Your worst injuries

[O'Dib]

The damage doesn't have to be mainly physical, also how damaged was your pride, or even your psychological makeup, in obtaining that little charming anecdote..

Mine are as follows:

1) age six, ran into a glass sliding balcony door knee first; result: 2 x 1 inch gash, 5 stitch marks on each side (would the expression then be 5 or 10 stitches?). While this one may have been physically the worst, I was a kid, it didn't phase me, at all. I kinda like the scar.

2) age 23, tried to dunk on a badly set up front yard hoop, only to have the entire construction give way, so that I fell to the ground with it. Ended up on my back on the pavement, with the hoop around my neck, and a banged up forehead. Healed quickly, no permanent marks, but I'm to this day anxious about attempting similar antics again.

3) today, was fiddling on my iphone while riding my bike along the sidewalk. A guy suddenly started backing out of his driveway in front of me, and I had to break suddenly. Having only one hand to steer with, I lost balance and landed face first on the pavement. Some bruises and a chipped tooth. Will need to get that one fixed. No fear about riding the bike, as I just kept going, but I may have gained some additional common sense.

[Bloodwhiner]

hmm.. most likely getting run over by a tractor mower going in reverse and severing my right arm. Then dying in the ambulance on the way to the hospital (obviously I was revived). Finally having the severed arm further amputated just below the shoulder to stop infection from spreading.

All in all, that day really sucked. But I've never had a worse one.

Next....

[Kataaran]

^

I don't think I'll bother with mine, it seems a bit crap (or maybe not so crap) in comparison to that.

[O'Dib]

^
^

Fuck dude, that's shit!

[Rii]

Spiral fracture of my right femur at age 13 or so. Spent a few weeks in traction followed by a couple months in a wheelchair in a near full-body cast. Most of the rest of the year learning to walk again.

Long-term the injury likely knocked a few inches off my adult height (I'm 5' 6" with short legs) and the leg is less flexible in that I can put my left leg behind my head, but not my right. As for psychological effects, my father believes it exacerbated my introversion and social avoidance tendencies. I'm not personally cognizant of the causal linkages there, but I've no reason to dispute the assessment.

[O'Dib]

Thanks for sharing guys. Not exactly my purpose in putting this thread up other than to vent, but I'm realizing how lucky I've been!

[Pingfah]

Snapped my ACL snowboarding. Had to have a new one made out of part of my hamstring. Got a couple of screws in my knee now, but it's really strong and healthy again.

It was more inconvenient than horrible though, especially getting stuck at the top of a freezing cold mountain and wasting half a week in Whistler unable to do anything but sit about.

[Jono]

Nothing serious. I've required stitches three times in my life.

Back when I was 7 I learnt the hard way why you don't run around the edge of a pool when I slipped and cracked my chin open. I have since been far more careful on wet surfaces.

A year or two later I was rolling something up an aged skateboard ramp and got a 10 cm splinter that went through the edge of my hand. They had to cut my hand open to get it out. I know hate anything to do with skateboarding.

Final time was when I was 19 and I was messing around in college and someone kicked a door and the door edge impacted just above my eyebrow, splitting my head open. I then got drunk and found out that drinking after receiving a blow to the head is not in the legion of genius ideas.

The only bone I've broken (that was mine) was a toe by stubbing it. Probably more painful than childbirth.

[Zion Ravescene]

My injuries are too trivial and not really amazing.

Injured my right little finger while playing volleyball at school, "just a small sprain," they said. Had it bandaged and immobilised for a week.

Also stubbed my left small toe against my toolbox at home a few years ago, remained painful for days. Got an X-ray of it just to make sure it wasn't broken. It wasn't broken.

Perhaps the only significant injury I've ever had was when I was 6, at home while playing with my LEGO® - I caught my heel underneath a metal shelf, tearing a huge hole in my heel. Got it bandaged for a few weeks. It looked cool. It has however left arguably the most permanent and distinguishing of my physical scars.

So yeah - otherwise I'm fairly indestructible.

[Jadzia]

In a chemistry lesson in school one day, I was forcing a glass tube through a holed rubber bung with some force. Glass tubes and twisting don't go well together -- The tube shattered in my hand into about 6 pieces and the pushing force I was applying buried a small shard of glass deep into my finger. I pulled it out and it bled heavily. Much numbness as well. Maybe it caught an artery? I have a scar there now. If I press and wriggle it, it sometimes stings. I have often wondered if some of the glass is still in there.

But besides this I'm generally not prone to accidents and injuries.

[jamestyler]

Adding to the trivial list...

I was unable to protect my neck during a training exercise and ended up with some compressed discs (or something like that - there were medical words used that were met with my blank expression). I didn't get it checked out for a while as I thought it was too trivial to deal with. That ended up in it never eally healing properly and causing me pain ever since. Though the worst of it was not having full movement and taking a while to get out of bed while my (now) ex was pregnant.

As a kid I had a broken ankle which didn't heal properly due to a faulty cast. I ended up in a cast (well, series of) for about three months and followed it up with two years physio as the damage was a little on the severe side. Though I didn't see the bad side at the time as I didn't have to do any sports in school and my parents bought me lots of Lego - which was relativity awesome at that age.

The only thing that's had a lasting effect on me are my knees. There wasn't one incident that did it - it was more a cumulative thing playing rugby then wrestling, then refusing to rest when I was told to...

...two and a half years ago I was told to stop entirely. The doctor said that he was surprised I was walking, let alone wrestling due to severe arthritis, among other things. I ignored it and kept on going and when I decided to stop and join the army, which I was very high on for many reasons, I had to stop my pre-training training with them as the pain was too much to deal with - though it wasn't until my recruiting sergeant told me to stop that I did, as he saw I was hiding the pain and tryng to get through it anyway.

Having my knees stop me from taking such a good oppertunity has been a major blow to me this year and with jobs being few and far between, and me not sure what to do with myself now, it's not been easy to keep smiling and carry on.

[Geckothan]

Never had an injury that's required doctor/hospital treatment. One time I kicked a glass window in and got some cuts on my leg that healed up by themselves. Another time I accidentally burned my hand on something and got a giant blister on my palm (then accidentally ripped it while climbing over a fence a couple of days later). Oh, and one time I fell off my bike (well, went flying over the front of it to be precise) which resulted in a cut on my elbow that got infected, but it healed by itself. That's about it.

[Praxius]

I have a unique one that I imagine not a lot of people experienced before.

While I was 10 or 11 years old, I was out in the woods with some friends, bored out of our skulls so we started knocking down some rotten trees. Someone must have eventually stepped on or destroyed a hornests nest and we got attacked. Sure I got stung on the hand, arms, my side, and a few other places, but I think the worst would have had to been the hornet that got into a small hole in my crotch in my jogging pants and stung my left testicle.

As if that wasn't bad enough and even after me screaming like a little choir boy and grabing all over my crotch to quickly crush the hornet.... all the while trying to run home at the same time, I got stung 4 more times after that in the same location.

Nothing quite like getting hornet venom injected into a testicle multiple times to get your head wrapped around what real pain is... it's be a pretty good torture method.

By the time I got home, ripped off my pants and get checked out (mom's a nurse) I obviously survived, but my sister said as she shaked out my pants I left in the door way, the horent flew off without a scratch on it, even though the whole time I attempted to crush the bugger.

To say the least, there's a chance my offspring will be some type of mutant hybrid Hornihuman.... not sure if they'll be a super hero or villian yet.

I also fractured my middle toe on my right foot twice and had a number of large cuts over the years, two on the head, one down a finger, a hatchet to my shin..... fell out of a two story high tree as a kid, landed square on my back which knocked the wind out of me for a good 10 minutes.....

..... oh and I've been in contact with electricity on a number of occasions through my life and now I also lead a electrifying life so to speak where it seems that everything has a static charge on it when I come into contact with them.

I think thats about it for now....... I think the hornet stings to the left testicle take the cake for me though.

Added:

Oh and on occasion growing up I've stubbed my toe on a rock or a big metal door in school and lost a toenail here and there or had some flappy skin dangling off the end of my toe..... those wern't fun either.

[Deranged Nasat]

I'm sorry to hear about these injuries and painful accidents, everyone. I hope none of them have been too traumatic.

[Zion Ravescene]

Jadzia wrote:

---

In a chemistry lesson in school one day, I was forcing a glass tube through a holed rubber bung with some force. Glass tubes and twisting don't go well together -- The tube shattered in my hand into about 6 pieces and the pushing force I was applying buried a small shard of glass deep into my finger. I pulled it out and it bled heavily. Much numbness as well. Maybe it caught an artery? I have a scar there now. If I press and wriggle it, it sometimes stings. I have often wondered if some of the glass is still in there.

[puts on Minor Injuries hat]

It's probably unlikely that the glass will have remained embedded in that wound for all that time without the wound becoming inflamed. If in doubt, you could get it X-rayed for peace of mind, as glass fragments usually do show up on wound X-ray images.

It's probably more likely that the original injury damaged some of the nerve endings, leaving a small patch of hyperalgesia (increased pain sensitivity) which could also account for some of the numbness initally. You can try something like ibuprofen, or alternatively ask your doctor for specific neurogenic painkillers if it becomes a bigger problem. (Pain is a very subjective thing clinically, and many people have different tolerance levels of pain, although management largely uses the same biochemical principles.)

[takes off Minor Injuries hat]


I remember another small injury, when I took a fall during gymnastics at school, and landed on my upper back. It knocked the wind out of my chest for about 10 minutes.