Your worst injuries

[thestrangequark]

I've never had really serious injuries. I've come close to death a couple of times, but from illness, not injury.

I've broken a bone only once, this past summer, actually. I stubbed my toe on a freeweight left in the middle of the floor in a dark room (my mother felt so guilty).

I've been in two bicycle accidents: the first, when I was seven, was pretty severe. The chain broke on my Strawberry Shortcake bicycle as I was going down a steep hill. I toppled over and sped down the hill on my side. It was summer so I had on only little shorts and a bikini top, and I got road rash down my leg, side, and arm. On top of that, the handlebar of my bike impaled me in the stomach. It wasn't terribly deep, but it was still rather gruesome. Fortunately, an old couple were driving down the hill and saw me fall, the took me home.
The other biking accident was here in NYC. An idiot woman opened her cab door into traffic without looking, even though on the inside of every NYC taxi there is a big sticker that reads: WATCH FOR CYCLISTS. Stupid woman. The door got me right in the hand, pinching my fingers. I was wearing cycling gloves so I didn't realize I was hurt; I was put off balance but didn't fall, scowled at the woman, and road off. About ten minutes later I was riding along wondering why my hand felt so wet. I stopped and pulled off my glove and found it full of blood; while the gloves prevented and scraping or gouging, the pinch basically caused a finger to burst, leaving a gash about half the length of my ring finger.

When I was two I was attacked by a dog at a public park, which got me by the throat and dragged me off the slide. I've been told that the bone where it bit me in my chin was exposed, but I don't really remember, and have only a small scar and a bunch of photos of me with a bandage tied around my head to show for it.

 

[AstroSmurf]

My god. After reading all of the posts here, especially Blood and String's, mine are nothing.

Worst injury was the second time I broke my nose. I got into a fight in high school and decided it would be a good thing to take on two guys twice my size. I ended up getting face-planted into a cinder block wall. It broke my nose horizontally in two places and also split it up the middle to the base of my brow bone. One of the horizontal fractures went all the way into my left occipital bone. I also tore the cartilage in the end of my nose loose and collapsed several sinus cavities. I was a mess for about two months and I still have issues with it. (But I refuse to have the "nose job" that would fix it.) But I have to admit it was worth it. No one ever called me a faggot again, even in college. I wear it as a badge of honor. The queer fought back and almost won. (I also still have the scars on my knuckles where I knocked out the front teeth of one of the guys.)

The only other really bad one (and I do have a few including both my knees) was when I mangled my right shoulder five years ago. I was up on a ladder hanging a very large, very expensive picture in a house I was decorating when the hanging wire broke. Instinct kicked in and I decided to catch this 85lb piece of artwork before it shattered on the floor. Needless to say I saved the piece but managed to tear several ligaments, muscles and my rotator cuff. To this day I can't raise my right arm straight out from my side or over my head without some excruciating pain. But unlike my nose, I plan on having it fixed. It kills me when it rains or gets cold.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I remember this date well: May 11, 2005.

I'm out in my front yard gathering leaves when all of a sudden I have the back pain from hell. It hurt so bad I could barely walk. Lasted for almost a week.

Never did find out what was responsible--I guess I just bent over wrong when I was gathering the leaves.

 

[O'Dib]

I hope it knocked a lot more than "some" common sense in you.

We'll be able to tell how much exactly, by the time it takes for me to make another stupid oversight.

Is this an example of Darwinism?

Yes, I survived, therefore I'm the fittest.

Really though, I dunno why I rode and fiddled. I usually stop for such things. It's not like I was doing it the entire 20 min. ride home, so that it was bound to happen. I took it out for a couple seconds to check whether I had a band in there.. Bad luck the guy popped out at the exact same moment, but it may be better it happened early on in my carless career, before I started getting even more courageous with bicycle antics.

 

[Trekker4747]

I hope it knocked a lot more than "some" common sense in you.

We'll be able to tell how much exactly, by the time it takes for me to make another stupid oversight.

Riding a bike, one handed, while messing with a cell-phone shouldn't be something one has to "learn" not to do and be seen as a oversight.

 

[superstring01]

DAMN STRING.... talk about a traumatic childhood!

I'd vote you the thread wiener.

LOL!

Note: There are actually OTHERS.

At age 9 I stepped on a metal spike that went in one foot and out the other.

Age 4 I fell down the stairs and landed on a glass "Jesus" candle (the Catholic variety) and sliced my arm open.

Age 24, after carrying a (small-ish female) friend home (yes, CARRYING) after her 21st birthday (I lived in Key West at that time), I managed to thrombose and totally explode an internal hemorrhoid which I didn't notice until halfway through my shift at work the next day (I was a bar tender). Thinking I just had a bad case of swamp-ass I kept working, until a friend noticed blood soaking through the ass crack of my shorts and a small trail of blood running down my leg. Thinking I was ten minutes from death, I called the ambulance and was rushed off to a VERY unpleasant and VERY embarrassing surgery (if you've ever had numerous instruments shoved up your asshole, then you understand my pain).

Age 30-present, various MRSA infections on my chin, back, head and arm (I have to be very vigilant).

Age 32, this past spring I was hack-sawing through a locked bolt on my secretary's spare tire (in her trunk, it was all rusted and wouldn't come loose. . . so I thought hack-saw was a good idea). While sawing, the saw skipped off the bolt and cut, rather efficiently, through the nail and soft tissue of my thumb, cutting directly in from the tip all the way to the bone. I think that hurt worse than pretty much anything. The med center just glued the wound shut and sent me home.

~String

 

[O'Dib]

Riding a bike, one handed, while messing with a cell-phone shouldn't be something one has to "learn" not to do and be seen as a oversight.

Touche. Indeed, I'd say my pride definitely suffered most in this one. Brutal reminder of how stupid and absentminded I can be in traffic sometimes. I should get one those "Jesus is my copilot" bumper stickers. "See this part where there is only one pair of tire tracks? That's when I got off My bike to soften your facial landing."

 

[Australis]

"Go outside and kick a soccer ball with the kids", my wife said. "It won't hurt you!" she said.

I'd never had a broken leg (or broken anything else) before that day...

 

[thestrangequark]

^How do you manage to break a leg playing ball with kids?

To amend my original post, I've had a few surgeries (quite a few actually), and I think cutting off a bit of one's earlobe and graphing it into the inner ear counts as injury. I was 12 and got morphine, though, so I didn't mind much.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

What was that intended to do?

 

[thestrangequark]

^Patch a hole. It was the last of over 20 surgeries I had on my ears between the ages of 2 and 12 to return hearing, I was deaf as an infant and regained my hearing around age 4 after several operations.

 

[Australis]

How do you manage to break a leg playing ball with kids?

We were just kicking the ball around, and I slipped, and two "thuds" resonated right through me from my leg. The pain was pretty intense and I couldn't walk on it, I went inside and rolled around the floor in pain, while my wife was on the phone, saying in a bored voice, "Yes, he's on the floor... seems to be in pain.. goodness knows what he's done now... <sigh>... I'd better see what he's done..." and similar noises of sympathy.

The hospital staff were amazed. The couldn't understand how I broke my leg just above the ankle and not rupture the ligaments there. Two clean breaks, that was it.

There's a funny sequel. Three weeks later, while still in plaster, No 1 son (11 at the time) ran down a rocky slope (I old him not to, often), fell, and sliced his knee open. At the Emergency Dept (we had a season ticket that year, went there 6-7 times), the cleaned it, sewed it up, wrapped it up... and gave him a pair of crutches.

Father and son, coming out into the waiting area, both on crutches. Oh, how the other waiting people smiled. She was not impressed. At all. I thought it was a classic family moment.

 

[thestrangequark]

^That's great. Not the pain, but, you know.

That reminds me, I sprained my ankle a few times growing up, and I always loved going to school on crutches because everyone wanted to do everything for me. I also dislocated my thumb when I was 4. I don't remember how I did it, and nobody knows how I did it; in my confused child-mind I thought that I would get in trouble. I kept my hand in a fist for a week so that no one would know. My poor mother was so distressed when I told her how long it had been since I could move it! I remember having it popped back in and set, and that the doctor was wonderful.

 

[Arrqh]

I've been fairly injury free for the most part, except for a few little things. I once cut my thumb open when trying to fold a pocket knife closed... I wasn't paying attention and pushed on the wrong side of the knife. And I once accidentally brushed my arm by a mounted circ saw that was spinning at full speed. As it was it just nicked the very outer layer of skin and left a tiny red line... if my arm (which was flailing wildly) had been an inch or so over it would have been very messy. And painful.

None of this compares to the surgery accident when I had my tonsils out at the age of 6; I almost bled out internally whilst in recovery. Not sure if I'd call that an injury, though.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

^That's great. Not the pain, but, you know.

That reminds me, I sprained my ankle a few times growing up, and I always loved going to school on crutches because everyone wanted to do everything for me. I also dislocated my thumb when I was 4. I don't remember how I did it, and nobody knows how I did it; in my confused child-mind I thought that I would get in trouble. I kept my hand in a fist for a week so that no one would know. My poor mother was so distressed when I told her how long it had been since I could move it! I remember having it popped back in and set, and that the doctor was wonderful.

Oh my goodness...it's amazing the things that a kid will think of! You're just fortunate they were able to pop it back in after that!!

Speaking of crazy things a kid will think of...I remember when I was losing my baby teeth, I had this one tooth attached by just a thread and I was getting really sick and tired of twisting it around hoping it would break. It hurt and I was losing patience.

So, having read way too much about the human body, medicine, etc., I got the bright idea to grab my pair of Fiskars scissors (the ones with the rounded ends!!! ), go to the bathroom and clean them with antibacterial soap, and handle it like a surgeon. So, I went back to my room, and...SNIP. Problem solved, no postoperative infection, life was good and the tooth fairy had no idea I cheated!

I didn't tell my parents about that for years. The story only came out when later, my little cousin was in the car and started bleeding a lot from losing a tooth, and got REALLY distressed about it to where she was crying and frightened. For some reason, I decided that this crazy story would be the perfect distraction. I ended up telling my parents and every family member on my mother's side what I'd done.

The crazy thing was, nasty as this story was, it got my cousin's crying stopped real quick. She was too busy thinking her older cousin was crazy!

 

[thestrangequark]

^Oh kids. It's funny how our brains worked back then. I got lost when I was five...I fell asleep on my little innertube at the beach and drifted out to sea. And instead of experiencing fear, worry, or any other appropriate emotion, I was horribly embarrassed about that incident for the longest time.

 

[Thespeckledkiwi]

Probably multiple concussions that have gone undiagnosed...This and that. Nothing major...

Collapsed lung, dislocated jaw (for almost my entire life up until a few years ago...That one was painful), cracked wrist, a few stitches up near my eye, but nothing too big...

 

[Bloodwhiner]

DAMN STRING.... talk about a traumatic childhood!

I'd vote you the thread wiener.

LOL!

Note: There are actually OTHERS.

At age 9 I stepped on a metal spike that went in one foot and out the other.

Age 4 I fell down the stairs and landed on a glass "Jesus" candle (the Catholic variety) and sliced my arm open.

Age 24, after carrying a (small-ish female) friend home (yes, CARRYING) after her 21st birthday (I lived in Key West at that time), I managed to thrombose and totally explode an internal hemorrhoid which I didn't notice until halfway through my shift at work the next day (I was a bar tender). Thinking I just had a bad case of swamp-ass I kept working, until a friend noticed blood soaking through the ass crack of my shorts and a small trail of blood running down my leg. Thinking I was ten minutes from death, I called the ambulance and was rushed off to a VERY unpleasant and VERY embarrassing surgery (if you've ever had numerous instruments shoved up your asshole, then you understand my pain).

Age 30-present, various MRSA infections on my chin, back, head and arm (I have to be very vigilant).

Age 32, this past spring I was hack-sawing through a locked bolt on my secretary's spare tire (in her trunk, it was all rusted and wouldn't come loose. . . so I thought hack-saw was a good idea). While sawing, the saw skipped off the bolt and cut, rather efficiently, through the nail and soft tissue of my thumb, cutting directly in from the tip all the way to the bone. I think that hurt worse than pretty much anything. The med center just glued the wound shut and sent me home.


~String

I may have won the award in the worse single accident category but you have now definitely earned the lifetime achievement award for a gruesome body of work.

 

[StolenThunder]

Nothing much.

I stood on the stem and base of a broken wine glass once - much like Home Alone 2 it went through my shoe and into the ball of my foot. I required a GA the next day mostly because it was fiddly to get some remaining fragments out. No lasting damage beyond a toe that doesn't flex.

Otherwise just a moderate ankle sprain recently makes it onto my notable injury list.

 

[superstring01]

I may have won the award in the worse single accident category but you have now definitely earned the lifetime achievement award for a gruesome body of work.

I think we had a VIP pass to the local ER when I was a kid!

My poor parents. Tallied up, I think they spent a full month in the ER waiting on me to get put back together.

~String