I got this idea for a thread after seeing a very similar thread over at another forum I browse.
In what ways have people here injured themselves (minor and major injuries)?
Here are some ways I have injured myself…
Two years ago, I woke up to get ready for school. As soon as I got up, I was extremely dizzy. I proceeded to try to walk down the hallway in almost complete darkness when I walked straight into a door. I hit my head on the wall on the rebound and fell down. I didn’t put my hands out to stop me or anything.
There was also a time this past school year when the upperclassmen were having air rifle practice at the range. My group and I were shooting air rifles at the range one time when the cocking lever for my air rifle came down very hard on my left thumb. As soon as I got my thumb out from between the cocking lever and the main part of the rifle, I saw that my thumb was bleeding somewhat badly. There was a little skin coming off and my thumbnail was broken. My left thumb looked quite different for a few weeks after that.
I also remember burning a small area of the palm of my hand while ironing.
There was also the time when I stepped on a rake in my backyard which caused, you guessed it, the long wooden part of it to hit me in the face. I was on the ground for awhile after that one.
Oh, and I have hit myself in the head while drilling /w arms numerous times.
In the summer of 94 I was almost 10. At the time we had a membership to a large olympic sized pool that is local. The pool has a 5 meter diving platform which you get up to using metal stairs. Because people go up it, these stairs get wet. I rushed up the stairs, slipped and banged my chin.
I had to get stitches in that part of my chin.
10 years later…
Summer of 2004.
I don’t have a cell phone, because I have no real need for one. However when I’m home, I’ll occasionally use one of a younger sibling of mine.
I just finished school, I’m at home, sleeping in, when the phone rings. The phone is down the hall from my room. I leap out of bed to answer it, trip, then fall and manage to hit my chin on the doorknob of my door. Very weird I know. So I’m bleeding everywhere, and I figure I’m all right. I was wrong. I had to get stitches again.
Have broken my right arm twice, both ankles, four toes, have had many many stitches in forearm, mouth, and hand. All different incidents. Most involving sport.
I broke my foot not too long ago when it went into a tv when I was trying to navigate my way through my parents attic in the dark. The next day when my foot was cast, I was washing dishes and I cut my thumb to the bone on a knife. I could see muscle, tendon, you name it. It didn’t bleed much, surprisingly. I still needed 4 stitches, I was a mess.
When I was 5 or 6, my sister and cousins and I were swinging from some vines on these huge trees. Well, I vine came flying at me at one point, and hit my eye. A leaf on the vine had managed to give me a papercut on my eyeball. Probably the most excrutiating pain I can remember.
My first concussion (I’ve probably had about 15 or 20 of them) and my first stitches was at about 8 years old. Jumped off a set of stairs at my birthday party, hit the ceiling with my head and ended up in the hospital for stitches. It was cool I could see them stitch up the top of my head in the reflection off my mothers glasses. About that same time I shot a 1911 for the first time and put my thumb up behind the slide, well the slide came back after the first shot and my thumb bent all the way back-wards.
Then there was the time I had one of those hatch doors on a bus where the cargo goes fall on top of my head. That was probably concussion number 4 or 5.
Then there was the time I was riding my bike to work in CO in about 1994 or 1995 and my toe clip broke, my foot went into the front wheel, I stopped immediately and me and the bike did sorta a somersault and I landed flat on top of my head. That was probably concussion 8 or 9. I then had to carry my bike with ataco-ed wheel the rest of the mile and a half or so to work. Me being nauseous and dizzy the whole way.
Then there was the time the back door on a mini-van I was driving for work fell on my head. (concussion about 15 or 16 at this point) Three days later I was still feeling nauseous and went to the hospital for a CAT scan. They didn’t find anything dangerous wrong and sent me home. Well I went to go home and ended up closing a locked car door on my finger. I had to dig the keys out of my right-hand pocket with my left hand to get the locked door open to free my finger, back to the hospital I go, where the nurse yells at me that I’ve already been treated until she notices the blood dripping on the floor.
Then just last Thursday I fell at the climbing gym and ended up with a sprained ankle.
Hopefully I’ll survive the upcoming caving trip to Virginia without any injuries.
i was maybe 8-10 years old, out on a frozen lake, intent on kicking a small chunk of ice from a nearby ice fisherman’s hole across it, by golly. unfortunately it had been sitting there a good while and the weather had actually somehow re-fused it to the ice sheet, so when i made foot contact with it, it didn’t budge. instead i pitched forward headfirst. my hands went forward instinctively but, of course, promptly slipped away, only helping to add a whip effect to my headbutting the concrete-hard water. concussion.
my old-school german mom, somehow embarassed by the incident, refused to take me to the doctor for a checkup, cuz, see, it was my own fault. next time i’d think twice before i blabla… nothing an old country mustard plaster couldn’t fix, mhm.
i hurt my shoulder in a ca. 50 km/h downhill moped crash with my guitar strapped to my back.
a circular saw (rough-cut blade) i was cutting a 2x4 with left-handed hit a knot, jumped up and to the right, landing on my right hand (pressing the 2x4 down on the sawhorse) before the blade guard could even swing shut, leaving three, nice, messy toothmarks in it.
injured my back landing on the edge of a pommel horse
other than that, the usual - broken toe via bathroom door, stitches form sharp rocks thrown by czech peasants, etc.
a former classmate of mine died in a car crash, sitting precisely where i would’ve sat if i’d had enough money to go to the movies that fateful night.
When I was about 8, I rode my bicycle straight into a parked van, because I wasn’t watching where I was going. I needed several stitches in the forehead.
In college I was really drunk one night, and the vending machine ate somebody’s money, so I kicked it really hard and injured my foot.
Same as CM, broke my left arm twice (the first was a double compound, both bones sticking out and my arm bent double where it’s not supposed to) which resulted in 2 sets of metal plates, dislocated shoulder (THE most painful by far), broke my right hand and had to have 3 metal bars inserted, which stuck out of my hand and were removed without anasthetic, 3 concusions, various gashes/cuts/tears and torn ligaments in my knee. All sport related.
The funniest was a prank that was played on me. I was on holiday in Plymouth (a few of my mates and I were visiting a lad we knew who was in the Navy), we were staying in a guest house on the top floor, 5 of us in one room. There was a double bed, 3 fold outs and a single bed, whoever got to bed first got the double to themselves. We’d been out one night and got seperated (I was talking to a girl in a bar, when I looked round they’d gone), so I decided to go back to the guest house (I should point out I was incredibly drunk), when I got back I realised I didn’t have a key, it was about 2am so I didn’t fancy waking up the owners, so in a drunken stupor I decided to climb in through the window which was on the third floor, which I managed, just.
I crashed out on the double, and all was well. Until I woke up the following morning and my right foot was absolutely killing me, I looked down and noticed I was fully dressed apart from missing my right shoe and sock. It turns out my mates had returned and were pretty pissed off I’d nicked the double, so in an attempt to wake me/punish me they removed my shoe and sock, poored lighter fluid over my foot and set fire to it. Apparently it burnt well, too well. Thankfully the burns weren’t that serious, and they healed OK, but they thought it was funny, I disagreed.
Another mate of mine had got seperated the same night, and had tried the same as me, only got to the second floor and fallen off, we only found out the following morning when we went down for breakfast (well, hobbled in my case) and noticed that one of the flower beds outside the conservatory had been flattened into an almost idential shape of the lad who’d fallen.
I cut all the way through my right index finger, down the length, to the bone, through the tendon. Well, it wasn’t so much me as my jackass friend who was screwing around with a huge butcher knife. I got 5 stitches on the tendon and like 24 on my finger. The doc didn’t think I’d be able to move the top knuckle. I can move it just fine but I don’t really feel hot or cold with that finger anymore.
I completely forgot about broken bones. I onced managed to break a leg while running. I was running in a Conference Championship Cross Country race in High School. About 2 miles into the 3.2 mile race, I stepped into a little hole. Well I finished the race, but as soon as I crossed the finish line and the andrenaline started to where off, I couldn’t put any weight on my one leg. Two days later when the swelling hadn’t gone down and the “pulled muscle” wasn’t healing I went to see a doctor. I didn’t believe that I had broken my leg until he showed me the x-ray. I had shattered about two inches of bone, because I had continued to run about a mile on it after it broke. Anyways ended up on crutches for almost two months and missed the State Championship. I did win the Conference Championship for my school though.
When I was about 8, I rode my bicycle straight into a parked van, because I wasn’t watching where I was going.
oh, i got hit by a car - a heavy old ‘63 ford galaxie - while ogling my 5th grade crush, jan, who had come to jump rope with a fellow classmate who lived up the street from my house. seeing her standing there in her white hip huggers, aaaaaaaaah, i biked right out into the street in her general direction, got broadsided and came to via the driver’s “first aid”; he was crushing my chin while supporting and shaking my head vigoursly, abject fear in his eyes. he probably hought he’d get sued, but he didn’t know my german mom, who instead grounded me for a weak and impounded my bike away cuz i was obviously too stupid to ride it.
I’ve never had a broken bone or stitches or even been to the emergency room. My injuries are all clutz injuries from regular everyday things, rather than sport related. and rarely serious. ;)
Once when I was like 8 I fell off my bike into a hole. We lived on a court, but after building a new neighborhood next door, the powers that be decided that our court should become a through street. So, they dug up the road and made it straight. They put the sidewalk in first, but had gravel instead of grass on the little section between the sidewalk and the curb. Over by the neighbor’s driveway there was a hole, the diameter of a manhole, that was going to be for drainage, I guess. I lost my balance on my bike and ended up in the hole — bent in half, with my arms and legs sticking up in the air. The hole was probably 3ft deep. I can’t remember how I got out, but I was all scraped and bruised. No serious injuries though.
Another injury around the same age came at my grandmothers house — her house is at the top of a large hill, and I thought it was the most fun ever to go rolling down that hill. The thing is, directly at the bottom of the hill is the street, so if you’re going to roll down the hill you have to stop yourself before getting to the bottom. The time I didn’t I ended up with both knees scraped really bad. But again, no serious injury.
Last summer I was walking in to work and slipped on some brick stairs. I fell forward, as I got to the steps, bashed my wrist on a step, bashed my knee on another and when it was all over I was sitting down on the stairs (I had flipped completely around in the process of falling) It was one of those stupid injuries — I had this tiny cut, maybe 1cm, right in the middle of my right wrist, parallel to my arm, and that stupid thing hurt like crazy for over a week.
Oh, and I’ve stabbed myself with a pencil — TWICE. So I have two nice grayish spots under my skin. One is on my foot from one night I stepped on a pencil in my bedroom (I picked my foot up and the pencil was sticking straight out of it, it was kinda freaky) The other time was when I was walking holding schoolbooks and pencils and my sister was in front of my and stopped, and I walked into her. A pencil stuck straight into my wrist. So, left wrist and heel have a lovely “tattoo”
Other than that, I mainly bash my legs on my desk darn near every time I go to get up, I’ve been known to open doors into my head on several occasions and I once cut my finger with a razor because I looked at it and it had something on it, so I decided to just wipe it off with my finger tip — side to side. DOH. I caught myself though, so it wasn’t too bad (just annoying) I tend to have 3 of 4 bruises somewhere on my legs most of the time.
Age 2 : broken leg while chasing my cousins minibike around the house for a ride - he was going alot faster than I could run, and he came up behind me around a corner and ran me down before he could react.
Age 4 : Flayed my forhead over my right eyebrow to the bone by falling on a brick after hanging upside down by my knees from a clothesline pole (big T)
Age 5 : Christed my right foot while running barefoot through tall grass in which a naily board lay.
Age 8 : ripped my left big toenail completely off while waterskiing
Age 12 : (not really an injury) contracted encephalitis from mosquito while visiting relatives in Georgia (US) - it produced absolutly beyond a doubt the most excruciating headache I’ve ever had.
Age 13 : not thinking and blasting down a steep hill with a blind exit onto a street - directly into a passing car, bend my ten-speed in half, flipped completely over the back end of said car (a stationwagon - er combi) and came to lying in the middle of the street still sitting on what was left of my bike staring at the driver of the stationwagon who had only stopped because I didn’t get up right away.
Age 14 : front tire blew on bike as I blew down a steep hill at top speed. Wiped out badly ant tore open both knees and palms - and as the road had been freshly “chip-and-sealed” (tar covered with loose gravel) the wounds required debreeding.
Age 15 : stupidly punched through a window pane in a junkyard - a large piece of glass fell downward from the frame and impaled my right index finger. Rather strange - it penetrated along the bone, poked out against the palm side of my finger, skin elasticity bounced it back out of the bottom hole, gravity took over, and it fell pivoting under the metacarpal to stick out on the inside of the finger ending thumb-side to middle finger side and just hung there. Miraculously, I recieved no tendon damage.
(long-ass discription for such a small wound!)
Age 16 : Mobile! Got a car! It was a Renault 5. An Oldsmobile full of senior citezens decided to turn in front of me at a stop light in which I had the right of way. T-boned the Olds, wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and knocked out the windshield with my cranium. None of the seniors were hurt, although all had been drinking quite a bit. Car was totaled.
Age 17 : Foolishly trying to remove a nail from my spare tire in order to use a hole repair kit. Couldn’t locate plyers, so the old Bowie (tm) knife should do the trick. Knife slipped and I managed to fillet my left thumb from tip to the first knuckle and ventilate that little arterie that lives in the thumb. Did you know that if you squeeze just right you could squirt blood nearly 15 feet?
I was rear-ended by a Golf, which was in turn rear ended by a van. Both the other cars were written off, mine required a new rear bumper (gotta love them Swedes, they build cars to withstand low flying Elks). I had a headache the following few hours and a stiff neck for a couple of days, I wasn’t going to pursue it, but my insurance insisted I did. Apparently it’s worth about £1800. As much as I hate the compensation culture, I did suffer.....for about 4 days.
I wasn’t going to pursue it, but my insurance insisted I did. Apparently it’s worth about £1800. As much as I hate the compensation culture
Pfft, are you sure you’re not really American, and only come here to gain credibility? :-P
Touché. Maybe we are all having an effect on each other, perhaps in few months I’ll have a Union Jack outside my house and develop a taste for ‘grits’. And perhaps you’ll get a penchant for tea and hooliganism at sporting events. ;-)
I’ve been pretty lucky—no broken bones or massive blood loss (I won’t count the major heart surgery since it wasn’t technically an injury), despite my kind of childish childhood. I did get a mild concussion from a bike accident in college. My doctor’s advice: “don’t hit your head again for at least two weeks.” I’m not joking. Thanks doc. Also in college I thought I broke my shoulder but only had cartilage bruising (or something). That ached for a few years—feared it would be permanent.
My best even, however, was when I was about twelve. My dad’s pickup has one of those welded steel box-shaped rear bumpers. Well I was holding on to the closed tailgate and jumping on to and off of the bumper repeatedly. On one jump, my feet slipped and (can you see it coming?) both bare shins (I was wearing shorts) dragged down the corner of the bumper. There wasn’t much blood, actually, just a long scrape and a dent in each shinbone. The pain was so bad I became nauseous. The dents are still there—twenty years later.
Englander, were any of your sports injuries sustained while playing rugby?
Oh, I almost forgot about the time I was paintballing with a few friends. We were playing in the massive woods on one of my friends property when I was hit and had to leave the playing area. I got lost and on the way out, I spent a good while navigating through an area filled with thorn bushes. I got the hell scratched out of my hands and arms(My dumbass didn’t have gloves on). I also had to pull thorns out of the respective areas too.
There was also a time when I tried to open a big bag of M&Ms;with a rather large knife (I was 7). Sure enough, my thumb received a rather large cut which bled for awhile after that.
Dislocated shoulder + 2 concusions playing Rugby, the 2 broken arms and another concusion playing US football, the broken hand and damaged knee Thai Boxing, along with various facial injuries. I even managed to almost sever my finger playing tennis - it’s a long story....
The other injuries, cuts, strains etc are pretty evenly split over lots of sports.
BTW, is there a link somewhere to the smiley codes? I know a few of the standard ones, but that down-trodden one makes me wonder what others there are for this forum. I figure it’s somewhat specific to the forum server software.
