It didn't seem dangerous at the time, but MAN that hurt!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Riding my bicycle over a speed-bump one-handed.

I was six, and thought I had conquered my brand new bicycle.

Sad thing is, I wasn’t even with friends to show off for. I was all by myself, down the street from my house at a corner store, and they had a big ol’ speed bump in the parking lot that I felt the urge to ride over, ONLY ONE HAND! Oh the skill! Oh the bravery!

Fell over and skidded painfully through loose gravel on top of asphalt.

The guy who ran the store heard me crying and had to come out and carry me into the store and manage to get my mother’s phone number out of me, through all the sobbing. Got some free candy out of it, as I recall.

I still have the scars on my knee and foot…apparently loose gravel really shreds. Not so much fun to remove, either.

I didn’t tell anybody for years that I’d fallen because I’d tried it one-handed. I thought my mom would get mad.

hijack–

We should start a thread about injuries we hid from our parents to avoid getting in trouble.

/hijack

22

jjimm, are you English by birth? That adventure just sounds so American to me. :stuck_out_tongue:

23

No, English, though I did go to elementary school in Houston for a few years.

It was actually “petrol” not “gasoline” and his “mum” not his “mom”, but I translated for you. :wink:

24

It wasn’t the language, it was the idea of you having to show up at work deaf and burnt to a crisp…at age 20. Pure USA male. The years spent in Houston go a long way towards explaining it. :stuck_out_tongue:

25

I was walking my dog in the Autumn cold once, with both my hands in the pocket of my jacket, when my mixed-breed Pyranese caught a whiff of something he had to smell right away, and lunged at a flower bed some fifteen or twenty feet ahead of us. I was caught off guard and pulled off my feet, and couldn’t catch myself 'cause my hands were in my pockets. I landed on my left elbow. It hurt like a sumbitch, but wasn’t incapacitating, or anything, so I got up, dusted myself off, and continued the walk.

When I got home, I took off my jacket to find that the left sleeve was filled with blood, and that there was a divot about the size of a piece of candy corn in my elbow. It still didn’t hurt much, but being able to see into my elbow made my knees go all rubbery.

On the toenail front, on graduation night, my highschool had a big party at a local country club. The idea being, if all the kids were at this (alcohol-free) party, they wouldn’t be out at some other party drinking themselves into a coma. Surprisingly, this worked pretty well, and most of the graduating class showed up and partied for the duration. At one point, I took a dive in the pool. While climbing out, I managed to somehow catch my big toenail on the rim of the pool and tore half of it out of my foot. The nail didn’t fall off, though. It was still attached, with a ninety degree bend right in the middle. Hurt like hell, and I was too much of a pussy to try to trim the nail off, so for the first month of that Summer, I went around in sandals, throughly grossing all my friends out with my unnaturally angled nail sticking straight up from my big toe.

26

I shut the trunk of my car one day and walked off toward the house. I had vaguely bumped my hand on the trunk’s way down, but like you said, temporary sting. Until I saw the blood and the inside of my hand. I think it was the bottom of the V in Civic hitting my knuckle just right.

27

Walked down a set of three steps in a pair of veeeerrrrrryyyy high platform shoes. Turned ankle at bottom step. Heard snapping of many tendons, etc. Saw stars. Stopped breathing. Went down. Nearly passed out from the pain. Never found missing pronouns.

28

Aside from the infrequent bashing of a fingernail with a hammer to see if it still hurts to do that…

I guess the one thing I will never do again even on a bet is to piss on an electric fence. I swear it curled up just like a little pig tail. I sure squealed like one!

29

:smiley:

30

Sledding’s fun, right?

Well, on one occasion when I was 16, sledding was not so fun. After sliding down a steep hill, I crashed into a fence erected by the city for the express purpose of catching sledders. Got a big fat lip, two black eyes, and a sprain in my wrist. A day later, I noticed black spots swimming in my vision. A day after that, went to the eye doctor. Hitting the fence had detached the retina in my left eye.

Six awful eye surgeries later and I’m still blind in that eye.

Saves money on contacts though! Twice as many for the same price!

Sledding sucks.

31

In 65 or so, I, as a toddler, opened the basement door, fell down the stairs, & landed head first on a nail.

Mom tossed me in the stroller, dashed to the Fire Station (1 block away), & off we went to the hospital.

But I’m feeling much better, now…

32

Oh, where to begin.

Lessee…

Must have been about 10. Was trying to take the broken pedal off my bike and it wouldn’t cooperate. I got really pissed and figured I needed to break it off. I looked for a sledgehammer, but not finding one, I used the next closest thing; a splitting maul. for the uninformed, it looks like a sledgehammer on one end and an axe on the other. I hit it, and it promptly bounced back into my knee – right to the bone.

At Boy Scout camp, my bunkmate in the tent left his swiss army knife open on his bed. I heard a noise outside, and jumped on his bunk to lok out the tent flap. Got a nice ride to the local hospital for that one, and two stitches in my left knee. Looks like a little alligator.

Then, I had just gotten my very own swiss army knife for my birthday a few months prior. My parents were in the other room, and I decided I wanted tocarve the back of the pumpkin on the windowsill. Unfortunately, the pumpkin was mostly rotten and I put too much force into it. I’ve got a nice scar above my left knee from that one.

There was the time I was in high school, and riding a bike no handed as I had done many times before. Except this time, I decided I needed to take my sweatshirt off. Again, which I had done many times before while riding no-handed. Except this time, this sweatshirt sleeve promptly got caught in the front wheel, which decided to stop moving. I went head over heels and slammed down on my forearms. They were tingly for a week.

Or the time I was in college, climbing a tree to take an aerial view of my girlfriend. I was about 40 feet up standing between two trees, when one limb snapped. Down I went through all the tree branches, slamming flat on my back. When I came to, I looked over to my right and there was an iron pipe sticking out of the ground not a foot away. I walked hunched over for a week, and have a nice scar on my @ss from it.

Also in college, I was working at a restaurant. When the trash can got full, we always climbed up and jumped onit to push it down. This time, it was too close to the vent hood for the fryers and when I jumped up I hit my head. Didn’t think much of it, till I touched it and it was bleeding. A LOT. It bled for about a week, off and on. Didn’t bother with the hospital. Got a bump and a scar from that one.

Playing with my four wheeler, I got too close to the edge of a ravine and it rolled over. Many times. I was thrown free after it rolled over me twice. I got up, swearing, and rolled it right side up and rode it back up the hill.

Snowstorm. Driving my old 2wd Toyota truck. Slipped on the ice, the truck spun, caught the soft shoulder, and rolled. When I came to, I was upside down. Had to get out my Leatherman ™ and cut my seatbelt, crashing down on the roof. Have a nice scar on my head form that one, too.

We were building an addition onto the house. There was a piece of plywood with a few boards underneath that was serving as a set of stairs / ramp. I walked up it barefoot, as I had done many times before. This time, however there was a lot of sand on the plywood. My left foot slipped and the top of my foot ran down the edge of the plywood, opening up my foot for four inches ina nice jagged pattern. Thank god for butterfly bandages. I’ve got a good scar from that one too.

Of course, I saved the best for last. I was cutting down small saplings with my cousin on his new property, as we’d done before; 3-4 inch trees. So you sort of slash with the chainsaw and go onto the next one. We were making good progress until the wind suddenly picked up, and the tree I was cutting bent back, kicking the running chainsaw into my right knee. Severed several tendons and cut meat out completely down to the bone. Ever cut a log with a chainsaw and stop about halfway? that nice 3/8" gap it leaves where there was once wood? That was my knee. The Dr. wouldn’t let me look at it, but when he left the room, I did :slight_smile:
I’ve got a nice scar on my knee and bone growth that looks like a second kneecap slightly below the first. The Dr.'s said I’d never gain full mobility again. WRONG. I’d counter that it can handle at least as much weight as my"good" knee.
I think that’s about it. It’s amazing I’m still alive, as I’m so accident prone.

33

There I was, 1:00AM, the rest of the house sound asleep, and I have a pot of boiling honey on the stove. As I go to pour the honey in the primary fermenter (I was making mead), I suddenly realized that tipping the pot towards me could be hazardous so I tip it away and watch in horror as the molten honey runs down the side of the pot and onto my cotton-socks clad feet. Any sudden moves would only aggravate the situation, so I calmly and carefully finished pouring. As I was preparing to go to the ER, I realized that I couldn’t drive. I washed down a handful of Tylenol, aspirin, and/or Advil with several beers and inched my way to the couch to wait for my wife to wake up, many agonizing hours later. 2nd degree burns over 60% of one and 80% of the other foot.

Trying to teach myself to catch swords by the blade was nothing compared to that. The guy at the gas station didn’t bother to charge me for the box of Band-Aides, but I never did learn how to catch them without bleeding.

34

:eek: I’m not sure my particular scar can hold up next to some of THOSE stories. Chainsaw, for one thing… cringe I’ve told this story before, but I’ll bring it up again.

Basically, wee!lizardling was trying to help tiny!lizsis cut a slit in a cardboard box with our mom’s good sewing scissors. Unfortunately, I did it the wrong way - by putting my fingers on the open blades to help push.

Snick.

Next thing I remember is my mom frantically trying to stanch my dripping hand in a dishtowel while on the phone with my dad over the sound of both us kids screaming our lungs out.

The doctor that saw me as a professional courtesy to my dad put the severed bit back on and put my entire thumb and forearm in a cast that I had to keep elevated for about six weeks to let it heal. I still have the scar right in the middle of my thumbprint. :stuck_out_tongue:

35

FourPaws recounting of the plywood reminded me.

When I was around 14 or 15 we had a porch on the front of the house. No railing, just basically a wood platform.

About 6 feet to the left of it was a large pine tree under which was a large cable spool serving as a table.

I was standing on the spool and tried to jump to the porch. Tried. As I elegantly sprang into the air the spool rocked a bit which caused an ever so slight alteration to my trajectory.

My right foot made it solidly onto the porch, my left toe caught on the edge. My right foot slid forward, my left, down. Scraping the front of my shin down the edge of the wood. I was wearing jeans and over the calf socks so my immediate reaction was “ow, that hurt. I probably scraped some skin off with that one.”

I walked into the house and into the bathroom and set down to assess the damage. Rolled jeans up and sock down and found myself looking at 5 inches of bone where the flesh had been effectively split and pressed away.

My next comment was, “Dad, I’ve got a problem here.” He looked in the door, “Yep, I think you do.” I grabbed a towel and off to the ER we went. 20+ stitches for my trouble.

36

I lost my fingertip in a slamming door in a college dorm, seeming to delight my dad by validating his warnings about fingers and doors since my childhood.

I ran into the dorm bathroom to run my finger under the water, and another guy came in carrying the fingertip, saying maybe it could be reattached.

He dropped it into the palm of my hand, where the water promptly washed it into the sink. As we stared dumbly, it did a couple of orbits and disappeared down the drain. We laughed hysterically all the way to the ER.

Um, later, it HURT.

BTW, this is the only funny amputation story I have ever heard.

37

I think I was trying for the Darwin Awards…

So it was October 19, 2003, almost 4 years ago now. I was visiting my parents out at their farm as it was my dad’s birthday weekend.

My mom had just put lunch together, but my dad was way out in the pastures mowing, and he’d been gone for a while. I offered to ride out and find him(I swear, my brain was functioning). Horse and I trot off as he roars up, of course.

Here’s where it gets really stupid. So by now horse and I have made it to the lake. I signal her into a canter back to the house. The nieces and nephew think that’s fab, seeing a horse move past walk. With a bit of cajoling(not much) I agree to circle around so they can see us again.

As we come around the first bend, she drops shoulder, and I start to slide off and fast. Now I, well, I’m not wearing a helmet, so I decide I’d better twist to avoid hitting my head. Instead, I landed on my right arm, breaking my shoulder and knocking the wind from me.

Shit that hurt.

-Lil

38

I’m pretty lucky that I don’t really have any stories of my own to share. I’ve never even broken any bones.

I have a former relative who was trying to drill a hole through an engine block with a drill press, left the cable (or whatever, I’m not a mechanic) right on there. The cable was caught by the drill press, sucked his hand right in and took off a good portion of his index finger.

My Uncle on my Dad’s side, when I was little, was setting off a bottle rocket and ended up in ER with severe burns to his left hand. They had to remove skin from his thigh and graft it to his hand, to this day his hand is all wrinkly and burned-looking.

My family does have a remarkable penchant for doing stupid and dangerous things. I’m not much of a risk taker myself.

39

I’m twenty years old and having crazy monkey sex with my then-girlfriend. Hours of it, I mean, in strange positions. Strangely enough, it was the missionary position where it happened. I threw out my back. I, a perfectly fit twenty year old guy, threw out my back.

I spent a week loaded up on painkillers, pitifully begging anyone to make me waffles, my roomates snickering at me and loudly boasting about the wonderfully quiet night they enjoyed while I was out of commission. It was the worst week ever.

40

I had a total knee replacement in February. I had read that it would be many weeks before I’d be able to kneel and that I should be very careful of tripping hazards. I tried very hard to be careful, but in a moment of carelessness found out why: about six weeks after surgery, I managed to snag my foot on something on my bedroom floor and fell hard onto my knees.

I was incapable of speech, but apparently some hideous wailing was coming out of my mouth because my daughter came running from the other end of the house in a panic. I was able to speak a bit just in time to prevent her from calling 911. As it was, I managed to split my incision open, and when I finally was able to move the entire front of that leg my jeans was drenched with blood.

Fortunately, I did myself no permanent damage. But in spite of numerous surgeries and assorted other injuries, I have to say I have never, ever felt pain like that before, and certainly hope never to again.