I’ve had my share of bites and scratches from dogs and cats, nothing worse than some localized pain and swelling, the odd bit of blood, but have never needed to go to the emergency room.
Oddly enough, back in the day my dad and his wife had an unruly doberman. That ferkakte dog bit me in the nuts so many times I lost count. Fast-forward 30 years later and I find out that Mrs. Homie and I can’t have kids, due in no small part to a below-average sperm count. I’m not in a position to say that my repeated testicular trauma at a young age contributed, but it does make one think…
I was attacked by a swarm of wasps and received many stings - I spent the next few hours battling what felt like a terrible fever and my heart was racing faster than I have ever known. I reckon a dozen more stings might have done me in completely.
Mrs. Shark was bit multiple times last month when she got in the middle of a dog disagreement (our ancient dog and one of the young 'uns are suddenly not getting along). She grabbed Old Guy and he freaked out and bit blindly. Lots of blood on all participants.
My dad says I stepped on a beehive when I was 2 or 3. Totally swollen about the face and neck. I don’t recall. The one I do was as a teenager an unruly mostly grown steer tossed me against the wall with its head. Bruised ribs, maybe cracked. Never bothered to check which it was.
I was kicked by a big horse when I was teen. I was holding the bridle of one horse and another one was milling about, he freaked out and kicked, and my ribs cage took the force of one hoof and my elbow the other. Broken arm and ribs.
My ratterrier was injured by jumping off the porch, I went to render aid and she bit my hand several times. It was a bloody snarling mess, we got a blanket around her and got her in a carrier, went to vet, her knee cap was out of joint. Took 2 sec. To fix it. My hand took stitches and weeks to heal.
When I was about 10 or 11 I tried to save a mole from a cat. The bloody thing latched onto the web between my thumb and forefinger. I hope the cat ate it.
I got nailed by a stingray just above the ankle. It was painful but not horrible. The lifeguards took good care of me–cleaned up the wound and had me soak it in a bucket of HOT water for about 45 minutes. It was a little sore afterwards but not too bad.
I think it was a horse fall. At the time, my horse was blind in one eye. She was generally pretty steady despite that. On this particular day, however, several other riders lost control of their horses, who bolted and ran past us. My horse whirled and bolted with the others. I came off in the middle of a group of running horses.
All things considered, it was much better than it could have been. No one stepped on me. Concussion, sprained shoulder, bruising in the face, bandage on the nose, for some reason I don’t recall. I had the wind knocked out of me. There’s that horrible moment where you can’t breathe, and can’t figure out how to breathe, but I eventually got it all working again. My horse came to find me and gave me the whole “whatcha doin’ down there” nudge. My coach was old fashioned, so it was back up for an easy walk around the arena, before I got off and went to urgent care for treatment.
I grew up in a rural semi-poor area and at the time didn’t know any better, so we’d play roughly with our cats. I’d tickle the cat and encourage it to latch onto my arm with all four feet and lift it into the air, or let it “disembowel” my arm with back claws. Laughing the whole time.
Then I grew up and realized that handling them gently makes them sweeter, generally better for everyone!
Want to add something that didn’t actually injure me, but was a masterful bit of skill and grace: when our 80-pound greyhound was somewhat new to us, one day when I came home from work, he was overjoyed and did this, all in the span of about 2 seconds: ran into the room, reared up on hind legs and without touching me with his front feet, poked his nose in my left eye before I could blink, then walked away. It did hurt a bit, actually, and I didn’t appreciate looking at the world through dog snot for the next ten minutes. But I did appreciate his athleticism!
I’ve mentioned this one before( 17 years on this board, most of my stories are old ), but bit in the eye by a rat snake. More of a punch really - hit me open-mouthed and a few teeth went through my eyelid and into the sclera. Bled like a stuck pig for a minute or two and turned half my eye black for several days or thereabouts. Healed up fine, though :).
I’ve never been hurt bad, but as a kid every time I did my parents freaked out. They’re both nurses and my dad was an ER nurse for years. A lot of what he saw was animal bites that turned out to be pretty bad.
I grew up next to public but fairly rural park. We often (probably half a dozen times a year) had people abandon dogs and cats at the park. Since our house was the closest these kittens and puppies would show up at our place, scared and hungry. My dad invested in a good Havahart trap and would try to trap them and then take them to the local animal shelter where they would be tamed up a bit and then adopted out. Usually it worked well.
Once we trapped a tiny (but weaned) orange kitten. I don’t remember what was wrong with it but it had some sort of wound. Dad opened the cage to pull it out to take a closer look and the cat, suddenly terrified, attacked—not him, but me. Those little teeth were fucking sharp. I had my finger bandaged for several days. I don’t remember my mentioning rabies, but I’d be surprised if he wasn’t concerned about that.
Another time, when I was about 10, I found a snake in the grass. Being a dumb 10 year old I gave it a few pokes with a stick… and of course got a nice bite for my trouble. I was only used to garter snakes, which never bit, so I was more shocked that injured. However, the adrenaline soon kicked in and I was sure I’d just been bitten by a rattlesnake (it was brown). The bite actually did no damage, but the shock and subsequent freakout was pretty bad.
But the worst?
Yep. Same here. Ran over an underground yellowjacket nest with the lawnmower. I actually posted here about it, and my subsequent adventures in locating and destroying the nest. I received, IIRC, 11 stings. I had to be driven to the urgent care for the same symptoms: dizzy, hot, racing heart rate. They told me that it was just an adrenaline response, but they gave me a script for an epi pen nonetheless.