About 5 years ago I was carrying a big, old TV set downstairs when it started to slip out of my hands.
Instead of just letting it fall (I was,after all,just going to put it out in the trash) I had to catch it.
The broken off antenna gouged a 1/2inch deep trench about 2 inches long in the palm of my left hand. I saw much more of the inside of my hand than God ever intended & have a lovely
scar in memory of my idiocy.
The scar is right in line with my grip on a golf club tho’, so I always
explain it by saying I had the worlds toughest teaching pro.
When I was eleven years old I was riding a ten-speed bike, having recently outgrown my trusty ol’ Huffy dirt bike. I thought I could ride it the same way as my dirt bike, going off of jumps, etc. Some kids had left behind a wooden ramp that was lying in the street at the bottom of a hill. I rode to the top of the hill and came back down, going off of the ramp. The first time I made it. It wasn’t as much fun as before, but I decided to give it another try. On my second run I crashed and I fell off the bike, landing face-down on the pavement. I was disoriented for a moment. I had also chipped my front tooth. The dentist capped it off, but the color was mismatched, a dingy yellow. Several school pictures in the years to follow show the evidence. I eventually had the tooth redone to look more natural.
My only other serious injury story was when I was working at Burger King. I was 18 at the time. We were in the middle of a rush and I was hurrying to keep pace with the orders. I was making a chicken sandwich, which at the time were sliced diagonally down the middle. In my haste I wasn’t watching what I was doing. My ring finger on my left hand was in the path of the knife as I began to slice the sandwich… and my finger. Naturally there was blood everywhere. A coworker ran me down to the ER where they had to stitch up my finger. I still have the scar. I’d be very easy to find if I were to rob a bank (and not wear gloves).
Having read the other posts here, I should consider myself to be lucky.
One summer day when I was about 7 or 8, after a recent viewing of The Magnificant 7, we decided to be like the knife throwing guy.
But we knew we would be in trouble throwing actual knives so we got a flat head screw driver.
We decided to try to hit the garden hose. On my brothers first throw he hit and it sprung a leak. After fixing the leak we looked for a better target.
We had this plastic rectangle that was the logo from a pair of jeans. We tried to hit it. I could not. This lead to much teasing after big brother could hit the garden hose. So between throws he would also kick it so I couldn’t get a good bead on the target. Finally it ended up at my feet, on the concrete sidewalk.
I threw the screwdriver, which actually hit the target. However it hit on the butt end and bounced streaight back up at my eye.
I closed it at the last second.
I had a little cut on my eyelid. No stiches but a nice eyepatch.
My borther once got up for a midnight snack. (it was a phase he went through) Anyway bigsister hears him and calls him into her room. She was a pb&j as well and orders him to make it and bring it to her. However he can’t open the apricot jelly. He takes the jar to her so she can open it. She opens the jelly and then (in a completly dark room) pushes the jar up to my brother. But she dosen’t see that he is bending over he and the lip of the jelly jar cut him right between the eyes.
3 stiches at 2 in the morning for a midnight snack.
I couldn’t wait for some chicken breasts to defrost fully so I took a knife and tried to pry them apart. Yeah, you can see this one coming a mile away. My hand slipped off the handle and ran down the blade, neatly slicing the skin open at the bottom of my little finger. It was necessary of course to go to A & E to get it sewn up because it couldn’t be plastered up and it was on a joint so would need something more secure.
But semi serious (though dumb) as it was, people wouldn’t take it seriously. “Stitches, in that. Why?”
4 years ago in junior high, i was forced to do a practice run for the 200 meter in gym class, i didnt want to cuz i wasnt feeling good, but they made me none the less, so i ran, n beat everyone, so i was so happy i did a lil vioctory dance which included me still running n turning around with my arms in the air, next thing i know, SNAP! there goes the cartiledge in my knee n me tumbling over in pain on gravel…the stupid teacher thought i was faking my screaming profanity n what not, so she ignored me, so im laying there, throwing rocks n a shoe at her to get her attention…stupid dumbass…anyways, now if u feel under my left knee cap, theres a gap wheres cartiledge is suppose to be and it hurts all the time, i think im gettin arthristis, i should have gotten surgery but no, too much of a pain in the ass to go through…
another one was i was at a party, a year later after the knee thing, same day too, same leg too, damn, anyways i was drinkin, n dancing around, being a retard like any drunk would be, hehe, n from what people tell me, i slipped on a feather duster thast was layuin on the ground n dislocated my ankle, me bieng too drunk to care, even i thought i sure as hell felt it, i stood up on it and somehow popped it back into place, my ankel went from normal to about 5 times it size in about 5 seconds, that was so gross, got to stay home for a week tho, and only severely spained it
Once my hubby and I were engaged in “relations” I was on my back with my feet on his shoulders and his hands were supporting my ankles.
Our dog hearing the commotion decided to jump there and investigate. Let’s just say a cold dog nose applied to a man’s bare buttocks is apt to make said man jump. This combined with the dog walking on the waterbed caused hubby to lose his balance and fall forward with my feet still in hand and I ended up with my knees on either side of my ears and a sharp pain in my right hip.
I was not able to stand on that leg so I went to the ER and told them how I did it. I was diagnosed with a tendon sprain and told to take ibuprophen and stay off it for a few days. My injury was classified as a “sports injury”. Snicker snicker.
Oh, boy. I have two - Two! - as a fully-functional (no snarky remarks, please) adult.
Age: 27. I was living in a microscopic studio apartment in the West Village. The kitchen was a veritable museum of domestic life - it had a ca. 1955 refrigerator, a ca. 1935 gas range with no thermostat for the oven, a deep, double sink designed for laundry, and no cabinets (this latter is important).
The sink had a removable cover that would fit nicely over either one of the two basins. So I slid the cover over the right basin, plopped a dish drainer down on the cover and just used the drainer to store all of my dishes and cutlery. The arrangement permanently blocked the right basin, but that was OK by me.
Of course I didn’t have much to store - just enough for one bachelor. The one good thing I had was a Henckel 4-Star boning knife I’d bought on 60% sale at Macy’s. Beautiful, wicked-sharp. I put it in the dish-drainer’s cutlery bin…
blade up.
And one day as I reached for the tap I somehow struck my forearm onto the blade. Blood everywhere. I grab my arm to stanch the bleeding, fumble with my keys, and proceed to walk three short blocks to St. Vincent’s Hospital - looking like an extra from Carrie and scaring the wits out of three women exiting a restaurant. (“Oh, my god! Do you need help?!” “No, thanks - the emergency room’s right there, I’ll be fine.”)
Three stitches, and an admonition that I’d come within 1 cm of severing the main nerve controlling my right hand. Plus I got to find out what the most difficult surface to remove set-in human bloodstains from is: of all things, stainless steel. Despite all my chemical and physical attacks, my KitchenAid mixer bowl retained little droplets for years thereafter.
Age 30. When drinking canned sodas, I had this habit of playing with the little pulltab. Usually I’d wiggle it back and forth until it broke off, and then just drop it into the can (we can tell where this is going, can’t we?). So I do this, take a big GLURP to finish the can, and set it down, shaking it as I do so to make sure the pulltab’s there.
No sound.
Shake-shake-shake!
No sound.
Stare in.
Nothing.
Oh shit.
Somewhere in my apartment I have the photographs the doctors took with the endoscope as they retrieved the tab from my stomach. It did no damage - the photo shows the thing just sitting there, resting peacefully.
#1: Taking the groceries into the house. I was carrying too many items and couldn’t see anything. The cat threw himself at my feet (which he does all the time, and which is no problem when you can SEE HIM). I tripped over him and in the process of trying to steady myself, I dropped the 1/2 gallon glass jug of rum on my toe. I swear, it was just like in cartoons…little birds going around my head, stars and lightning bolts shooting out of my foot. I though I was going to die.
#2: (This one is not for the faint of heart) Whilst fishing with my ex in Kentucky, we were in a tight tree area and I had my head down while he cast his line. After I heard the swoosh of his pole, I lifted my head and he came back a second time and caught me right in the friggin’ eye. Tore my eyelid halfway off, smashed the hell out of my eyeball, and busted my nose. I wouldn’t let anyone touch me so all they could see was blood running through my fingers and down my arms. And everyone was concerned that my eyeball was at the bottom of the lake. They carried me back up the embankment and drove over 100 miles to a hospital that was equipped to handle the injury. Believe it or not, I got 100% of my vision back. I’m no longer a big fan of fishing though.
[ul]
[li]1968, Age 4. Staying with my grandparents while my mom’s in the hospital giving birth to my sister and recuperating from the c-section. The house was an old Arkansas delta farmhouse a few hundred yards from the White River. Hence the house was raised on pilings six feet or so off the ground. A large open porch ran the width of the front of the house, with a wooden floor painted with that flat gray floor paint. With all the dust from the dirt road and the fields that surrounded the house, the porch surface was quite slick, especially if you were wearing only socks. On the day my mom and sister were supposed to come home, I was wearing only socks, and was amusing myself by running partway across the porch and then stopping suddenly and sliding most of the rest of the way. On one traverse, I slid all of the rest of the way, plus a bit. Sailed right off the end of the porch and landed, head first, on one of the bricks my grandmother had used to edge the flower bed below. There were some other relatives visiting my grandparents at the time, and they were all standing around the cars parked 100 feet or so away from me, talking. I could see them – I distinctly recall the tableau to this day, 34 years later, but I was apparently too stunned to say anything, or had had the wind knocked out me. Piecing together the evidence later, the best estimate is that I laid there for 10 or 15 minutes before anyone saw me. There was blood everywhere, and I continued to bleed all over my grandmother as one of my uncles drove us into town to the doctor (about 15 miles, but much of it over dirt roads). Ended up with six stitches in the back of my head and a lifelong excuse for any mental lapses I commit.[/li]
1976. Age 12. We’d just bought or been given one of those cheap badminton/volleyball sets with the really thin and flimsy net supported by a pair of thin and flimsy two-piece poles, made by rolling a long, thin piece of steel along it’s longest axis to make a tube, the top one fitting into the lower one. We’d tried one location for the net, and finding that it didn’t answer well, were in the process of moving it. The lower piece of one of the poles, however, proved somewhat recalcitrant. After several attempts, I got serious, straddling the pole, bending over to grip the pole fairly close to the ground, and gave it the biggest jerk I could manage. It promptly released its grip on the earth, or vice versa, and I implanted the fairly sharp upper end squarely in my upper lip. To this day I have a neat little crescent-shaped scar running from the bottom of my right nostril down to the middle of my philtrum.[/ul]
I’m notorious for stapling myself to sets. Really, it happens a lot.
Stapled myself to The Red Green Show by trying to use one of those hammer-like staplers to staple some burlap to the mullions (the thin wooden bits that criss-cross the glass) of a window (no glass, it was a touring stage set). I knew it would happen because I had to brace the mullions with my hand (otherwise I’d whack them to pieces) AND hold the burlap in place with the same hand, leaving barely enough space between my fingers for the stapler to whack. So I thought to myself “I’m going o get stapled to a set again…” and proceeded to whack a staple into my thumb.
Witnessed event: Guy working on a heavy mould-press thingamajig mashed his thumb. Eveyone stared in awe – he had a Wile E. Coyote thumb! Huge, round and flat like a wooden spoon. Must’ve done a helluva lot of nerve damage (or was in serious shock) because he kept saying “but I don’t feel anything!”. Despite the horror, the sight of his flat, Wile E. Coyote thumb made everyone laugh hysterically (victim included – he looked rather proud of himself actually). IIRC he lost the tip of his thumb.
I don’t know if it can really be called stupid, but I was playing second base in a JV baseball game, and the batter hit a pop fly to me. I couldn’t see anything on account of the sun. I saw it at the last second, and the ball hit right on the joint of my left thumb, and tore some ligament. The joint is still screwed up.
Another baseball injury that isn’t really stupid but I feel I must share, during an outfield drill, a teammate lost a fly ball in the sun, and it hit him right on the head, while he was looking up the whole time. He had a concussion from that.
While on a road trip with my mom at age ~15, I was staying at a Youth Hostel and went to take a shower. Big communal bathroom. After taking the shower, I realize that I forgot to bring my towel across the room to the shower with me.
Oh well. Except that I was self-conscious, and really didn’t want to have to walk across the bathroom in the nude, so I decided to wait until no one was around and then dash over to get my towel. I made it about one step into the dash when I slipped on the very wet tile floor and landed hard on my tailbone.
I tried to get up, but that wasn’t happening. I was seriously in pain every time I tried to bend at the waist. So I lay there on my back, absolutely motionless, for about 15 minutes, until somebody finally came in and took pity on me. He put my towel over me, and went to find my mother, after which I had one of the most embarrassing conversations of my life (doesn’t quite top the one where my stepmother “explained” masturbation to me several years later), relayed through this complete stranger about how I would be okay.
With the aid of painkillers, I eventually was able to get up and make it back to the room. Nothing was broken, just horribly bruised. I could hardly sit for a week though.
When I was about 5 I noticed that my father threw out a razor blade. I figured that he threw it out because it was dull, and therefore, could not cut anything. So I took it out of the garbage and commenced to playing with it. I still have the scar from the stitches on my hand.
Ok, ok! that’s enough of the “retard” comments. I was only 5.:rolleyes:
This was about Oct 1995, the time of the hourly rate that AOL charged at that time for internet access. I was a big fan of chat, in there every night even to the countdown to the 2:00 something shut down.
It was about 11:00 at night, I really needed to pee but didn’t want to leave my 'puter as I was having fun in chat. (AOL actually was fun then, not so many jerk offs then.)
Anyhow, it got to a point where my bladder was about to burst. I tell my chat friends that I will BRB…ran towards the bathroom (on the other end of the house I lived in) and jammed my little toe on the dining room table very hard. I broke it, it was obvious. Oh and the pain!!! The pain!!! I sat there, bladder about to burst crying, holding on to my toe and thinking, this was really stupid.
It took about 7 months to heal because you can’t do shit for a broken toe.
Running head first into a bed. Cut my forehead open and needed several stitches and I still have the scar. (the bed had a cast-iron frame which my head hit when I was running full-speed and tripped)
Falling head-first into a fish pond. Needed a few stitches and I still have a faint scar. It is just such a silly thing to do ! A fish pond !
When I was in Jr. High, I took a cooking class…one of the dishes I learned to make was an omelet that you started on the stove, but finished in the oven, in a cast-iron skillet. I was so impressed with myself that I decided to show off to my family by replicating it at home for breakfast one Saturday. Everything went well right up until I reached into the oven to pull the cast-iron skillet out of the oven…without an oven mitt. I’d just branded myself with the skillet logo…
When I was 14 I was the goalie for my schools hockey team (not ice hockey, hockey played on grass). One time I tried to slide towards the ball, and my left leg was pulled underneath me. My foot ended up somewhere around my head.
At the emergency ward they said I had sprained my ankle, and gave me some crutches
About 3 days later, one of the screws on a crutch came loose, and the damn thing collapsed. I dropped straight down, and broke my damn arm.
After they had put my arm in plaster they decided that I had actually fractured my ankle and put a couple of screws in my leg.
Well, it might not be quite so stupid as putting a stick back into your eye, but it’s more a sort of prolonged mild boneheadedness.
This is a witnessed injury, rather than one I actually incurred. I was a counselor in training at a Girl Scout camp where we had those platform tents–a raised wooden platform with a frame for the canvas tent.
One of the campers (about 9 years old) decided that rather than walking up the steps to the platform, she was going to hoist herself into the tent by grabbing the edge of the metal cot. There’s a lip around the platform, so she could have done this…had it not been for the fact that these were collapsible cots. Basically, she got one foot up on the edge of the
platform and the other just off the ground when the cot’s legs folded in on itself.
Fortunately, she was more scared than hurt—the underside of the cot slid along the top of her head so that her hair got caught in the springs and she fell to the ground with the cot on top of her. It was one of those things where I was just close enough to see it happening but not close enough to prevent it, though all of us bolted towards her as soon as we saw what she was doing.
