When I was about 9 or so, we had a futon couch. It had a wooden frame and a foam couch part. Well, the arm reats resembled those bars they have on playgrounds that you can flip over. I thought “Hmm… we don’t have a flip over bar here, but that armrest sure looks like one, I think I’ll try it out.” well my ingenious plan failed. Instead of flipping in a full circle, I slammed my face into the wooden frame, that I had some how forgotten existed, and I bit clean through my lip. No stiches, I don’t think my parents even took me to the doctor, but it was pussy and gross for a while. I still have the scars too. Two little marks on the inside of my bottom lip.
When I was 4, I jumped out of our mini van expecting to go for a walk, but ended up sliding down a cliff/steep ravine. Luckily I was able to catch myself on a hole in the ground. My mom started freaking out and tried to reach me, but then she fell too. So here I was, this little 4 year old with her mother hanging onto her leg, while hanging on for dear life to a hole in the ground. Luckily my dad was able to flag down a bunch of drunk guys and they tied some blankets together and made a rope and saved us. I was really scraped up from that though. I have little scars all over my legs and arms.
There was also that time when I walked into a table and had to get stiches over my eye. I was only 3 at the time, so I’m not sure it counts.
When I was about five, I was riding double on the back of someone’s bike.
My foot slipped off the wheel nut thingy that you rest your feet on.
And went through the spinning spokes.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
My knees are all scarred up from my tomboy years.
I still have a peice of lead/graphite in my right wrist from running up the stairs and subsequently tripping just after I sharpened my new pencil. That was second grade.
Can I list Mr. Ujest’s injuries?
On our first date, he broke his ankle. Dancing. Slipped on some water on the bar’s dance floor.
He has a hole in his back that was from something to do with a nail gun.This was BS (Before Shirley) It looks like a freckle, but upon closer inspection, it is a little hole.
Mr. Ujest - whilst bringing me HOT soup down a flight of stairs- slipped and bounced the entire way down. His tail bone broke through his skin. How he managed not to burn himself with the soup is a miracle.
since his head is shaved, you can see a scar line on the back of his head. it is from when the family dog was running in circles around him while wearing a leash and then Mr. Ujest’s sister knowningly, with malice and forethought, called the dog. Sending her brother to pitch backwards and cracked his head open.
I have a small (15" or so) TV in my room that isn’t quite eye-level with the bed when it is on the stand, so one day I decided to put some old video-game catridges under it to make it higher. I put four or so boxes stacked (approx. 1" high each) underneath the TV, so then I move the wires around for the VCR under it. While lifting the VCR, I ended up shaking the stand and the TV fell on my head.
Another time, when I was around six, my Grandma had just unplugged an iron, I asked if it would be hot after it was just unplugged. She said yes, but I had to touch to be sure…
About a year ago, I was in math class and somehow ended up flinging my mechanical pencil in the air. I figured it would be an easy catch, but it landed with the pencil lead side on my pinky; the pencil lead broke off and it still remains in my pinky (but then again, many people have all sorts of things stuck in their hands, and pencil lead in a pinky is really insignificant).
However, none of my self-induced injuries compare to someone I know who once drank lighter fluid, put his flace on a frying pan so that he would look like Freddy Kruger, and punched through the glass part in a glass/wood door because he thought there was no glass (the door had already been installed).
I was hiking down a large hill by the Mississippi River and decided I was close enough to the bottom to just run the rest of the way. Did I mention I was carrying a hatchet? Wiped out and literally buried the hatchet–right through my jeans and just below my left kneecap. Interesting stuff in there.
It’s the middle of winter, and I’m using a friend’s heated garage to do some basic car maintenance. It’s nice and warm in there, so I’m working in my t-shirt. One of the spark plug wires refuses to come off, so I pull harder. The rubber insulation splits as I pull, so I slide my finger along bare copper wire. This slices my finger open, so I jerk my arm back and my elbow comes into contact with the chimney part of the heater causing a nice burn.
I was finished with a shower and was trying to yank the somewhat wobbly sliding shower doors back into place on their metal tracks. Well, one entire door came loose and crashed down on my foot! Right on top of the toes. Lots of pain and bruising for a while after that. I was lucky the toes weren’t broken. Next time, I will get out of the damn shower first before I start messing with the door. Or maybe I’ll let an expert handle it.
I was working in a paintball store that I used to manage, and I needed to cut a trigger spring. It was about the size of the spring found in most retractable ink pens. I neglected to use the wire cutters that were inconveniently placed in the toolbox (where they were supposed to be) and decided to use a pair of dull, rusty scissors. Of course, as I clipped the spring (which I held in my left hand) I managed to cut a big old chunk o’ palm along with it. The spring went flying, and I looked down to see a giant pair of scissors dangling from my hand. As soon as I opened them, blood went everywhere, and I wound up driving 45 minutes with a rag tied around my hand to the doctor, who gave me 7 stitches, a stern lecture, and a tetanus shot.
A little earlier in life, I had determined that climbing trees was really really fun. I found my way to the top of a tree, a big dead oak. I was only about 5 feet off of the ground (it had fallen and landed at an angle). I decided to slide up a little higher, and as I grabbed a branch that look absolutely perfect to support my weight, it snapped. My little seven year old body fell about six feet to the ground, onto a rock. My right femur snapped three inches below the hip. I was in shock, so of course, I tried to stand up. The aforementioned broken femur popped through the skin, and as I noticed that my right leg felt funny and shouldn’t be quite that red, I passed out. Four months later, I began to walk again.
I’ve stepped on my own toe. My big toe. On my right foot. With my right foot.
I was running upstairs a couple years ago, barefoot, and my toe, being rather long, got caught on the edge of a stair and bent clean under my foot. The whole damn toe. I was unable to bend that toe for at least another year. Then, suddenly, it fixed itself. Feels fine now.
Then there was the time, when I was much younger (about 6 or 7 or so…?) when I was swinging between two desks in class. You know, plant your hands, lift yourself up, and start swinging? My right arm gave out, and I smacked my head hard on the edge of on eof the desks. Sliced the lobe of my right ear clean through. Several stitches, blood everywhere. I think I traumatized all the other kids in class that day.
Then there was the time, also a couple years ago, when I was playing tug-of-war with my friend, using a six-pack ring. He grabbed a knife, and tried to cut it between us. He missed. Slashed my thumb to the bone, and got my index and middle finger as well, just for good measure. Total of about 12 stitches between the thumb and index finger. Blood spattered all over the kitchen, including the ceiling. I had the presence of mind to grap a paper towel, wrap it around my hand, go to the sink, start rinsing my thumb, then passed out.
OMG… some of these things you guys have done… well overall I haven’t really done all that much… and most of them were when I was younger (I’m just 19 and I like to think that I am mature. Though maybe I’m not)
When I was young… I don’t remember how old before school I think… I was at Grandma’s… she had those lovely twirl chairs (the one’s that you sit on and you can twirl around till your sick right?) Well Grandma told me to stop twirling before I fell and broke something… I then proceeded to fall and break my collarbone.
I also distinctly recall slitting my finger with mom’s good scissors because, of course, I had to check how sharp they were.
Most recent (October 2000) I was going shopping. We didn’t have a cart so it was elected for me to go get one. I went outside and got one and was coming back and I decided that it would be fun to try and do like they do in the commercials and stuff… you know run and stand on the end and glide a bit… well I started to do that and BAM I flip the cart and end up with a deep scrape under my right knee. It was bleeding a fair bit but I didn’t wash it off or anything till I got home after shopping which was about an hour later. Well I did blot away most of the blood with a napkin I had in my pocket but that’s it. I now have an inch and a half scar there.
1964 NY Worlds Fair. I must be four and a half, trailing along behind my parents and big sister beside some sort of mall, either with plantings or a pool of water. At any rate, there were small spotlights on the thing, pointed up. Most all of them were off (it was afternoon) but some were on. Little postcards (I was only about three cents then) was going along, putting his hand on each of the bare bulbs. Till I found the first one that was on. Yeouch! The first aid stand woundn’t touch me (I still remember the nurse being in hysterics) and my folks had to take me to Flushing Hospital.
1971(?) Family Kitchen. Pouring the grease from the frying pan into an empty jelly jar (NEVER pour it down the sink). For some reason I was holding the jar instead of leaving it on the countertop. It overflows onto my hand.
1975 Jackson Road. In front of Jerry’s house, holding a small firecracker in my hand. The fuse is miniscule, so I use my cigaret to light it. Thumb, index and middle fingers are numb for a month. Glad I took the cigaret out of my mouth before that stunt.
1988 My Apartment. I bought one of those chest and arm exercisers, the kind that’s about 30 inches long, made of two handles with a heavy spring in the middle? Coming out of the handles, like the streamers on a girl’s bicycle, were loops that you were supposed to wrap around your wrists while you were using it. I found out why. See, if your hands are the least bit sweaty, the thing is gonna slip out of your hand and smack you right in the face. Unless you have the strap around your wrist. I am so happy to have had that frozen turkey, cause there was no ice.
When I was fifteen years old, I picked up a hot cookie sheet without adequate protection. I have a neurological condition that causes me to have decreased sensitivity in my hands and feet. By the time I was aware of danger, it was too late. I had second-degree burns on three of my fingers. It took months for the scars to fade.
When I was seventeen years old, I broke a tooth (first-year molar) while biting a Tootsie Pop. I had to have a porcelain crown put on it.
One I did to myself: When I was a kid, my friend and I were playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (shut up!). I stood on top of a glass coffee table. I was a big kid. Did I mention I was barefoot? I was barefoot. Did I mention I was a moron when I was a kid? I was a moron when I was a kid.
One my mom did to me: When I was a real little kid, I went to visit my dad’s machine shop. My mom jokingly sprayed me with the air compressor… and blew me right off my feet. Knocked out my two front teeth. (Baby teeth, thank God)
One my dad did to himself because of me: My dad got me a hot glue gun to play with, which in and of itself was pretty dumb, because I was about seven. The gun heated the glue up to about 700 bazillion degrees (Farenheight). Naturally, I eventually got some on my hand and was hideously burned. Well, not hideously, but it sure hurt a lot. I screamed my head off, my mom (who had some nurses training) runs hot water on my hand, bandages it, and takes me to McDonalds so I’ll stop crying. We come home, and my dad is holding his hand in a bowl of ice. He had seen me carrying on and thought, “The glue can’t be that hot, can it?” and tested it by squirting a big ol’ glop of it into his hand. And yes, it really was that hot.
My dad’s got lots of these stories. He’s been a machinist for over thirty years, and he only figured out about five years ago that he shouldn’t drink beer and run heavy machinery at the same time.
I was about thirteen and I was cutting an apple with a small knife. I didn’t think the knife was good enough (or I was cutting the apple all wrong) so I went and got myself a butcher knife. It slipped and yadda yadda yadda, there’s a pretty deep scar on my left index finger. I was amazed by how fast the blood came out. I didn’t cut enough to see bone, but I almost did. You could see the layers of skin.
I have managed to drive a garden fork through my big toe. I was doing some digging whilst still a fledgingstretcher and drove the fork as hard as I could (which was quite hard as I always ate my greens) straight into my own foot.
My trip to casualty did improve NHS morale for a while.
I’ve posted this before, but it’s always good for a laugh…
A few years back, university, undergrad. Firewall door. Mechanism for the handicapped, holding it open. Elly walks towards the door, minding her own business. It swings closed. Elly’s forhead enters into an intimate conversation with the sharp corner of said door. Elly passes out. Elly ends up with a fractured skull - i.e. Elly was given a handicap by a door for the handicapped.
Last summer. Cast Iron furniture. Picking up dog toys. Bent over too fast. Forehead enters into another intimate conversation with cast iron chair back. Elly ends up with a fractured skull.
Grade 9. Elly making a hydrogen fuel cell project in the lab with science fair partner. Cool project. Even got a mini grant from the NRC. Elly slices left hand index finger to the bone with a blade. Elly watches the blood start to spew, says, “Hey Martin, check this out! It’s cool! Don’t you think it looks like a springing founta…” and promptly passes out.
Age 5. Elly decides she wants to access books and toys on upper shelf in her bedroom. Can’t reach. Tries stool, boxes, books - no luck, still too short. Elly looks around. Sees tall dresser. Aha, says Elly. Pulls out drawers one by one, to create a staircase with the drawers. Climbs up. Child unaware of the basic laws of physics. The dresser topples on top of child. Broken rib, bruised ribs, and a very very bruised ego.
Here’s one that either requires no explanation or defies explanation, depending on how you look at it: as a teen (i.e., old enough to know better) I found my brother’s old Boy Scout knife. Ran my thumb along the blade to see if it was sharp. It was.
My favorite was a few years back when I managed to plunge a pocketknife into my stomach on accident. I was laying on my mom’s bed talking on the phone, and I found some sort of penknife thing on her nightstand. I absentmindedly played with it while I talked, bouncing it off my stomach. I felt a pang of pain, and looked down to see the knife in my abdomen. I told my friend what I did, and she freaked out. I calmly went into the bathroom, washed off the blood, and held a cloth to it for awhile. No stitches, but I still have the scar
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•Less than two years old. My mother manages to sever the top knuckle of my right ring finger by shutting it in an apartment door. Nail had to be rebedded, and there is a scar that exists to this day.
•Two summers ago: Doing dishes when a steak knife slips out of my soapy grip. Said knife embeds itself in my left foot. Handle sticking straight up. I pull the knife out, try to stop the bleeding, and end up sewing it up myself.
•Doing a comedy show with the improv group I was in at the time, I fell against a wall of the venue, putting my head through the drywall.
•Same venue, different improv group-I accidentally rammed my head through the painted-glass window.
•1990, while drunk at a party, I took a wager where I tried to ram a nail through a 2x4 with my head. I missed my forehead, and opened up a gash in my scalp. The scar is still there to this day.
•Playing wiffle ball in my cousin’s back yard as a child. Second base was one of those heavy metal Water Meter lids. During a close play at second, I decide to slide. 26 stitches.
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I, too, have a pencil lead stuck in my wrist. The family was getting set to go to church one morning when I was about 16 or 17, and we were in a hurry. Dad was cranky because we were running late. In my dash to get into the car, I brought my arm down directly onto a nice sharp pencil that was standing straight up in my super-trendy fringed bag. As I’m staring at the pretty impressive wound in my wrist, my dad crabs about the idea of having to take me to the ER. I told him not to bother (and I may not have done this in a particularly respectful manner), so off to church we went and I still have this little graphite dot to show people.
Then there’s the head wounds… my old bedroom is connected to my brother’s room; you have to go through his to get to mine. He used to have a cork board nailed to the inside of his door, and we all knew it wasn’t very securely nailed. So one evening, as I head for my bedroom, I pull open his door a bit too fast and WHAM, the board swings out and the corner of it cracks me in the head. No scar, but I was bleeding.
More recently I’ve walked into a number of doors and walls. I get it from my mom, who once dropped a frozen turkey on her own foot.
Step-monster had recently purchased a complete set of Corningware cookware. Gives young Dogzilla (about 15) a stern lecture, knowing young Dogzilla is less than coordinated: “If you break any of these, you’ll have to replace them with your babysitting money.” Less than a week later, young Dogzilla is washing said Corningware (They’re glass.) Opens cabinet to carefully put away dish. Glass lid jumps out of cabinet. Fearing penalty of death and loss of babysitting revenues, young Dogzilla reaches out to catch flying glass lid. I did catch it. Right before it shattered on my hand. 5 stitches.
Slightly older Dogzilla agrees to house-sit for boss for three weeks. Boss has hottie 16-year-old son that Dogzilla is responsible for. Dogzilla allows huge keg party for young hottie. House is filled with drunk teenagers. Around 2 am Dogzilla heads downstairs to basement to throw out teenagers so she can get some sleep. Spots a beautiful leather jacket lying on second step from bottom. Not wanting to step on jacket, Dogzilla attempts to jump from third step (from the bottom) to the floor. Ankle twists. Dogzilla invents swear words as she hears bone in foot snap. Hobbled on crutches for six weeks.
Dogzilla is graduating from college tomorrow. Parents are all in town, hounding Dogzilla to start packing since she’s moving home day after. Dogzilla, who doesn’t want to leave college, balks. Finally agrees to start dishes and pack up kitchen at 10 pm. Shoves hand into cracked drinking glass to wash it. Glass breaks. Causes 6 stitches and “D” shaped scar on right hand. Duh.
Grown up Dogzilla goes boating with friends. Boat is pulled on to boat ramp to load on trailer, as trip is over. Dogzilla stupidly attempts to hang on to railing while jumping off the FRONT of the boat. Ramp is mossy and slimy, and covered with steel rivets for “traction.” Dogzilla’s feet slip out from under her, catching middle toenail with rivet. Toenail is ripped off, clean. Dogzilla re-names boat ramp, “Toenail Landing.”
I’m sure I have a dozen more stupid injuries but those are the stupidest.