# What's the weirdest injury you have sustained? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 26, 2003, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499 "2003-06-26T13:29:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![booklover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@booklover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/booklover)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/61 "2003-06-27T19:51:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by WILLASS \* > \*\*My other weird injury happened about 7 years ago, I woke up in the morning to find I had impaled the cartilidge in the end of my nose on the corner of my open tape deck and it was wedged firmly in. I had to steel myself before pulling it out and it made my eyes water for a long time. Still to this day the cartilidge is still slightly exposed and becomes more so if I have a cold because the wiping breaks the weak covering of skin. \*\* Whaa…? Did you fall asleep by the tape deck and then roll over on it, or what? I’m having a really hard time picturing this. My weirdest injury actually occurred pretty recently…a couple months ago, I was out walking and enjoying the wonderful spring weather. I became fascinated with identifying the different flowers in someone’s yard and walked right into one of those 6" high iron railings that guard the public trees in that neighborhood, fell over it, removing most of the skin from my shin and resulting in a sprained ankle that took about three weeks to heal fully. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/62 "2003-06-27T20:03:38Z")
Mine? 7 years old, burned by a marshmallow. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/63 "2003-06-27T20:07:24Z")
The alien anal probing kind of hurt. ---
**Author:** ![mrunlucky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@mrunlucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrunlucky)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/64 "2003-06-27T20:53:37Z")
When I was a kid, I was playing tag with some friends. The girl whose house we were at had a huge cactus on the front porch. I ran out the door, and someone followed me. When they pushed me aside, I literally sat down on top of the cactus. My mom had to remove about 40 spines from my rear with tweezers. Also when I was a kid, I was really skilled at accidentally slamming my fingers in the car door, from the outside of the car. Fortunately I never broke a finger doing that. Years back, in a house I was renting, we put an old couch in the hallway. One night, I ran through the hallway for some reason, and hit my foot on the couch. I fractured my little toe on my right foot. Since it was a fracture, there was nothing the doctors could do about it. I had to just let it heal. My toe carried this awful throbbing, stinging sensation for weeks. What was worse was I had a job that involved plenty of walking so I had to learn to adapt to the pain and carefully wait it out for my toe to heal. ---
**Author:** ![Mariachi\_Kitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@Mariachi\_Kitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mariachi_Kitty)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/65 "2003-06-27T21:52:16Z")
Two Words: Jones Fracture. It’s a simple break in a really bad spot. And it’s weird because I never knew this break existed, and never dreamed that such a small bone would had such a huge impact on my life. In my case it was basically a torque-induced break in a very specific area of the 5th metatarsal. It’s named after this Dr. Jones who had this non-healing break (I think in the late 1890’s) and then spent time figuring out why his one night of dancing resulted in a life-time of foot pain. This small area doesn’t get a lot of blood flow. While this means the break is not as painful as most, it also means that it heals VERY slowly, if at all, without surgical intervention. I was lucky. After four months of non-union, finally it started to mend. Here’s how it happened: I was going from the pool to the locker room at a local health club and was wearing flip-flops. (My rule now is: Never wear flips-flops!) I had to go down a small set of stairs and slipped. The front part of my foot went left and the back part twisted right. I heard a crack. I was able to walk on my foot for about .5 seconds before the pain became too great. I was in a hard cast for 2 months, a walking cast for another 3 or 4 and on crutches much of that time. I spent about 4 and a half MONTHS in total of not being able to put any weight on that foot. I was in PT for 3 months, too, at the end of it all. I still can’t walk barefoot on it. And the whole reason I was at the gym was to see if I wanted to join so I could start exercising – yea, I got a lot of exercising done that year. (Although my biceps were huge from all the crutch walking.) By the way…having to have someone help you out of your wet swimsuit, put on your clothes, help you hop out of the bulding and then have to go to the hospital with dried, chlorine-filled hair is not my idea of a fun Friday night. Oh, and since it was my right foot, I couldn’t drive my (no lie) BRAND NEW CAR while I had the hard cast on. And that meant I got rides from my coworkers, bless them profusely. However, since I lived up a flight of stairs and never got the hang of doing stairs on crutches, it meant a whole slew of people I worked with saw me go up/down the stairs on my butt. That’s the way to reinforce your professional image. And I was in New England, and it was constantly icy, so walking outside with the crutches was fun, even with the ice picks. Oh, and shoveling out from 10 inches of snow is a treat under these circumstances, too. Man, that year sucked. ---
**Author:** ![Mariachi\_Kitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@Mariachi\_Kitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mariachi_Kitty)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/66 "2003-06-27T22:00:01Z")
Oh yea, I forgot this part: Midway through the healing process, I broke a toe on my other foot by slamming it into one of the crutches while walking barefoot. That was nice. ---
**Author:** ![Peach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/67e7ee/32.png) [@Peach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peach)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/67 "2003-06-27T23:24:22Z")
when i was a kid (about 12) i was attacked by a dog (his owners said he didn’t bite, ya right!) I was petting this dog when next thing i knew, he growled and lunged for my face! My short life flashed before my eyes and i thought that i would be disfigured forever. But somehow the dog only bit my lips (!!) and they swelled up to 10 times the size of my normal lips. I looked like a clown for about 2 weeks but luckily no stiches or scar!!😃 ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/68 "2003-06-28T00:47:37Z")
heh - I was eating lunch at work, I it was some sort of noodle dish. Well, one of the noodles kinda slipped off the fork and I lurched to keep it from landing on me. Threw my back out. Could barely walk. Yep, noodle injury. ---
**Author:** ![Flowerchild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/858c86/32.png) [@Flowerchild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flowerchild)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/69 "2003-06-28T00:55:47Z")
Okay, 2 more. 1. When I was about ohhh, 6 , I was playing around in my living room. The game:Play hop-skotch with pillows, I figure it’ll be fun cause I can fall and I’ll just land on the pillow. Anyway, I jump on the pillow, it slides out from under me, I land flat on my back, get the winf knocked out of me and i briuse my tailbone. 2.I’m running through the house in a normal child like mania. I run through my kitchen , and for no reason at all I just kick my foot out, it cracks right up against the leg of a chair and I hear a crack. Thinking nothing of it, I’m already up the kitchen stairs before i notice the pain. Turns out i had broken my “Ring Toe”. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/70 "2003-06-28T01:03:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by enipla \* > \*\*heh - > > I was eating lunch at work, I it was some sort of noodle dish. Well, one of the noodles kinda slipped off the fork and I lurched to keep it from landing on me. Threw my back out. Could barely walk. > > Yep, noodle injury. \*\* I once threw my back out while sitting in bed. I was already in a bit of pain and wanted something to put under my legs to prop them up. Bent over and **ARRRRGH**! Not fun. Off work for nearly a week and was totally zoned out on meds my first day back. ---
**Author:** ![skeptic\_ev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@skeptic\_ev](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skeptic_ev)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/71 "2003-06-28T01:42:36Z")
I thought I was a clumsy kid … you guys have me feeling really good about myself. So since I don’t think I can measure up to these stories personally, this little anecdote is about one of my husband’s younger cousins. When he was about, oh, 12 or so, he somehow impaled his eye on a stick. (A tree climbing may have been involved; I don’t remember for sure.) So of course he lost that eye. Don’t feel too sorry for him, though; he gets a lot of mileage out of his glass eye. He takes it out and throws it at people. ---
**Author:** ![XCchick22](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/e19b73/32.png) [@XCchick22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XCchick22)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/72 "2003-06-28T02:54:33Z")
Remembered another one. I was at my friend’s birthdy party a month or so ago and some guys were throwing a football around. One ducked, and I got hit in the mouth. My lip swelled up like you would not believe. It took a week for that to go down. Not so great of a thing to happen when you have a job as a hostess at a restaurant. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/73 "2003-06-28T02:55:23Z")
Another bed injury: Last year I woke up with my right shoulder hurting terribly, and totally unable to use the arm. I managed to get some pants on (the baggy ones I could do up one-handed) and get the good arm into a shirt draped around the bad shoulder, and headed off in a cab to the emergency room. I thought I might have dislocated the shoulder rolling over at the wrong angle, but no - the ball at the top was broken right off. I’ve got a replacement joint in there now. At least if **Zyada** had been around I could have blamed her for getting carried away (some of us have that effect on women :rolleyes: ), but I did it all by myself. Unless it was the ghosts or demons one cabbie suggested … ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/74 "2003-06-28T05:17:30Z")
In third grade, I was racing my friend Adrienne down a concrete ramp when I tripped and fell. I managed to scrape about half the skin from around my eye socket off. In the same year, I flipped over a worksheet and got a papercu on my eye. ---
**Author:** ![SkyBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@SkyBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkyBum)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/75 "2003-06-28T05:46:16Z")
I was having a particularly amourous encounter with my girlfriend one afternoon and as I was trying to get some traction from the dresser, I accidentally got one of my toes stuck in the dresser drawer (don’t ask me, it just happened) and sprained it severely. I didn’t notice the sprain until a bit later… ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/76 "2003-06-28T06:58:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aranea \* > **December 2000, I was walking along the beach on Virgin Gorda, one of the BVIs. I was hit from the side by a waist-high wave that spun me around. Well, actually, it spun MOST of me around. My right foot had been about ankle-deep in the sand at the time, so it stayed put. The pivot point was my right knee, which gave way with a horrible hollow pop. The current dragged me out several feet, causing me to experience a near-drowning occurrence, while simultaneously enjoying the sensation of feeling my kneecap bob around on the side of my leg, where it is definitely not supposed to be.** Oh Aranea, you now know the pain I experienced frequently as a child. Both my kneecaps would pop out of joint if I so much stubbed my toe, stopped myself on a swing, jumped in bed and in various other scenarios. My Dad would have to grab my lower leg and yank it straight to get the offending kneecap (or kneecaps) to go back into place. Oh, the joys of childhood! A couple operations (Hey, wanna see my scars?) and growing bones seemed to have cured that but the memories of the pain still make me cringe. Um, other wierd accidents. I’ve got a cool scar on my chin from when I tried to shave when I was three. When I was a little older, I impaled my foot on a nail sticking out of a piece of driftwood. My parents had to pack up all the kids and get me to the hospital for a tetnus shot. I remember that my brother wasn’t happy about having his day at the beach ruined. I wasn’t happy with the shot. I went down a slide one time and didn’t put my feet out to stop myself at the end since I’d learned such things tended to pop my kneecaps out. Instead, I plummeted straight down a foot and a half at the end of the slide and jammed all my vertabrae together. My brother wasn’t happy with his day at the playground ruined. I wasn’t happy with the pain. All in all, I’ve grown into a pretty cautious adult. ---
**Author:** ![meyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ccd318/32.png) [@meyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meyer)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/77 "2003-06-28T07:29:53Z")
I cut myself on a Shreddie once. ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/78 "2003-06-28T08:23:16Z")
My most memorable injury isn’t so much weird in itself, but in the eventual results. I was playing with a friend of mine in the little yard in front of his apartment building. He was careful to show me where the drainage grate was missing, and told me how people slipped into the foot-wide, foot-and-a-half deep square hole all the time. A few minutes later, I was standing next to it and he pushed me – my foot went out to catch myself, right into the hole, which ended right at my knee. Knee commences pain. I commence to cut playtime short and ride my bike (!) back up the street to my apartment. Putting ice on it, I discover there’s a big ol’ lump below my kneecap. Well duh, I think, it’s a sprain, that’s swelling. Then the lump didn’t go away. Several months later my parents take me to the doctor and we discover that I have a picture-perfect case of [Osgood-Schlatter Disease](http://familydoctor.org/handouts/135.html) – literally, the doc showed me the picture in a medical book and my x-ray was actually a much clearer, beautifully defined specimen. No big deal, eh? OSD goes away on its own. I stayed out of PE for a while, then shrugged and went back to life. A few years later, it started bugging me again. _Really_ bugging me. By the time my sixteenth birthday rolled around my parents gave me a cane as a present and it was probably the best present I got that year. I started working with an orthopedist, who tried every trick in the book to make it go away – braces, immobilizers, anti-inflammatory drugs, ultrasound, bone growth stimulator, physical therapy, you name it. He ended up having to operate (the first time in over 30 years of practice he’d ever seen a case of OSD need surgery!) and I have a beautiful three-inch scar, a lump, and a built-in barometer to this day. Kinda funny how a picture-perfect case of OSD turned into such an exceedingly unusual one. Oh, and I’ve been burned by a popcorn seed falling into my sock, cut my foot open running past a drill my dad had left on the floor, and nicked a nipple while shaving my underarms. Not, um, all at once. ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/79 "2003-06-28T16:47:12Z")
I’m feeling better and better about myself the further along we go in this thread. Let’s see… Five years old, parents out for an evening on the town, my sister (12) and brother (14) locked me out of the house as a joke (our older sister was upstairs doing her homework). I panicked (was afraid of the dark) and put my hand through the glass top of the storm door. Still have the scar. Six years old, put a pencil halfway through my hand, right underneath the pinky finger. Not sure how I managed that one. About 10 years old, racing a neighborhood girl on my bike, turned momentarily to see how far back she was, turned to look ahead, slammed full-speed into the back of a parked car. Wound up with an injury much like **FisherQueen’s**. Couple of years ago, I was reaching for a bag of suger in the cabinet over the stove. Somehow knocked off a full bottle of vegetable oil, which proceeded to whack me in the head. Knocked myself out for a few minutes. About a year ago, was moving a 6’ ladder from one end of a room to the other. _Thought_ I’d cleared the top of the ladder, but I was wrong. Dropped a hammer onto my head. Those last two incidents explain an awful lot… ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499/80 "2003-06-28T17:22:42Z")
Well, if we’re all gonna bring up old injuries… 5 yrs old. My brother and I are playing catch with Daddy’s camping hatchet thingy he had from the military. Bubba made a baddish throw, I missed it, and my foot had a brand new hole in it! 3rd grade art class. We’re using some pretty damn sharp sissors to cut some rather thick mats. I braced the mat between my left hand and the desk so I could make this rather involved curvy cut, lost my balance somehow, and shoved a siss (one side of the sissors) _all the way through_ my left thumb. Well, I was bleeding all over my art project, so I went up to teacher and asked if I could go get a bandaid at the school nurse. She didn’t even look up, just said, “Yeah.” So, after leaving a trail of blood spots all the way down the hall, I get to the nurse’s office. Can’t open the stupid huge door because my hand keeps slipping on the knob. I kick at it to knock on the door and the nurse says, “It’s unlocked!” I say, “I can’t open it.” and the nurse comes out all ready to berate me for making her get up. When she sees my hands all covered in blood and a rather messy doorknob and a fair sized puddle on the tile, she almost panics. My parents actually got called to the school to take me to the doctor for the right shots. (Hands, feet, go ahead… call me Jesus!) 12 yrs old, summer, at my uncle’s farm… Me and cuz’n decide to play Jump Off the Barn. Fun game. On the 10th or so try, I break my ankle. 15 or so years ago… Ladder won’t reach high enough for this one particular repair, so I back the truck up to the house, put the extension ladder on top of the tool box, and climb up. Stupid manual tranmission decides it wasn’t completly in gear and I end up with a dislocated shoulder. And, it was hard to get out of the situation becuse I was now wedged in a strange position between the ladder and the house. Good times… Add this to my earlier reply and you might think I’m accident prone. But, I’m not. I just get injured a lot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-weirdest-injury-you-have-sustained/184499.md?page=5)