This one takes place by the side of a river, 3 days canoe ride from the nearest road. We had caught some pike, built a fire, and the breaded fillets are sizzling nicely in a thick layer of oil in the pan. Walking past, I think “oh, hey, time to flip the fish.”, so I grab the handle a give it a quick, professional-pancake-style flip.
Sadly, it is a folding handle.
Two days later, I regained sight in my right eye, and we decided to pack out back the way we came (up river). My left eye got the worst of the oil, and wouldn’t open until around the time we made it back to the car.
Many years ago I lived in a basement apartment, under a family with 5 teenagers. The kids were constantly stomping around and playing loud music. One particular evening they were unusually loud. At the same time a chill was starting to come through one of my open windows, a typical basement window that opened inward, hinged at the bottom. Being angry with the teenagers, I slammed the window shut forcefully and loudly, resulting in my right arm going through the glass, almost to the elbow. Lots of blood and lots of stitches.
I, too, have given myself a black eye with the phone receiver and had a blister on my chin (pizza cheese). It’s so nice to know I’m not alone in the world!
Grammar school - want to show how strong I am. Going to break pencil by holding eraser end in one hand and karate chopping in the middle. Hi-ya! Success! But where has the pointy end gone? Oh, there it is, stuck in my palm, ouch.
3 months ago - Just got up from a nap. Mmm, I remember that my wife has purchased a package of ice cream bonbons (the now infamous Dibs). When I attempt to (incorrectly) open the carton, the top doesn’t seem to want to come off. So I pull really hard and manage (I later find out) to somehow herniate a disk in my neck, ouch.
Couple of weeks ago I was putting up a fence around Razorette’s veggie garden. I’d attachedthe wire fencingwith a few dozen staples; hammering in the last staple, she said something, I looked up and continued to swing the hammer!Clipped my left thumb a really good one!
In more than 20 years of do-it-yourselfing and hobby woodworking, I have:
[ul]Run a drill bit through a thumb[/ul][ul]Run a finger into a router bit[/ul][ul]Taken a 2X4 in the noggin (it fell from a rafter I built)[/ul][ul]Stapled a finger to a chair seat[/ul][ul]Received a kicked-back 1X4 in the gut from the table saw[/ul][ul]Blistered a hand on a freshly-sweated plumbing joint[/ul]
When I brought home my first nailgun a few days ago, I think I saw my wife shudder.
This happened about four weeks ago, and was in the paper. It’s not me.
The Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts were hiking the bluffs at Devil’s Lake and they stopped for a bit. One Scout fell asleep, and rolled over the cliff. :smack: He walked back and only had minor injuries.
A couple of years ago, I was trying to remove a zip tie from a tool case with a box cutter. So, case standing upright, zip tie through top loop in the case that was put there for that purpose. Right hand holding the right side of the case steady while the left hand worked through the thick plastic of the tie. Slicing horizontally in a see-saw motion left to right.
Left to right.
Knife makes it rather unexpectedly through the last bit of tie.
Momentum keeps it sailing right through the index finger of my right hand, between the second and and third knuckle. Amazingly, I didn’t slice anything important, just flesh. But there’s a nice big scar there, now.
Pretty much all of my serious injuries have been stupid stuff. Some that stand out:
Age 14, running after my cousin at a party to throw piece of chocolate at him. Wind up to throw, ankle folds under me, tearing everything in that part of leg and breaking bone. Spent two months in a cast.
Age 20, showing visitors to campus around the Quad. Oh look at the cute little squirrels, I say, they will eat right out of your hand. Offered empty hand to cute little squirrel. Cute little squirrel takes finger in dainty paws and bites so hard that draws blood and almost punctures fingernail. Visitors practically die laughing. Roommate practically dies laughing. Nurse at health center practically dies laughing. Valgard spends hour with hand in vat of iodine being lectured by doctor. Develop life-long hatred of squirrels, now regarded as bloodthirsty rats with fluffy tails.
Age 20, at Sam’s Club with friend. Pick up serrated steak knife, say “I wonder if it’s sharp?” while drawing it across finger. Answer turns out to be “Yes, very”. Still unsure to this day why I did this.
Age 30, helping friends move stuff from their U-Store-It locker. I am standing below a forklift full of mattresses and box springs when one of them starts sliding out. I attempt to catch it. This is even less intelligent than the steak knife incident. Box spring falls, clips me on chin, knocking me down and making everyone think I have broken my neck. Emerge unscathed but wiser.
Age ~6. Tease sister who is carrying paper bag back from picnic. Sister swats me in head with same, not realizing Mom and Dad had put the corkscrew in that particular bag. My recollection is that 90% of all my blood spurted from my scalp. Parents dispute this amount.
Age ~15. Tossing cedar shingle around. Miss my catch, shingle hits thumbnail and drives selection of long slivers under nail. While at the doctor, waiting for the nerve blocker to kick in so that he can remove my thumbnail and dig the debris out, I am nervously fiddling with his desk lamp, which closes on my OTHER thumbnail.
Age 36. Playing paintball with friends. Walking out to the field and a tall foxtail happens to brush under my mask right as I’m taking a breath. I inhale a foxtail and spend 30 minutes coughing, choking and dry heaving. It’s like a little fishhook that won’t go up or down, but slowly works it’s way into soft flesh of throat. Friends give me the “Best Injury” award that year (I have an actual trophy from that).
Compare this with the “dangerous” activities:
In years of woodworking I have not had anything worse than some minor scrapes and cuts.
As a skydiver I got to experience a double malfunction early on - high speed baglock on the main, followed by Mae West/lineover on the round reserve. Total damage from the high speed stop (120mph to zero in ~1 second from the reserve) and the faster than normal, spinning landing in a farmer’s field is some sore muscles and a line burn on one hand from the wind catching my reserve as I was trying to pull it on after landing.
I did this a few months ago on my day off. I got up while the wife was in the shower and set it all up, giggling to myself like a schoolgirl. She got dressed and headed off to work without ever once turning on the water in the sink… no worries, I’m a patient man.
I puttered about the house all day waiting for her to come home. When she finally got home and eventually turned on the water, she was standing juuust in the wrong place, and the water missed her completely.
She calmly watched the water arching down to the tiles and said, “So that’s why you have 3 shirts drying in the bathroom!”
Yup, missed her, but kept forgetting all day and soaked myself 3 times. :smack:
During a hardcore pillow fight at engineering camp (it involved about a dozen people and throw pillows, bed pillows, and couch cushions), I was knocked down by a vicious blow into a sitting position on a pile of pillows. About two seconds later, Alex, a guy much larger than me, is knocked down in the same way on top of me. His spine whacks me right in the nose, breaking it across the bridge and giving me two black eyes.
I also broke my nose (the cartilage in my septum that time) by tripping over my sneaker while camping and slamming my nose and upper lip into my cot. It bled like crazy and I also got a fat lip.
I got a paper cut on my eyeball by flipping over a worksheet in third grade.
While opening a jar of blue printing ink in my art class junior year, a sliver of dried ink stabbed me in my left ring finger and broke off, giving me a tiny tattoo.
I just remembered a good one. Back when I was high school, me and a friend had rode (ridden?) our bicycles downtown. On the way back I thought “hmm wonder if I could ride my bike with my left hand on the right handlebar and vice versa?” I got my right hand on the left handlebar, then started to move my left hand and the bike went over to the left. Got my 3rd concussion, scraped the skin off of my left hand so you could see the muscle. Still don’t know how I didn’t get any glass from the handlebar mirror in me.
My friend said I wouldn’t let him take me home until he said he would get the glass off the road because I didn’t want anyone to get a flat tire.
Imagine me standing there yelling and shaking my hand while a squirrel hangs on tenaciously by his teeth. My guests were probably looking for Candid Camera hiding in the bushes.
This is representative of the ways in which I get injured.
