Owing to my own reckless behavior one summer, my right arm went through a window when I was eight; over a hundred stitches inside and out were needed to sew it back up. The abstract art-like scar covers most of my forearm and I was told I came very close to not being able to use my right hand at all, so I was “lucky.” The arm is a little weaker than it otherwise might be – in any event, I am left-handed – but it’s never really given me any problem. Despite the size of the scar, I can only recall three or four people who ever noticed it, probably because, in the aftermath of the accident, I have always worn long sleeves when I went out. As a reminder against reckless activity, it has not always worked….
I was fairly lucky as a child, all things considered. The only major-ish injuries I had before I turned 18 were the following:
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As a 3 year old, was running around the yard like a wild man (what 3 year old doesn’t?) and was yelling at my dad to look at me (he was working on the car), and I had turned my head and kept yelling. Ran straight into a street light pole with my head, and ended up getting 3 stitches in my forehead.
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About a year and a half or so later, I was at my grandparents house, and the local kids were taking turns riding a bike that one of them had got for their birthday. They ranged from about 5 through about 7, and I was 4. They asked me if I wanted a turn and knew how to ride a bike. Being the fairly macho and belligerent child that I was, I answered that of course I knew how, and to get out of the way. I actually did pretty well for a kid who had never even sat on a bike before, managing to ride about 75 yards in a straight line until it was time to turn. Not realizing that you turn a bike primarily by leaning, I turned the handlebars hard to the left. The rest of the bike and myself promptly rotated around the front wheel and I smacked my head right into the concrete. It wasn’t so bad at first, but it turned out that I had given myself a pretty good concussion- vomiting, phantom motion feelings, etc…
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A few weeks before my 16th birthday, I partially tore my ACL playing football, and had an exploratory arthroscopy to verify that. A year and a month later at 17, I fully tore my MCL playing football and decided that I would call it quits after surgery to reconstruct it. I’m also pretty sure I suffered a mild concussion a couple of weeks beforehand; was playing defensive tackle and came off the snap and collided head-to-head with the guard playing opposite me. Usually the round helmets mean that it’s a glancing blow, but somehow we did our best Bighorn sheep imitation and just hit square and bounced backward. I remember immediately having a pretty bad headache that didn’t go away for a while, and being sleepy and irritable on the bus ride home. Next day I felt fine though.
Nine or 10 years old as best I know*. Became suddenly weak one day, eventually collapsing face first into the dirt, nearly unconscious. Emergency surgery done to stop internal bleeding. While “in there” docs discovered problems with appendix and grabbed it on the way out. Got a really long vertical scar from sternum to pelvic area (they went in fast), and Hepatitis as a bonus round from the blood transfusions. Then spent middle and high school gym class hearing every possible version of the “How did you survive the autopsy?” joke, from kids and coaches alike.
*Some of this is unclear due to aging relatives’ hazy memories, and no surviving records.
Dirt bike accident when I was 11. Steel rear fender when up between my head and helmet basically scalping me. Spinning rear tire sort of sucked me in. 130 stitches and also nearly lost my ear.
When I was 9 (?) I was playing and fractured a metacarpal bone in my left hand. I hid the injury from my parents for 24 hours out of fear I’d have to get a shot. Ended up at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, got a cast put on my arm. Nearly broke a friend’s jaw playing football and using my cast to block.
Mine is not really so bad
I was about ten and at the playground with the neighborhood kids. We decided, for some reason, that it would be a good idea to take stones to the top the jungle gym (a sort of metal climbing contraption) and throw them on the ground. I decided, for some reason, to walk underneath while this was going on. Have you heard of “seeing stars” due to a hit on the head? It really happens,
I had a deep gash on my head that bled a lot. I got a few stitches and had to rest for a few days.
Inhaled a peanut into my lung while running down the street when I was three years old. I have no memory of it but parents say I was in intensive care for 10 days and it took them years to pay off the hospital bill.
- Age 11, fractured my right humerus hopping a fence. Uncomplicated, easy peasy recovery
- Age 16, multiple trauma, including concussion, fracture of my left humerus, deep puncture wounds in thigh, abdomen, laceration by jagged metal removing part of my scalp, and me biting thru the center of my tongue; in a plane crash. More complicated recovery, but within 24 hours I was stable and unhappy about missing an upcoming date with my girlfriend (now wife).
Only scrapes, cuts and bruises. Never broke a bone, never needed stitches, negligible scarring.
I did have a small scar on my chin from diving over the handlebars on my bike and landing on my chin, shoulder and hip, but that was supplanted in adulthood by a slightly larger scar from diving over the handlebars and landing on my chin, shoulder and hip.
I was about five years old. It was in the winter and we my twin sister and three-year-old brother were playing hide & seek in the house.
I hid between the refrigerator and the stove, and unbeknown to yours truly the coffee pot (a big one) was percolating on the stove. I leaped out of my hiding spot and got tangled up in the power cord and the entire thing came crashing down on me, scalding me pretty bad. Neck, back and shoulders! Was rushed to the ER.
My twin sister had some bad stuff happen to her. Once, when we were about the same age, our Scottish Terrier dog attacked her and leapt up and bit her face. I tried to pull the dog away from her face, and he ended up pulling her upper lip half off. She required plastic surgery
I was playing basketball at friend’s house. He was mowing the lawn. He ran over a rock that hit me in the eye. Apparently it almost tore the retina.
At the time, my mom was in the hospital (my brother was born). My grandmother was babysitting. I didn’t say anything about it for a couple of days. I told her I got hit a couple days before and it still hurt. She got mad at me for not telling her when it happened.
Thankfully I only got medium-sized injured doing this but I’ve never had a major injury so far.
When I was around 12 I fell out of a tree 15-20 feet up when I grabbed a thick branch that just broke off in my hand. I grabbed its neighbors which were just as thick and they also just snapped off so down I went. If they had been any larger I would have had difficulties grabbing them with my whole hand. Several-inch-thick limbs aren’t supposed to just snap off.
At any rate, down I fell, face up and back downwards. Thankfully my fall was broken by another horizontal limb which also snapped off halfway through, and I landed on loose soil. I only had a lot of scrapes and bruises for my troubles, thankfully nothing broken.
Three come to mind.
Riding my bicycle through an intersection without looking and getting hit by a pickup. Broken collar bone.
Trying to lift a kid up when I was 13 or 14, and falling back and whacking my head on a piano requiring stitches in my head.
Two other bicycle accidents tie for 3rd that resulted in extreme road rash. a) attempting the brilliant idea of tying a kite to my bicycle handlebars. b) having just ‘worked on’ my bicycle, I was riding over to a friends house while popping wheelies. I should have tightened the axle nuts back up. I popped a wheelie, the front tire fell off and rolled away, while the bicycle forks jammed into the asphalt tossing me ass over tea kettle.
Oh, and a bonus one I just thought of… riding a bicycle barefoot and managing to stub my toe into the road peeling back the front of my toe like cutting the end of an onion off. That was a fun day.
My own kids were a different story from me. One son cracked a bone in his foot after jumping off a wall and was in a cast. Another son broke a bone in his forearm after punching a wall. My daughter broke her femur while playing basketball; I got to see that one live and in living color. I think it hurts more to see your kids hurting than yourself.
I don’t remember this but when I was 3 or 4, I was running around a carport and ran into one of the corner poles. I got stitches in my forehead. Then when I was 7, I was rocking back and forth in my rocking chair and fell backwards hitting my head on the corner of the coffee table. I do remember that one, lying face down and feeling the tug of the stitches being put in. Not so major was when I was 5 and stuck a rock in my nose and had to go to the ER to get that taken out. I stuck a rock in my nose. SMH
I was responsible for injuries to my little sister and to my mother. I was 8 and my sister was 3 and we were playing on top of a picnic table. For some reason I pushed her off and she broke her arm. I said she fell. The next day she accidentally hit my mother in the face with her cast and broke my mother’s nose. I didn’t admit it was all my fault until my sister and I were adults and we all had a good laugh about it. Whew.
Pretty minor, but the family home backyard had a brick wall on one side, then a short slope down to the street, landscaped with rough stone and ground cover plants. I was 5 or 6, we were playing cowboys and whatever with cap pistols. I was standing on top of the wall when I got “shot” and decided it would look more dramatic if I fell off the wall. Problem was, I forgot the drop was higher on the street side, and on a slope, so when I landed I managed to fall on my face on one of the landscape stones and opened a small but messy cut across one eyebrow. I still have a faint scar nearly 60 years later.
A few years after that I was swinging on a backyard swing that a friend’s father had built between two trees in their backyard. There was a well worn trough from us kicking off to get bigger swings, which exposed some of the tree roots. I was coming back down and leaning out when the rope on one side broke, making me land on my back and slide about 4 feet, over the exposed roots. I’m amazed that I only got some minor scrapes, but it was then I learned what having the breath knocked out of you feels like.
I never suffered any injuries that warranted an ER visit as a child, but when I was about 6 years old, I got the bright idea that I could initiate climbing a tree in the backyard by hooking the hoe over a lower branch, and climbing the handle.
As soon as my weight was off the ground, that hoe swung off the branch and hit me in the face on the way down. I had a nice shiner for a few days.
Umpteen scrapes and bruises from the typical bike mishaps, falling from trees, etc.
Only made it to the hospital ED twice:
- Age about 10 ripped a hole in my ankle shinnying under a cyclone fence & needed a few stitches to close the wound.
- Age about 11 crashed my offroad motorcycle & broke my left leg.
Once I got old enough to start driving then eventually enter the military I had a couple more ED visits but they’re beyond the scope of the question.
18 yo fell out of a car going 5 mph. Severe concussion, Sort of scalped 20 stitches . Fell off bike at 17 face first , road rash and a week before home high school homecoming. I was on the court.
When I was around 10 years old I was on a field trip with my class at a local “farm”, really just a large yard with a garden surrounded by a fence. I went running around a corner of the fence and straight into the fence. The barbed wire caught me right on my throat. As it turned out only the skin was torn, but it was a big tear. I jumped up and terrified my classmates and my teacher by running around with a giant hole in my neck and blood coming out all over my front. I got prompt attention at the doctor’s office. 
The nearest hospital was 20-30 minutes away at the time and so most emergencies went to the local doctor’s office first if possible.
That was probably the most exciting injury but by no means the only significant cut I suffered. I led a rather bloody childhood. Fortunately all my blood.