On a fishing trip this weekend, I was using a knife to remove some tape from a tool.
It was going splendidly, and I had the thought, “wow, this knife is sharp. I better be careful.” Then I stabbed myself in the finger. No stitches needed.
I purchased a snow blower a few years ago, which required 3 people to get it onto the bed of a truck. I drove the truck home and attempted to get the snow blower off the truck… by myself, by lowering it off the back of the truck… by myself, with no ramp… by myself. i lost my footing, flipped off the back of the truck and over the snow blower as I was too stupid to let it go, gashed my leg on the side of the truck as I was falling, and slammed my knees into the concrete of my driveway.
I’m lucky the snow blower didn’t land on me or I would have been more seriously injured, if not killed.
No bones broken, thank goodness, but my leg needed to be stitched up and I couldn’t walk for a few days without excruciating pain.
Yep, that. In elementary school I would put my pencil in my back pocket, sharp end up, then forget it was there. While playing at recess I stabbed myself in the arm. Still have the “tattoo”. A pretty common childhood injury back in the day of lead pencils and recess. Not stupid at all.
The stupid part is that I have 3 such lead “tattoos” on the same arm, each from a separate occasion of the same scenario.
I was gallivanting about barefoot and stepped on an acorn. Right in the arch of my foot.
The hoof has never been the same since. I was taken down by an acorn, not the mighty oak :).
A friend was moving some crappy old rattan porch furniture and stepped right on one of the giant thumbtack-y things that had fallen out of the leg of the chair. This thing was basically the most ginormous thumbtack on earth and the evil thing buried itself about nine inches into her soul (ER visit, tetanus shot, a few weeks on crutches).
My family once thought they had rabies, but that probably belongs to its own thread. Or not.
“Sole,” of course – though it was so long and sharp it probably did puncture her soul as well.
Had the staple gun upside down, put my other hand firmly down over the [del]top[/del] umm bottom of it before pulling the trigger to ensure maximum penetration of the object I was stapling. And yeah I remember thinking the trigger action felt really weird and awkward.
Ironically, it’s called a header.
Working on a freight elevator.
Opened the 18 inch by 24 inch hatch. Climbed on top of the car. Worked on the gate sprocket on one side. I decided to inspected the gate sprocket on the other side to check the alignment as a comparison. Walked across the top of the car checking the gate sprocket shaft as I went. Walked right across the open hatch. Put my foot down on air and fell through the hatch. It was small enough that I landed in the hatch with my right shin stopping me from falling through.
I had to go to personal fill out the accident report before they would let me go the the doctor. I was not sure if maybe I cracked my leg bone or not. I had to be driven to the doctor. There I had to explain how I hurt my self many times.
Nothing broke but I still have a notch in my shin where I compressed the bone.
The when I got back to the store I had to call my Chief Engineer then the office in San Francisco. I got a verbal warning out of it.
From then on when ever I stepped on top of an elevator car I closed the hatch behind me.
I jumped off a trampoline and landed on the ground flat on my back/body. I can’t remember why I fell off like that.
When I was 14 I dropped a cannon ball on my pinky finger on my left hand. Smooshed it real well.
I have three.
First one I just witnessed, but it’s worth telling. Friends standing around English class before the bell. One guy is playing with the stapler, and has it open in ‘tacking mode.’ Says to the other guy, “Hold your hand out.” Guy does so, and the other guy drove a staple flush into his palm. The funniest part was they were both surprised it happened. “You were supposed to move your hand!” “You weren’t supposed to really staple me!”
When I was in my late teens and twenties, my whole family were volunteers with our rural fire department. Most of our calls were for first aid, of course. We lived just a block away from the station, so my brother and I would usually run over and take the aid car to the call, while everyone else would take their personal cars. Tones went out this time (I think it turned out to be a minor chainsaw accident), and I came running from my bedroom, putting on my jacket. There was a chair in the middle of the room, which I decided to hop over. Hit my head on the ceiling beam. Everyone else went to the aid call, while my mom had to give me first aid, then drive me to the doctor for scalp stitches.
In my thirties, I let my hair grow. It was about waist long. I was trying to grind on a piece of metal with a grinding point chucked into my Craftsman 3/8" drill motor. I had engaged the trigger lock so it would run without having to hold it, and put the handle between my legs so I could hold the part in both hands. Did not tie back my hair. The lock above my forehead fell forward and contacted the spinning chuck. The drill motor reeled itself up and smacked into my head with some speed. I’m somewhat proud of the strength of my hair and follicles, as they stopped the drill without anything been pulled out. I unplugged the thing and unwound it without losing even one strand. No serious injury, just a small bruise and cut on my forehead.
Isn’t it funny how humans are all driven to avoid embarrassment, but when things like this happen we can’t help but tell everyone about them?
14: I was a freshman in a private HS dating a young lady whose parents were the richest people I had met at that point…the father owned a large food distribution company, they lived in a huge mansion, had a monsterous kitchen with multiple freezers, fridges and the very first microwave oven I had ever seen (mid-70’s)…I had gone over to her house after football practice and was starving, she was on the phone to one of GF’s, she went to the freezer and microwaved me a frozen jelly donut…it was delicious…I wanted another, she was still on the phone, I motioned, she waved me off and mouthed, “Yes”, I grabbed another one out of the freezer and took it to the microwave…to me, it was an oven, right?, so how long, 5 minutes? seven minutes?, so I opted for 6…it came out piping hot…I ate around the edge, then took a big bite and immediate swallow of boiling jelly, ran over to the faucet and gulped as it burned its way down my esophagus…I couldn’t eat anymore, I was in so much pain…
That night, I couldn’t physically eat dinner, I told my Mom what happened, she was a nurse, so she called the pediatrician (back in the day when you had his home phone number) and he had her take me to the ER where he met us…long story short, there was a barium swallow involved, me strapped to a rotating vertical hospital, and getting knocked out so they could shove an inflatable balloon down my throat so that they could re-open my esophagus…
Several months later, the pediatrician mailed us a blurb out of the NEJM…seems he and the ER doc had written up a little case study and submitted it to the NEJM as one of the first instances of a residential microwave injury…
Lol. Way too many to list.
Most include one of the following…
“Hey, hold my beer real quick”
“Look ma no hands”
“Dude, it’s totally safe…I did the math”
" I’m sure it’s the red wire"
“I saw a guy do it this way in a movie”
“Yeah, but what’s the odds of that happening twice to the same guy”
Quickly…
I’ve sat on a soldering iron.
I’ve put a “cigarette” in my mouth cherry first
Tried to kick start an old shovel in gear
Tried to light a burn barrel of wood doused in gas…with a bic lighter (BOOM)
Cut myself shaving. I was three years old at the time. I still have the scar to prove it.
Cut my thumb while idly playing with an axe. I was about nineteen. I knew it was a dumb thing to do so never told anyone until now.
Last year, I lifted my left foot to kick a toy for my sister’s dog. It was about an inch…an INCH!..above the floor when my right knee buckled and the kneecap dislocated. It hadn’t done that since my teens. But at least it didn’t stay dislocated like it used to. Small victories, I guess.
Me, sibs and cousins were playing baseball in the back yard. My cousin (15 yr.old male)Was at bat. I was 6yrs old, and standing behind the home base and to the left. He swung at a pitch and the bat came out of his hand and slammed right into my forehead. Concussion and 36 stitches from the bridge of my nose into my hairline a few inches. I nursed sympathy from him til I was an adult.
Nearly cut my right hand off with a band saw.
Fell up the stairs with a basket of laundry and separated my shoulder, man that hurt like hell.
Dropped scissors and they landed point down into the top of my big toe.
This. We had this old, heavy rake with a curved head and thick handle, and I jumped off the back of my pick up truck and landed on it. It flew up and smacked me in the forehead, which in turn knocked me into the truck and then to the ground, and in that very groggy moment I somehow became convinced that a wasp had stung me on the head.
My family still finds this hilarious for some reason.
I lave my wounds with the blood of my allies, that’s how badass I am.
Similar story here, except I was 6 (as in, shoulda known better), and it was a safety pin, and as far as I know it didn’t blow a fuse.
Many “I’m a klutz” injuries here, but the funniest one was one sprained ankle (I’ve had at least 3 that required RICE, numerous lesser ones that just left me limping for a few) that occurred at the orthopedist’s office. Well, technically, while leaving the ortho’s office (for something totally unrelated to the ankle) - walking down the hall to the elevator, on level carpeting, I landed on the edge of my foot and went down like a sack of potatoes.
My husband happened to be with me that day, so I sent him back to the ortho to borrow a wheelchair. He took me back there. They offered to fit me in to get it checked out but pointed out that insurance would not pay for it since I’d already been seen that day.
I said I didn’t need to be seen, I knew enough about sprains to do RICE (and I had good painkillers at home left over from some surgery that year if I needed it), so I begged an Ace bandage from them, sent my husband out to the car to fetch a cane I kept there (did I mention a klutz?), and went home.
In the “it was fine but could have been way worse” vein: I was 10 or so, and wearing flimsy sneakers, and playing around an empty lot with some neighborhood kids. Somehow stepped on a nail that went right through the sneaker and into my foot. Jumped around in pain, and did the exact same thing (to the same foot, I think). The very least that could have happened was a local infection, the very worse: well, I’d already heard of tetanus and knew that was a good way to get it, but being a dumbass 10-12 year old, did NOT tell my parents about it.
Luckily for me, I had an annual physical a few days later and a tetanus booster happened to be part of it. No infection either. I never did tell my parents.
Last October I did the Victoria half-marathon, then two weeks later did the Toronto half-marathon, then the following day at the gym I took my pants off wrong and threw my lower back out so badly (Sciatic Nerve) I could barely walk and it was the worst pain of my entire life. Picture me at the doctor (for painkillers) and the chiropractor (to fix it) saying “…I took my pants off wrong.”
I once had my hand on a grocery store conveyor belt. The fleshy part between my thumb and index got caught in the groove while the belt continued to move. Surprisingly painful, and not stupid at all. Having seen thousands of stupid injuries professionally (I have good stories), I’ve never seen anyone else with that.