I think there have been other threads like this. . . people trying to mitigate their feelings of colossal stupidity and lessen the pain. Monday I was making a cream cheese mango cake filling when the immersion blended clogged. I picked it up out of the bowl and removed the clog–without removing my other finger from the “go” button.
The result? Cauterization of a “fragile” vein, compromising of the nail bed – doc thinks I’ll probably lose the nail, and three fingertips stitches. Plus a whole lot of OW owowowow fucking holy shit gottamn OW!!!
This is an easy one. My first day as a baker, the person training me hands me what’s essentially a razor blade on a stick and says, “Johnny Bravo, this is a lame. It’s very sharp so don’t cut yourself. I’ll be right back.”
Anyway, I needed a bandaid by the time she came back. I don’t even remember what I did but it probably involved me going “pff, it can’t be that sharp” and testing the edge on my finger.
I cut myself many more times with that thing (including needing stitches once), but that was the dumbest way.
Walking across street, minding own business. Slipped on ice, while carrying coffee.
Didn’t want a cup of hot coffee on my chest, so I held my arm out- and shattered my elbow.
Luckily, I was outside a hospital at the time, but off the property and off the clock.
So my insurance covered it and there was no Worker’s Comp component.
A couple of years ago, I skied over my own thumb while crawling under a log. Remarkable how vibrantly blood shows up on the snow.
Skewered my testicles when a bicycle rat trap that I was riding on broke. The nurses kept calling in more nurses to look and chuckle. This was three and a half decades ago, when people were not so politically correct.
Although all these things sound pretty painfully (skewering your junk? There aren’t enough owe), they do not compare in stupidity. I put my finger in a blender while it was in operation.
Well, maybe playing frisbee with a plate of glass. . .
I was coasting on a shopping cart, got my foot hung on something, and ended up having it go too fast and tip back without me being smart enough to let go.
I ground to a halt with my hand clasped on the bar. I got up, noticed that I could see something white (bone/tendon) on all 8 of my fingers between the joint where they connect to your hand and the next one, and had a friend drive me to the ER.
Basically, I got my ass kicked by a shopping cart.
I once went running down a hallway pretending I was a plane. I banked right to turn into my room and instinctively threw my left foot out, which promptly ran directly into the doorjamb. I’m pretty sure I lightly fractured my 4th toe or bruised the bone or something a bit more serious than a sprain as it swelled up afterwards. However, it was only VERY painful for a few days before it subsided and I never ended up seeing a doctor.
I have very long little toes and when I wear closed shoes they will press into the shoe wall even when I have plenty of space for my big toe and 1st toe. I have yet to find a pair of closed toe shoes that doesn’t specifically press on my 4th toe, so after a day of wear I can feel the ache in it from when I damaged it before.
My age when I decided to play airplane? 20.
At least this isn’t as bad as getting skewered, stitches, or having bones sticking out, so I feel a little better.
I’ve broken 9 bones over the years, but none of them were the stupidest.
I decided to race bicycles up a very long, steep hill with my daughter. Now my daughter would do things like come in second place in College Cycling Nationals plus win a 24 hour race with 355 miles in a couple of years. Why I thought I could keep up with her was stupid.
About half way up at a max effort, my chest started to hurt but I kept going. I lost but I could take some joy in that my daughter was barfing at the top of the hill as she rode so hard. With my chest still hurting, I rode another 25 miles back to the car.
The next day I rode another 35 miles on the bicycle, but didn’t feel too good. So I told the wife, a nurse, that I’d been having chest pain. I thought she was going to kill me.
Do I really have to spell out what the injury was? I didn’t think so.
I was unpacking some new furniture. The table I had bought was held together with ropes, attached to the underside of the table with some heavy-duty staples. Not wanting staples in my table, even if they weren’t visible, I started pulling them out with pliers. One staple just wouldn’t let go. So, I grabbed the pliers with both hands, braced, and gave a firm yank.
After the stars cleared, I realized that I had positioned my face right behind the pliers, so that when the staple very suddenly let go, I would smack myself with the handle. I had an inch-long vertical gash running through my right eyebrow. Rather than the real story, I told people it was from a hockey fight.
Set frying pan on burner.
Turned burner on.
Went to get something from pantry.
Came back, noticed pan not sitting level.
Took pan off burner, pressed burner flat with hand.
Burner rings burned into hand.
Who knew burners got hot so fast? Not me.
Once, when helping my grandfather dig post holes, I leaned over the hole while picking up the breaking bar to prepare to slam it back down on the rocks below.
I caught myself right under the chin and woke up on the ground with my grandfather laughing so hard he was crying.
I used a safety pin to take a bullet apart by digging a hole between the bullet and the shell and then trying to pry the bullet out. All while looking down towards the bullet. Thankfully when the safety pin scratched the primer most of the energy went out of the hole I already created, causing the bullet to not fly straight. The shell also blew open on that side, cutting me rather badly. All in all I think I got off easy, considering what could, and if I had been slightly less lucky, would have happened.
I actually still have the shell (complete with my blood on it) and what I could find of the bullet to remind me to not do stupid things. Never could find the safety pin, though.
I was trying to study one evening back in college (quietly) and my gerbils in the glass aquarium were scratching madly… MADLY… incessantly… so I went over to the aquarium, and “tapped” on it a bit too hard, causing the glass to shatter, the gerbils to escape, and my hand to be sliced in 2 areas requiring stitches. A friend came over to help me round up the gerbils and stick them in the bathtub while my dad drove me to the ER. brilliant
