the hospital staff thinks she was hit by some man/boyfriend/husband, but wouldn’t press charges. You have to appreciate their efforts though. They just wanted to protect their patient. Their concern was noble.
And can you blame them for not believing her? Who goes and hits him/herself in the face with a hammer? 
