We always had vans when I was growing up, not a big surprise with four kids in the family. Naturally, we all fought over who got the coveted front seat, so most of us have had at least two broken fingers. Either right hand injuries because the person flying into the front would slam the door to keep from being pulled out, thereby catching whoever’s hand was on the B-pillar as they climbed into the back, and left hands got slammed by the sliding door when an unlucky back seat rider would sulkily slam it shut on the person still entering the front.
I was the youngest, and perhaps the stupidest because it took me years of crushed fingers to finally remember to not hold the B-pillar for support. One time in particular, the middle finger of my right hand should have lost the nail, but it stubbornly hung on. Got all purple and swelled crazy big, the pediatrician sorta popped this giant blood bubble under the nail with a sterilized needle. It was so incredible to watch, my finger was Hulk-sized by that time, I forgot to be scared of the pain. Ahh, good times.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I was playing with some scrap pieces of wood my dad left around the backyard. I think I was trying to build something. Whatever I was doing, for some reason I needed a piece of a 2x4 near my sister. I told her to throw it over to me. She did, and it hit me right in the head. I don’t remember anything after that except sitting on my mom’s lap on the way to the hospital. My mom says there was a lot of blood and she was holding my head together all the way to the ER. In the end I needed about a half a dozen stitches.
A few years later, my younger brother tossed one of his action figures to me and it hit me in the mouth. No stitches this time, but I had to have my clear plastic (and now shattered) braces replaced by metal ones.
I’m glad you stopped for ice cream on the way home, Boyo Jim. Neither of my sibs did that for me.
:smack: Reminds of the day I got my hand slammed into the passanger driver side car door of Granma’s land yatch, in the hinge part. Then I got my freed fingers caught in the hinge of the Country Club resturant’s front door going into the building. The good new was that the skin was not broken–just bruised baldly. But try explaining that to a 3yo w/ADD :rolleyes: .
I just remembered this one. When my brother and I were younger, we were playing around on my parents bed, when he pushed me over the edge. I scraped my head on the sharp corner of a dresser. 4 stiches in my eyebrow, that resulted in a scar I still have. That was a week before we went to DisneyWorld too! :mad:
When I was working at Best Buy, grand opening day, the manager was trying to get the auto install garage doors open. They were opening, and she noticed that a chain was about to get caught on a metal piece jutting out near the door. She grabbed for the chain and all four of her fingers (not the thumb) on her right hand were smashed in between two pieces of steel.
I broke my left index finger backstage in my high school theater. A large piece of scenery had crappy little casters on the bottom. Two of the casters snapped off, catching my finger between the wall and the scenery. The nail turned black and fell off, and the bone split lengthwise to the first knuckle. Fun!
On holiday, eight years old and I was standing around not paying attention while Mum was packing things into the car boot of our Hillman Minx (trunk of our 60s style car). Resting my hand on the wing, little finger just over the edge… When Mum slammed the lid (you had to be forceful with these old cars) it went nearly all the way through the finger, splintering the joint and leaving it attached by a flap of skin :eek:
Luckily this was just about the time that reattachment of digits had become possible and the nearby hospital had a microsurgeon who was up to the job. It looks a bit funny, I’m missing a knuckle and the nail bed starts high but at least I still have a finger. My poor Mum felt terribly guilty and came out in sympathy with a nasty infection in her thumb.
My brother and I have put stitch-scars on each other’s faces. He has two, I have one.
In a wrestling match I threw him so his eyebrow bounced off the corner of a coffee table, and I also threw a large rock that bounced off his cheekbone. He hit me across the eye socket with a stick.
These are all separate incidents, not a single instance of bloodthirsty combat.
I can imagine how horrible your mom felt. You really must tell her it is no big deal to you. Even if it was 20 years ago.
We used to have lots of these type of stories. The worst I saw was when my brother, who was a teenager at the time, tried to be a gentleman and close a car door for my grandmother. Unfortunately, her hand was not yet in the car, and he broke her thumb.
The worst story I know comes from a friend of a friend. The kids were being kids and rambunctiously slamming doors. Her little three year old had her hand on the hinge side and lost her finger. It could not be sewed on.
Clearly doors are a clear and present danger. They should be banned. I personally will remove every door in Haille Berry’s house, and will keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t install new ones.
I slammed a friend’s pinky in his car door once, his mom was dropping us off at Jr. High… sure, I didn’t check before I closed the door, but why the hell would you put your hand there while you’re talking? Anyway, he was on the basketball team and he missed a game or two.
I guess it’s the middle brother who has the real bad track record with injuring other people. He got mad after a pillow fight when we were kids and gave me a shove when I wasn’t expecting it… there’s a concave hole in the wall where my head landed. I wasn’t really hurt, but the wall looks bad. My youngest brother was his worst victim; his pinky was almost severed when (of course) it got closed in a door hinge when he was around 2 years old. And then there was the time when they were playing near the stairs on a rolling chair, and somehow the kid ended up going down the stairs. Naturally, he broke his arm.
When I was a kid we used to go down to my grandfather’s cabin, which was on this great little lake. He had a dock we used to play on and fish off of.
I had been given this cool wooden boat (about 5 pounds I guess and a foot long) that you could throw into the water and it would right itself a float. I stood out on the dock and hucked it right into the water… off my brothers forehead.
I got a couple of doozies, neither of which involve me though.
My middle school principal quite often told the story of when he and his younger sister were goofing around with a hatchet when he was about 12 and she was nine or 10. It somehow ended up coming down (the business end) right smack in the middle of her forehead. He thought he killed her. Somehow she survived, but she’s never let him forget it.
Then there’s my dad and uncle. Dad was probably 13 or 14, and his brother was in his late teens. My uncle was showing something on a gun to my dad (forget what kind of gun it was), but the safety was off, and it went off, catching my dad on the forehead, just below the hairline. Luckily for him (and in a cosmic way, me), it only grazed him. The funny thing is, that was his second trip to the hospital that day for a wound in the exact same place. He had gotten kicked in the head by a horse earlier in the day.
Now that I think about it, maybe the gunshot wound came first and the horse kick came second. Either way, he has quite an impressive scar to show for it all.
I think it was the summer of '61, back when cars were HEAVY, and so were trunk lids. We were doing the family vacation trip to Washington , DC, and our last attraction before heading back to Georgia was Mount Vernon. We had finished the tour and were in the parking lot when we heard a blood-curdling scream two cars over. The poor dad had just slammed the trunk lid shut on the fingers of his little boy - who looked to be six or seven. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the worst of it was that as he had slammed the trunk shut on the kid’s hand, he had also locked the keys in the trunk!!!. To my ten-year old mind, it was the worst nightmare come true. I guess they had to find a locksmith to open the trunk. Who knows what happened to the poor kid’s fingers in the meantime. I carried the memory of that incident all the way home with me, and, obviously, remember it to this day! :eek:
