What was the worst injury you ever had as a kid?
When I was a kid, I touched the hot part of a gas heater and got 3rd degree burns.
When I was 6 or 7, I hit my head hard falling out of a tree, but I didn’t tell anybody, possibly because I’d just hit my head falling out of a tree. If something similar happened today, I’d be in the ED getting checked for a concussion and neck injury.
10 years old, went over the front of my bicycle, broke my jaw, knocked out a bunch of teeth and damaged more.
The worst one occurred when I slid face-first through a decorative window, which was next to the front door of our house, when I was five. I broke the window, and cut up my face pretty badly. The worst cut was on the bridge of my nose, and required four stitches; I still have the scar there. As one can imagine with facial wounds, I bled like crazy, and my parents got pretty panicky.
The only other noteworthy injury was when I took a spill on my bicycle when I was 8. I slid on the pavement, and got some serious road rash on the heel of my left hand, and on my right knee. Since I got gravel dust in the wounds, they took a long while to heal, and it pretty much messed up the rest of that summer.
I broke my arm pretty badly when I was 10.
My appendix burst when I was 14 and I almost died due to peritonitis. I recall being curled up in a ball on the floor in front of the hospital admissions desk awaiting for my dad to show up with insurance papers when my doctor walked by and ordered them to send me to surgery immediately.
I was in the hospital for three weeks and lost 30 pounds.
I’ve been fairly lucky medically speaking - no real major injuries or sicknesses my whole life.
Worst injuries were - a dislocated wrist when I was 11, and also a second-degree burn on my leg that year (which was also a small one.)
My forehead vs concrete sidewalk = severe concussion (in and out of consciousness, some memory loss). The worst part was the next few weeks of having needles stuck into my brow to drain fluid. The gauze wrap-around was no fun to wear to school, either (“Ahhhh! it’s Bobby Kennedy, back from the dead!”).
When I was 11 months old, I pulled myself to standing with the tablecloth while at our neighbour’s with my mother. I spilled a freshly brewed cup of coffee on to my chest, leaving me with 3rd degree burns.
I spent close to a month in the hospital, getting out just before my 1st birthday.
I was playing with a toy golf set and our dog took the head of the club and ran away. I chased him around the coffee table, then he reversed and ran into my legs. I promptly fell and hit my eyebrow on the corner of the coffee table. I remembered that my grand parents had just had new carpet installed, so I came into the kitchen holding my shirt out to catch the blood. 12 stitches. I was somewhere around 8. I’m convinced that that has something to do with the poor vision in that eye.
The other one I don’t remember, but have been told of me riding my trike off of a 10 foot wall.
As a toddler, I decided to climb the ironing board while my mom was ironing. The iron fell on my first two fingers of my hand. Still have the scar today. When I was 10 a friend and I were playing with knives and cut up my right hand pretty good. Age 12 I fell in such a way that I landed on my arm with my knee and snapped the radius clean in two and fractured the ulna of my left arm, and finally at 13 I got shot in the right eye socket with a bb gun and missed losing they eye by 1/8 of an inch. That one bled. A lot. No, I mean A LOT!! And I was wearing white pants for some reason at the time. After that, I somehow learned caution or something because I quit getting hurt so much.
When I was in kindergarten, my teacher decided it was time for me to use the “big” swing set. She was pushing me, and I was going higher and higher. I panicked and let go, went flying through the air, and wound up on my hands and knees and face on a surface of sharp cinders. Got cut up pretty badly.
So glad they stopped paving playgrounds with cinders.
Probably when I was 10 years old and played in an empty swimming pool that belonged to a home being built. Sawdust was everywhere, and I somehow scratched an eyeball with it. Hurt like a motherfucker. My father had to sleep with me at night, I was in such pain, crying. Had to wear an eye patch for a few days.
That’s the worst one I remember. But I know when I was about three, I tripped and banged my head on some concrete steps outside the home of some friends of my parents. I believe that netted me a few stitches in the forehead. Don’t really remember that though, and the eye thing lasted much longer.
I had a hernia and was afraid to tell anyone. My scrotum blew up on one side. Luckily it healed itself and no further problems occurred, but because I didn’t want to tell anyone it could have been much worse if it went the wrong way…
The worst was when another kid an I grabbed a couple of carving knives from his parents’ kitchen, went and found a fruit crate, and started hacking it up. Problem was, we were facing each other and chopping on the box. He swung long and sliced open my 9-year-old chest. It took 15 stiches in my scrawny self to close it.
The fall of my third grade year (so age 8) I was running in the house in bedroom slippers. They lived up to their name and I slipped and put my right arm through a window. I cut it pretty badly and had to have 32 external stitches and who knows how many internal ones. That scar is definitely still there reaching about halfway around my arm.
When I was in junior high I went on a field trip for biology class that involved walking in a shallow part of a bay in an area with an oyster bed. One of my shoes came off and I stepped on a bunch of oysters, badly cutting up the bottom of my foot.
The one that hurt the most happened while trying to fix some kid’s bicycle chain. Got the chain back on the sprocket, and started cranking the pedal to make sure it wouldn’t come off, then for some stupid reason, I stuck my thumb up in there to see if it was taut. Sucked my thumb right into the sprocket and nearly tore the tip off of it. Hurt like a mother, I can tell you.
Got pissed off at my pain in the ass brother and tried to slam a storm door. Put my arm through the glass instead.
I’ve got a scar under/in my eyebrow to this day. I don’t remember anything about it. I’ve told I was jumping in the crib and took a header.
Other than that, nuthin’. And I skied, played football (back when that shit was REAL!) and rode motorcycles since about 6 years old. I would sprain my thumb every winter in early ski season. Hardly ‘Major’.