Was putting my guitar around my neck, when I lifted it up to get my right arm under the strap. I leaned my head forward and smacked my upper lip into the guitar very hard. It hurt so much for a few moments I thought I was going to vomit. My lip was swollen and red all night last night and I still couldn’t drink hot drinks this morning. I was so embarassed I couldn’t even tell my husband what I’d done – I just made sure I was good and asleep before he came to bed.
My first guitar-related injury. I’m a real rocker now.:wally
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.
None of my injuries have been serious, but these three are definitely stupid:
I thought it would be cool to show off by riding my bike, balanced by my hands on the handlebars alone. The first time, it was fine. The second (and last) time, I slipped. Since I was holding my feet far out to either side at the time, I landed on the top tube, WHAM, right on my winkidoo, hard enough to draw blood. I’m just glad I landed exact dead center, rather than crushing either of my testicles. Still, I must say, it wasn’t very comfortable.
Another stupid injury was while playing with my folks’ cat. I learned a valuable lesson: Do no use your face as a kitty toy. The cat sunk one claw deep into my upper lip. After a brief, stunned pause, I jerked my head away. The claw tore through my lip and I was packed off to the ER for stitches. (At the ER, the conversation went like this: “Are you done yet?” “Stop moving your lip!” “Are you done now?” “STOP MOVING YOUR LIP!”)
My best (stupidest) injury was when my dad brought home some liquid nitrogen to play with. He was always bringing home cool things from the lab, and there isn’t a lot that’s cooler than liquid nitrogen. My sister and dad and I were sitting around putting things into the vat of nitrogen, pulling them out, and shattering them on the floor. We shattered a banana. A flower. I tried freezing maple syrup. Of course, to get all these things in and out of the vat, we used tongs. Metal tongs. At some point I pulled the tongs out, and there was some maple syrup on them. Maple syrup is yummy, so I licked the tongs. They stuck fast. “Euuuuuuuh!!” I said. They still stuck. So, not having learned anything from my experience with the cat, I pulled, hard. RIP! I saw fuzzy bits of tongue stuck to the tongs, and felt pain and tasted blood. I ran to the mirror, and there were two bloody stripes torn out of my tongue. Of course, my dad just laughed.
Not mine, but I’m acquainted with someone who, when walking along one day, saw an orange caution cone standing on the walkway. He thought it would be fun to give it a vigorous kick, but there was a solid metal post underneath it.
He’s a physicist. I’m sure he became more aware of the properties of, ahem, solid matter.
I was in my junior high algebra classroom, waiting for class to start. There were a couple other students in there, and I was basically trying to attract attention.
The students’ desks we’re rather L-shaped, so that the back of the chair was connected to the desk. With one hand on the back of the chair, and another on the table surface of the desk, I was jumping back and forth over the connected part. I did this successfully for a few minutes, but on one backwards jump, missed and fell, whacking my head into another desk. Of course, not wanting to be a crybaby, I laughed as if I were fine, got up and sat down. My head was throbbing. I had to leave about halfway through class because the pain was too intense. I don’t remember the excuse I gave my mom as to how I had gotten the huge knot on my head…but a week later, one of the popular girls asked me if I was okay. I said yes, and she said people were talking about me: apparently when I started laughing, the other students thought I was delirious. D’oh.