# Stupidest way you have injured yourself **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2013, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986 "2013-09-04T11:47:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/121 "2013-09-09T14:54:11Z")
You guys are \*\*killing \*\*me this morning!!! I’m sitting in my cube(cell) at work hurting myself by holding in the laughter. If I was at home I’d be howling at these stories, with cats staring at me like I’ve lost my mind. Again. Keep 'em coming!! 😃 😃 😃 ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/122 "2013-09-09T15:14:32Z")
I was about 8 or 9 when my mom got some new knives with serrated blades. Opening the box, I saw a warning notice saying something like: “Very Sharp! Do not touch blades!” Guess who had 3 or 4 cuts on their fingertips about 30 seconds later? ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/123 "2013-09-09T15:49:08Z")
Rushing out door before alarm set. Door got stuck on throw rug and I hit it with chest perpendicular to the door, which did not swing to the side. Bruised my sternum badly enough that I had to sleep in a chair for a week. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/124 "2013-09-09T17:41:05Z")
[Buying cheap stuff off eBay resulted in me being injured.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=431361) ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/125 "2013-09-09T21:42:27Z")
In high school I’m making up a chemistry lab experiment while the teacher is showing a slide show in the front half of the room. I was playing with a bunsen burner and a glass stirring rod - I got the end of the stirrer red hot (pretty and bright in the darkened room!), then tapped the end on the counter. The end broke off and cooled down a bit so I picked up the broken piece. Did you know that glass doesn’t have to be glowing red to be hot?! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/126 "2013-09-09T22:58:17Z")
Gee, just last night! We’ve got a lot of fruit flies at the moment because we’re canning. I usually swat them with a towel. Last night I was cranky because one landed on me. I spotted it on the kitchen cabinet, hauled back and let fly with the towel. Slight miscalculation: I hit the cabinet so hard that I thought I broke my knuckle. Sat with an ice pack on it the rest of the evening. Today it’s sore and bruised, but nothing compared to my self respect. But I got the little fucker. ---
**Author:** ![Obscure\_Pop-culture\_Reference](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9de0a6/32.png) [@Obscure\_Pop-culture\_Reference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obscure_Pop-culture_Reference)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/127 "2013-09-13T19:57:38Z")
Southern Italy, a town that’s better left unnamed, too many years ago. I’m 25, at a friend’s house, during a meeting for the first issue of a local magazine. We’re very relaxed (no chemicals involved), sitting around a table, and I’m playing with a pencil with a sharp point. Then the pencil slips from my hands. Some part of my brain decides that the world will not survive the contact between the pencil and the floor. My feet spring in action, closing the gap between them and, with perfect timing, grab the pencil between them, preventing it from touching the growing. Good job, feet! The timing is so perfect that i catch the pencil when it is perfectly horizontal, so that my left foot can exert enough force on the top of the pencil to push the tip trough the mesh of my running shoes, through the sock and trough the skin of my right foot, planting it firmly in the abductor hallucis (i learned that name and i’m going to use it, so don’t complain). I don’t flinch, retrieve the pencil (now the lead point is missing) an pretend nothing happened (picture Gene Wilder with the scalpel in Young Frankenstein). Back home, i check the damage. There is a small speck of blood around a black hole in my sock. There is a black hole in my foot too, surrounded by a bruise. After a week I of somewhat painful walking, I finally manage to push 1 cm of lead from the hole in my foot. Now, when something falls, i just watch. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2013, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/128 "2013-09-13T23:45:08Z")
Let me put forth mine with what I said to myself just before doing it. “Hey, TV, you’d better knock down that wasp nest before somebody gets stung.” The entire nest descended on me. ---
**Author:** ![roxie\_monoxide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6bbea6/32.png) [@roxie\_monoxide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roxie_monoxide)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/129 "2013-09-14T01:33:21Z")
I had my lip slammed in a door ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/130 "2013-09-14T11:15:32Z")
When I was around 12 I got it into my head that I wanted to stretch a length of slender steel cable. Memo to self: this is NEVER the setup for a pretty outcome. I tied one end of the cable around a sturdy overhead beam. The other end, I tied into a small loop a couple of inches above the floor. I had a big sprocket – the gearlike thing with teeth that a chain runs over, like on a bicycle. This was an industrial part off some huge machine, and it weighted about 30 pounds and was about 16 inches in diameter and half an inch thick. I passed the loop end of the cable through its hub, and slid a nail through the loop so it couldn’t pass back through the hub, so the whole arrangement was like a rope swing a couple inches off the floor, with a big flat seat. I somehow climbed onto the sprocket seat, holding onto the sprocket, and started trying to bounce up and down to stretch the cable. The nail, of course, bent, and pulled through the hub, and down I went. Not that falling a couple inches was a big deal – no, the problem was that my fingers were under the sprocket, now sandwiched between a half inch of steel and the concrete floor, and I was sitting on top of this assembly. I started jumping and thrashing about like a frog epoxied to the floor. Of course, the harder I tried to pull myself out, the harder I pushed down on the sprocket, and the tighter my fingers were. I must have gotten free somehow, because I’m here now. ---
**Author:** ![Waxwinged](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@Waxwinged](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waxwinged)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/131 "2013-09-14T14:25:41Z")
A couple of years ago, I was cutting some mat board for framing while mildly intoxicated. Let’s just say that my left index finger tip is flat now. ---
**Author:** ![Zargon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/50afbb/32.png) [@Zargon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zargon)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/132 "2013-09-14T18:15:22Z")
I’ve drawn blood with a cucumber. ---
**Author:** ![Dublin11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Dublin11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dublin11)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/133 "2013-09-14T19:02:39Z")
I was making caramel one day about three years ago and for reasons I cannot fathom, decided to taste it off the spoon. I managed to burn my gums and tongue - maybe even my teeth - and for about a week my lips looked like those you see on women you see who’ve had a major disagreement with their plastic surgeon. I couldn’t speak properly for a few days, either. Which was all to the good, seeing as I started a new job the next day. Nice. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/134 "2013-09-14T19:09:32Z")
I did a bad job of [opening a box](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=372824) once. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/135 "2013-09-14T19:21:35Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > Let me put forth mine with what I said to myself just before doing it. > > “Hey, TV, you’d better knock down that wasp nest before somebody gets stung.” > > The entire nest descended on me. Oh, this reminds me of my poor brother “I better move this big branch off the lawn before someone trips and gets hurt” and then he fell on it and got splinters in his eyeball. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/136 "2013-09-14T19:24:52Z")
Reading this thread makes me feel like Albert Fucking Einstein. mmm ---
**Author:** ![NeverKnownNormal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc79bd/32.png) [@NeverKnownNormal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeverKnownNormal)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/137 "2013-09-14T19:40:01Z")
Was cutting a piece of balsa wood with a handheld jigsaw. Balsa chunk roughly two inches square, so I was holding it in my right hand, moving the wood instead of the saw. Figured I would stop with just a little bit of wood left, and change method. Waited too long. Saw white at the bottom of the cut completely across the pad of my thumb, and confirmed that the bathroom in our house was small enough to sit on the toilet seat, (knees shaking) run cold water on my hand in the sink, and puke into the bathtub all at the same time. Probably should have gotten stitches, but was too embarrassed to tell mom. Can still see the scar, more than twenty years later. Perhaps a decade later, slabbing ruined plastic film off a roll to retrieve the core and prepare for regrinding, I wore a blister on the heel of my hand, pushing the box knife away, over and over. (The roll started out to be 60" wide, 48" diameter, and over 3000 pounds.) Figured that if I was careful, I could change angle, and simply let my force go beside me. Stabbed myself, through my jeans, at the very top of my thigh. Asked my shift supervisor, with a growing patch of blood soaking into my jeans, if he really had to see the wound. He said maybe not, but if it needed stitches, I’d have to tell him. I decided not, and that was probably the right answer, but there’s still a scar. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/138 "2013-09-14T21:47:43Z")
I had a thing for a Roller Derby Girl, so what did I do? I bought quads with street wheels. Got into the habit of skating down to the local watering hole, having a few and skating home. I had had a few, went to dinner(I carried shoes in a backpack), went back to bar. Girl in question shows up with a posse of Roller Girls and I put the skates back on. Took a spill in front of all of them, rolled onto my right ankle. Was taken to practice the next day and was used as an example of why the girls are not supposed to drink in skates. Two days later I go to the Hospital, broken _fibula distilla_. You can have one guess as to how this worked out for me and my “love interest” **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/139 "2013-09-14T23:17:02Z")
I’ve [mentioned this before,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=505174) in the memorable [Help Describe Being Wacked in the Ball](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=474869) thread. I was working on an electrical outlet in my brother’s dining room. Pulling the old outlet out (it had been painted over) shook the wall enough to dislodge the cuckoo clock above the outlet from the nail. The cuckoo clock, obeying the law of gravity, plummeted straight down and hit me on the head. Cuckoo clocks also obey the equally powerful law of comedy, which meant that, as soon as it hit my head, the little bird came out of the door and went “cuckoo!” My neice was laughing her head off at this. Can’t say I blame her. Gandhi would probably have laughed. ---
**Author:** ![applebetty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4af34b/32.png) [@applebetty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/applebetty)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986/140 "2013-09-15T00:30:51Z")
Was visiting, went to sit on the arm of the couch, they’re padded, right? Not enough, dislocated my coccyx, bot manged to replace it the next day. Was shaving a piece of hard black licorice but the first knuckle on my left hand got in the way. Came off the bottom step and rolled my foot, rupturing the ankle tendons. I had to lean on a friend to hobble to the aid station. When I was 10 and riding my bike to school, hit a gravel patch and went over headfirst to the pavement, got a concussion and chipped a front tooth. I have numerous scars on my forearms and lower legs from doing something or other, to the point that now I don’t recall how each happened. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-way-you-have-injured-yourself/667986.md?page=8)