“To the over-30 crowd: What's the saddest way you've injured yourself?”
May 19, 2021 1:39 AM Subscribe
A twitter thread by @hanalyst, who continues: “I leaned my head back to wet my hair in the shower and pulled a muscle in my neck.” @maureenchuck1 responds: “I threw my hip out dancing to Groove Is In The Heart and had to go to hospital”, while @JlhNeuro replies: “Raised my arm to reach for something and got frozen shoulder for two years” and @RenDan81 responds: “I burned the word Pyrex onto my arm trying to take the dish out of the oven.” There's more, including...
@anneswriting: “I yawned and dislocated my jaw... sat there with mouth wide open silently panicking for about 2 minutes before I could close it again.”
@Rev_RolandUMC: “Dog started to barf. Ran her downstairs, tripped and fell the last 5 steps injuring both knees and my elbow and cracking my head on a wall corner.”
@RussInCheshire: “I herniated a disc in my lower back emptying the dishwasher. And I once broke my toe whilst dusting - I turned suddenly and accidentally kicked the wall.”
@FriendlyLawyer: “Jumped into a lake after *checking* that I was in a safe spot to do so and found the friggin’ rock. Dislocated and broke my ankle and 'sucked' the tendon to the opposite side of my leg. At the hospital, a tech who came into emerg said: 'You’re the one with the ankle!'”
@WolvenSpectre: “I sprained my wrist from falling from a twisted my knee, which I got because I was walking on a twisted ankle with crutches because I was walking on a different twisted ankle without crutches (yes both ankles were twisted at the same time) because I was showing off my shoe's grip on ice.”
@Lizzal: “In Feb I tried to get out of bed and stepped weird. Broke my leg, dislocated my ankle and tore all the tendons. On an overnight 'staycation' for my husbands bday. Had to have surgery and 6 weeks non weight bearing. ”
@RachaelHasIdeas: “Woke up unable to move and without feeling below my neck. Eventually felt horrendous pain but was able to roll across the floor to my phone and called my sister, a nurse. Went to ER. I’d slipped two discs in my cervical spine, during my sleep. ”
@friendoffrogs: “Husband renovating bathroom. Me knitting in living room. 'Honey, come see the, I installed the mirror.' Walking through the door, end of one knitting needle catching the door frame, the pointy end of needle going through my wrist. (2” and nearly out the other side).”
@TrippettaRaffe: “I stapled my finger to a fence with a heavy duty staple gun and couldn't get it off. I was by myself. I sandwiched it between the fence and two pieces of lattice, somehow thinking I'd only staple the two pieces of lattice. And then I got blood poisoning in the finger.”
@DougPerkin: “Tried to moon my wife the other day while she was on a conference call (no, not zoom - that would mean bonus points) but she didn’t look and I turned away in defeat and proceeded to break my toe on a door jam.”
@AmyJonson12: “Stepped back from brushing my teeth. Stood on the cat. Lept off the cat tripped over the bath mat. Bounced off the loo. Broke my fucking pelvis.”
@katiesullivan: “Last week I was on my riding mower and I ducked under what I thought were just leaves and smacked my head into a tree branch. I now have a concussion and whiplash. They expect the concussion to be a lot better in a month and fully healed by the fall. Fall, as in the season.”
@CopperSorrel: “Got my sneaker caught between the heavy rubber doormat and the threshold, and fractured my leg walking out my own front door.”
@theamycoop: “I've put my back out twice (to the point of lying on the floor in agony). One time brushing my teeth and the other time leaning over to turn on a tap when I was bartending, and literally had to lie on the floor behind the bar on a Saturday night shift.”
@sue36: “Usually I sneeze and that's how my back goes out. It happens every few years. But sometimes it's nothing I can pin point.”
@JSpagna1: “Sprained elbow putting a little too much "spin" on the ball, whilst playing Wii Bowling.”
@Bunothanboy: “Playing 5-a sides, stood on the ball and somersaulted onto my back, breaking 4 ribs. Everyone laughed.”
@PurpleI66496545: “I was at a popular sporting good store and got on a new scooter called the Razor Powerwing scooter. I stepped off of it and the left "wing" was so sharp it poked a hole in my heel and severed my Achilles tendon. It was recalled for the sharp edge. Yes, I had surgery.”
@PrincessSoupCan: “Burped and it made my infant son who was sitting on my lap start laughing, he threw his head back and it hit my lower jaw, which slammed my teeth together and I cracked 2 teeth and had to go to physical therapy for my jaw and neck. A burp and a laugh.”
@Melissa_ExecPA: “Stepped backwards in the garden in to a (perfect shoe size) hole I hadn’t realised was there, tried to steady myself with the other foot into said hole before both ankles gave way, spraining one and breaking the other.”
@Designer_Ross: “I was replacing the grouting in the shower at an odd angle and punched myself in the mouth holding a knife. Cracked a tooth. Half fell out. Got a filling. Abscess formed underneath the filling. Caught a fever. Days away from sepsis. Had tooth removed.”
@sf_lang: “Doing the can can at a party. Had to be taken down the stairs in a fireman's lift.
@marielynn502: “I was taking a box of kid art to the trash, trying to sneak out without her noticing- fell down steps and broke my ankle. When she found me outside, I told her that I was taking the box of art to my car to display in my office.”
@TheSacredIsle: “I coughed and tore a muscle in my diaphragm and ended up in hospital.”
@EmilyGorcenski: “I sprained an ankle waking up from a nap because the doorbell was ringing with my delivery burrito.”
@evandeaubl: “Pretty much all of my answers to this contain “while I was asleep.” The worst in recent memory was stretching my leg in bed and giving myself a calf cramp that was still tender 3 days later. Sleeping is hazardous to your health.”
@anneswriting: “I yawned and dislocated my jaw... sat there with mouth wide open silently panicking for about 2 minutes before I could close it again.”
@Rev_RolandUMC: “Dog started to barf. Ran her downstairs, tripped and fell the last 5 steps injuring both knees and my elbow and cracking my head on a wall corner.”
@RussInCheshire: “I herniated a disc in my lower back emptying the dishwasher. And I once broke my toe whilst dusting - I turned suddenly and accidentally kicked the wall.”
@FriendlyLawyer: “Jumped into a lake after *checking* that I was in a safe spot to do so and found the friggin’ rock. Dislocated and broke my ankle and 'sucked' the tendon to the opposite side of my leg. At the hospital, a tech who came into emerg said: 'You’re the one with the ankle!'”
@WolvenSpectre: “I sprained my wrist from falling from a twisted my knee, which I got because I was walking on a twisted ankle with crutches because I was walking on a different twisted ankle without crutches (yes both ankles were twisted at the same time) because I was showing off my shoe's grip on ice.”
@Lizzal: “In Feb I tried to get out of bed and stepped weird. Broke my leg, dislocated my ankle and tore all the tendons. On an overnight 'staycation' for my husbands bday. Had to have surgery and 6 weeks non weight bearing. ”
@RachaelHasIdeas: “Woke up unable to move and without feeling below my neck. Eventually felt horrendous pain but was able to roll across the floor to my phone and called my sister, a nurse. Went to ER. I’d slipped two discs in my cervical spine, during my sleep. ”
@friendoffrogs: “Husband renovating bathroom. Me knitting in living room. 'Honey, come see the, I installed the mirror.' Walking through the door, end of one knitting needle catching the door frame, the pointy end of needle going through my wrist. (2” and nearly out the other side).”
@TrippettaRaffe: “I stapled my finger to a fence with a heavy duty staple gun and couldn't get it off. I was by myself. I sandwiched it between the fence and two pieces of lattice, somehow thinking I'd only staple the two pieces of lattice. And then I got blood poisoning in the finger.”
@DougPerkin: “Tried to moon my wife the other day while she was on a conference call (no, not zoom - that would mean bonus points) but she didn’t look and I turned away in defeat and proceeded to break my toe on a door jam.”
@AmyJonson12: “Stepped back from brushing my teeth. Stood on the cat. Lept off the cat tripped over the bath mat. Bounced off the loo. Broke my fucking pelvis.”
@katiesullivan: “Last week I was on my riding mower and I ducked under what I thought were just leaves and smacked my head into a tree branch. I now have a concussion and whiplash. They expect the concussion to be a lot better in a month and fully healed by the fall. Fall, as in the season.”
@CopperSorrel: “Got my sneaker caught between the heavy rubber doormat and the threshold, and fractured my leg walking out my own front door.”
@theamycoop: “I've put my back out twice (to the point of lying on the floor in agony). One time brushing my teeth and the other time leaning over to turn on a tap when I was bartending, and literally had to lie on the floor behind the bar on a Saturday night shift.”
@sue36: “Usually I sneeze and that's how my back goes out. It happens every few years. But sometimes it's nothing I can pin point.”
@JSpagna1: “Sprained elbow putting a little too much "spin" on the ball, whilst playing Wii Bowling.”
@Bunothanboy: “Playing 5-a sides, stood on the ball and somersaulted onto my back, breaking 4 ribs. Everyone laughed.”
@PurpleI66496545: “I was at a popular sporting good store and got on a new scooter called the Razor Powerwing scooter. I stepped off of it and the left "wing" was so sharp it poked a hole in my heel and severed my Achilles tendon. It was recalled for the sharp edge. Yes, I had surgery.”
@PrincessSoupCan: “Burped and it made my infant son who was sitting on my lap start laughing, he threw his head back and it hit my lower jaw, which slammed my teeth together and I cracked 2 teeth and had to go to physical therapy for my jaw and neck. A burp and a laugh.”
@Melissa_ExecPA: “Stepped backwards in the garden in to a (perfect shoe size) hole I hadn’t realised was there, tried to steady myself with the other foot into said hole before both ankles gave way, spraining one and breaking the other.”
@Designer_Ross: “I was replacing the grouting in the shower at an odd angle and punched myself in the mouth holding a knife. Cracked a tooth. Half fell out. Got a filling. Abscess formed underneath the filling. Caught a fever. Days away from sepsis. Had tooth removed.”
@sf_lang: “Doing the can can at a party. Had to be taken down the stairs in a fireman's lift.
@marielynn502: “I was taking a box of kid art to the trash, trying to sneak out without her noticing- fell down steps and broke my ankle. When she found me outside, I told her that I was taking the box of art to my car to display in my office.”
@TheSacredIsle: “I coughed and tore a muscle in my diaphragm and ended up in hospital.”
@EmilyGorcenski: “I sprained an ankle waking up from a nap because the doorbell was ringing with my delivery burrito.”
@evandeaubl: “Pretty much all of my answers to this contain “while I was asleep.” The worst in recent memory was stretching my leg in bed and giving myself a calf cramp that was still tender 3 days later. Sleeping is hazardous to your health.”
Also, I think PrincessSoupCan wins.
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Wow, seems like having legs is more dangerous than I thought.
posted by mokey at 2:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by mokey at 2:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [18 favorites]
I used to feel sorry for myself because I woke up one morning and hurt myself getting out of bed. But that was just some kind of muscle strain. I did not break my leg and sprain my ankle in the process. Thank you, Wordshore, for the reminder that it might possibly be worse whatever my “it” may be.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:14 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 2:14 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
note to self: don't do anything.
posted by lalochezia at 2:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [84 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 2:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [84 favorites]
I agree with evandeaubl, sleeping is dangerous. (Woke up the other week with a crocked lower back, which still twinges a bit while sitting 2 weeks later.)
posted by scorbet at 2:22 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by scorbet at 2:22 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Once I fell asleep during a boring talk. I woke up when everyone applauded, and tried to walk away when everyone else was leaving. Unfortunately my foot was numb from my awkward sleeping position, so I fell over and broke it. I spent 8 weeks in an aircast. Had to give a few talks myself while wearing it.
One colleague said I needed a better story— something with skiing and shrapnel. But I think the true lesson is to avoid boring talks.
posted by nat at 2:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [38 favorites]
One colleague said I needed a better story— something with skiing and shrapnel. But I think the true lesson is to avoid boring talks.
posted by nat at 2:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [38 favorites]
I woke up on a Saturday morning to find that I couldn’t lift either arm. No pain; they just didn’t work. They were fine on Friday, so it must have been the martial arts I did on Thursday.
I was in my 20s.
posted by danielparks at 2:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I was in my 20s.
posted by danielparks at 2:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Jason Byrne's got a great story along these lines. It starts at the five-minute mark here.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Paul Slade at 2:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
I stood in a hole walking off the curb at a zebra crossing (I was looking at the traffic)
Broke my achilles - 2 operations, a full reconstruction re-purposing one of the tendons from my big toe, 4 months on my back, 6 months of physio (learning to make that muscle that used to move my toe do something different and rebuilding those wasted muscles) and I can walk again, take short hikes, will probably never run again
(needless to say don't do this)
posted by mbo at 2:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Broke my achilles - 2 operations, a full reconstruction re-purposing one of the tendons from my big toe, 4 months on my back, 6 months of physio (learning to make that muscle that used to move my toe do something different and rebuilding those wasted muscles) and I can walk again, take short hikes, will probably never run again
(needless to say don't do this)
posted by mbo at 2:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
At 32 I tore a ligament in my knee by standing on one leg and lifting my other foot up to shake a pebble out my sandal. The pebble fell out just as I heard and felt a pop. It took six months before I go up stairs without pain.
posted by srboisvert at 2:59 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 2:59 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Oh this is going to be a fun thread.
Last week my 2-year old daughter had a very stuffy nose (though was otherwise healthy), and because of the pandemic, our daycare is very strict and will send your child home with even minor symptoms. So I put a snot sucker in my daughter's nose, and sucked with all the force of a father desperate for one more day of work. I cleared her nose! I also pulled my shoulder really badly and haven't slept properly for a week. I'm so tired.
posted by Alex404 at 3:11 AM on May 19, 2021 [23 favorites]
Last week my 2-year old daughter had a very stuffy nose (though was otherwise healthy), and because of the pandemic, our daycare is very strict and will send your child home with even minor symptoms. So I put a snot sucker in my daughter's nose, and sucked with all the force of a father desperate for one more day of work. I cleared her nose! I also pulled my shoulder really badly and haven't slept properly for a week. I'm so tired.
posted by Alex404 at 3:11 AM on May 19, 2021 [23 favorites]
I knew I shouldn't have looked at this. I knew, and I did it anyway.
Please excuse me while I lock myself in my room and recoil from anything sharp, heavy, or hot that might venture near.
posted by kyrademon at 3:39 AM on May 19, 2021 [18 favorites]
Please excuse me while I lock myself in my room and recoil from anything sharp, heavy, or hot that might venture near.
posted by kyrademon at 3:39 AM on May 19, 2021 [18 favorites]
The last time I seriously screwed up my back before the pandemic, I was sitting on the toilet at work, not moving at all. Something just went.
posted by terretu at 3:41 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by terretu at 3:41 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Sprained my ankle doing deep-vein-thrombosis-exercises in a cramped intercontinental plane. Hobbled round Australia with an attractive splint.
posted by runincircles at 3:45 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by runincircles at 3:45 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Doctor: How did you throw your back out?
22 year old me: I have a new girlfriend with a small bed and we didn't leave her apartment all weekend.
44 year old me: I sneezed.
posted by chillmost at 3:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [84 favorites]
22 year old me: I have a new girlfriend with a small bed and we didn't leave her apartment all weekend.
44 year old me: I sneezed.
posted by chillmost at 3:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [84 favorites]
Oh and broke my extensor tendon in my middle finger by leaning against a wall to put a sock on. Other time I sprained an ankle was by exiting a restaurant holding hands with a toddler.
posted by runincircles at 3:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by runincircles at 3:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
The first time I threw my back out, I was in my 20s. It was when I was moving house and decided to carry a two-drawer metal filing cabinet. While carrying it upstairs, one of the drawers began to open, and I wrenched my back while trying to jostle the drawer closed again.
The second time I threw out my back, a few years later, it was while overreaching to try to get a fitted sheet off of one corner of the mattress. The next time was when I picked up a half-full laundry basket. Skipping forward a couple of decades and multiple back incidences, the most recent time was while simply bending over the bathroom sink while brushing my teeth.
Oh, and about five years years ago, I also stepped in a hole next to the road near a pedestrian crossing. I, too, was looking for traffic. The hole was for a water control valve and the lid had been removed by the employees of the company next to the road. The lid was left off for so long that the grass had grown up through the hole and been mowed to be perfectly even with the grass of the surrounding area, making the hole invisible.
When my foot caught in the hole, my upper body pitched out into the street. I broke my elbow and bashed up my face on the pavement. Fortunately, my foot came out of the hole, so I didn’t break my ankle. Excruciating pain, and the arm was pretty much unusable for several weeks. I still have some loss of range of motion and twinges in the elbow joint. The settlement check finally arrived a few months ago.
posted by darkstar at 3:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
The second time I threw out my back, a few years later, it was while overreaching to try to get a fitted sheet off of one corner of the mattress. The next time was when I picked up a half-full laundry basket. Skipping forward a couple of decades and multiple back incidences, the most recent time was while simply bending over the bathroom sink while brushing my teeth.
Oh, and about five years years ago, I also stepped in a hole next to the road near a pedestrian crossing. I, too, was looking for traffic. The hole was for a water control valve and the lid had been removed by the employees of the company next to the road. The lid was left off for so long that the grass had grown up through the hole and been mowed to be perfectly even with the grass of the surrounding area, making the hole invisible.
When my foot caught in the hole, my upper body pitched out into the street. I broke my elbow and bashed up my face on the pavement. Fortunately, my foot came out of the hole, so I didn’t break my ankle. Excruciating pain, and the arm was pretty much unusable for several weeks. I still have some loss of range of motion and twinges in the elbow joint. The settlement check finally arrived a few months ago.
posted by darkstar at 3:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
Tried to hike Mount Misen on Mijiyama Island. Fractured ankle on way down. A small child offered me his walking-stick. His mother insisted I take it.
Tried to learn how to ride a OneWheel. Failed, twisted knee. OneWheel shop owners looked horrified, offered me all the Mountain Dew I could drink.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 3:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Tried to learn how to ride a OneWheel. Failed, twisted knee. OneWheel shop owners looked horrified, offered me all the Mountain Dew I could drink.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 3:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
I have a scar on my right hand from a laceration incurred while opening a can of tuna.
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 3:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
* Injury One: I was working on a production of HAMLET, and after one rehearsal I was putting the prop sabers away into the cabinet where we were storing them. I held them all by the blades like a bouquet in my left hand as I fumbled with the lock using my right hand - and one of them slipped through my fingers and fell straight down onto my left foot, cracking one of the toes.
* Injury Two: New Year's Eve at Best Bar In The World. "Come On Eileen" was playing and one of the owners was leading a bunch of us in a dance-off, and for that middle bit she rounded a bunch of us up into a kick line, which started going faster and faster along with the song. I twisted my ankle so hard it broke my foot (although I didn't know it was broken for two days).
* Injury Three, which I am STILL CONTENDING WITH: I'd chosen to walk to work instead of riding my bike this one day. As I was about to cross the street, my left foot stepped forward, hit something slippery, and kept sliding, making me do a split for a second before I landed full weight on my right knee, breaking the kneecap into four pieces. (...That was October and the bones are healed now, but I'm STILL in physical therapy.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
* Injury Two: New Year's Eve at Best Bar In The World. "Come On Eileen" was playing and one of the owners was leading a bunch of us in a dance-off, and for that middle bit she rounded a bunch of us up into a kick line, which started going faster and faster along with the song. I twisted my ankle so hard it broke my foot (although I didn't know it was broken for two days).
* Injury Three, which I am STILL CONTENDING WITH: I'd chosen to walk to work instead of riding my bike this one day. As I was about to cross the street, my left foot stepped forward, hit something slippery, and kept sliding, making me do a split for a second before I landed full weight on my right knee, breaking the kneecap into four pieces. (...That was October and the bones are healed now, but I'm STILL in physical therapy.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Sitting here dosed up on Ibuprofen as I've done something to the muscles underlying my shoulder, almost certainly due to too much time playing Days Gone via Playstation Plus this month.
posted by biffa at 4:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by biffa at 4:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
A couple of years ago my right shoulder started freezing just as I was getting ready to leave on a major expedition through South America... with a 50 pound bag in tow and very rusty college Spanish.
No apparent reason for the freeze, although I suspect the Lyme spirochete (tested positive for Lyme antibodies the year before).
It got worse and worse. Fortunately I got a great kinesiologist at a private clinic in Santiago, Chile... not cheap but it didn't break the bank like it would have in the US, and I probably got better care. Several weeks of PT and massage later, I was almost back to 100%. And despite the language barrier we managed to communicate the essentials!
Interestingly, shot #2 of Moderna put my LEFT shoulder into the beginnings of freeze mode for a week or so. Still not quite back to 100% there.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 4:05 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
No apparent reason for the freeze, although I suspect the Lyme spirochete (tested positive for Lyme antibodies the year before).
It got worse and worse. Fortunately I got a great kinesiologist at a private clinic in Santiago, Chile... not cheap but it didn't break the bank like it would have in the US, and I probably got better care. Several weeks of PT and massage later, I was almost back to 100%. And despite the language barrier we managed to communicate the essentials!
Interestingly, shot #2 of Moderna put my LEFT shoulder into the beginnings of freeze mode for a week or so. Still not quite back to 100% there.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 4:05 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have a scar on my right hand from a laceration incurred while opening a can of tuna.
I have a scar on my left hand from opening a can of cat food.
Three stitches (still faintly visible) on my index finger and some permanent nerve damage.
posted by cheshyre at 4:08 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have a scar on my left hand from opening a can of cat food.
Three stitches (still faintly visible) on my index finger and some permanent nerve damage.
posted by cheshyre at 4:08 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I tweaked my back scooping cat litter and have injured it more than once while sleeping.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:09 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:09 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Dislocated my shoulder (like where it hangs limp until it snaps back into place) from a pull-start lawnmower.
The pull-start lawnmower was imaginary. I was miming it during an improv show at a church. We had to keep the improv "clean" - I barely succeeded as my arm snapped back into place but remained useless for the rest of the show. Recovery took a week or two before it didn't hurt to use it.
posted by abulafa at 4:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [29 favorites]
The pull-start lawnmower was imaginary. I was miming it during an improv show at a church. We had to keep the improv "clean" - I barely succeeded as my arm snapped back into place but remained useless for the rest of the show. Recovery took a week or two before it didn't hurt to use it.
posted by abulafa at 4:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [29 favorites]
I spent almost 7 hours playing all of The Room 4 all in one go this weekend and my elbow now hates me
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 4:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I injured my knee when I stepped and slid in a hairball my cat had just puked up. I had a drink in my hand and landed on my knee rather than put my hand down to catch myself. But I didn't drop the drink!
posted by Daily Alice at 4:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by Daily Alice at 4:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
I'm not sure this has much to do with age. I have wrenched my back in the process of flossing my teeth, and I think the most common way I hurt my knee is getting into a car, but this has always been the case, and I think I actually get hurt less now in my 40s than I did in my 20s, just because I am in better shape.
posted by Nothing at 4:42 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Nothing at 4:42 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Saddest? Hmm... totally fucked my lower back by using this laptop on this table sitting in this seat.
The sad bit being that I got up for a piss, and my back went "Ping! Here are new kinds of pain! Also, you can't stand up any more". I hit the floor like a sack of spuds, and after a short while of writhing and wishing for death I work out that I can't get up, and yet I still need that piss.
posted by pompomtom at 4:43 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
The sad bit being that I got up for a piss, and my back went "Ping! Here are new kinds of pain! Also, you can't stand up any more". I hit the floor like a sack of spuds, and after a short while of writhing and wishing for death I work out that I can't get up, and yet I still need that piss.
posted by pompomtom at 4:43 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
I've fortunately managed to avoid any significant 'sad injury' so far, and my slapstick injuries are minor -- shout-out to core strength and the years of figure skating, which produced no marketable skills but have made me an absolute *champ* at falling well.
Stupidest serious* injury was managing to give myself some form of bilateral radial nerve damage during a couple months of cycling a short distance to and from work, likely because the seat of my Dutch-style bicycle was positioned too high. Nearly 10 years on and I have to be increasingly conscious of how I use my hands, particularly any wrist flexion/extension, and most nights I have to sleep in wrist splits else creeping numbness from fingertips to elbows will keep me awake.
*for a certain value of serious, anyway
posted by myotahapea at 4:45 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Stupidest serious* injury was managing to give myself some form of bilateral radial nerve damage during a couple months of cycling a short distance to and from work, likely because the seat of my Dutch-style bicycle was positioned too high. Nearly 10 years on and I have to be increasingly conscious of how I use my hands, particularly any wrist flexion/extension, and most nights I have to sleep in wrist splits else creeping numbness from fingertips to elbows will keep me awake.
*for a certain value of serious, anyway
posted by myotahapea at 4:45 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
My story has shame as well as embarrassment: the shame from the fact that I injured myself because I lost my temper and acted like an idiot.
Years ago, I had an interview for a job. The interview was in Tokyo, about 45 minutes from my apartment. They informed me (day of interview) that they also needed a hard copy of the resume I’d emailed them. No worries, I go to boot up my laptop (fuck compaq), and it hangs. I spent nearly an hour fighting with it, trying to get it to boot up and, when booted up, to stop blue-screening every time I tried to open Word. The time to leave to get there a bit early has come and gone, I’m going to be full on late. I’m sitting on my sofa, laptop on the sofa, twisted around to the right to face the laptop. I’m beyond furious at the computer, at god, and most importantly, at my own helplessness. I close my hand into a fist, the back of my hand facing upwards, and punch the sofa repeatedly with the bottom of my fist with my elbow at a right angle, which means all the force is going through my shoulder.
On the second or third punch, my shoulder just dislocates. Like, I can distinctly feel that the joint is no longer joined. I leap up, run into the other room and roll around on the floor in pain until it pops back into place. Now sobbing in pain, I try the fucking computer again, and it boots up without a problem, and I am able to print out my resume. I call ahead, letting them know I’ll be late, and go to the interview. Did not get the job, never actually got my shoulder checked out because of the embarrassment. I’ve never dislocated it since, but oh, the exciting grinding noises it makes from time to time. On the positive side, it’s been a helpful reminder about how stupid and unacceptable losing my temper is. Thank god no one was there to see it.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [31 favorites]
Years ago, I had an interview for a job. The interview was in Tokyo, about 45 minutes from my apartment. They informed me (day of interview) that they also needed a hard copy of the resume I’d emailed them. No worries, I go to boot up my laptop (fuck compaq), and it hangs. I spent nearly an hour fighting with it, trying to get it to boot up and, when booted up, to stop blue-screening every time I tried to open Word. The time to leave to get there a bit early has come and gone, I’m going to be full on late. I’m sitting on my sofa, laptop on the sofa, twisted around to the right to face the laptop. I’m beyond furious at the computer, at god, and most importantly, at my own helplessness. I close my hand into a fist, the back of my hand facing upwards, and punch the sofa repeatedly with the bottom of my fist with my elbow at a right angle, which means all the force is going through my shoulder.
On the second or third punch, my shoulder just dislocates. Like, I can distinctly feel that the joint is no longer joined. I leap up, run into the other room and roll around on the floor in pain until it pops back into place. Now sobbing in pain, I try the fucking computer again, and it boots up without a problem, and I am able to print out my resume. I call ahead, letting them know I’ll be late, and go to the interview. Did not get the job, never actually got my shoulder checked out because of the embarrassment. I’ve never dislocated it since, but oh, the exciting grinding noises it makes from time to time. On the positive side, it’s been a helpful reminder about how stupid and unacceptable losing my temper is. Thank god no one was there to see it.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [31 favorites]
Years ago I wrote an article for a Canadian Maxim rip-off (I was young, I needed the money...) about the dumbest, most unusual sports injuries which occurred on the field of play, but all the funniest athlete injuries took place off the field (and for whatever reason most of the best ones were baseball players); Glenallen Hill got attacked by spiders in a dream, Tony Gwynn slammed the car door of his Porsche on his hand in the parking lot of his bank, Kevin Mitchell got taken out by a microwaved donut, a coach named Roger Craig cut his hand on a bra strap...
Sadly, the one about John Smoltz ironing a shirt while he was wearing it appears to be not true.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Sadly, the one about John Smoltz ironing a shirt while he was wearing it appears to be not true.
posted by The Card Cheat at 4:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Comically slipped on a banana peel. Cracked my head, but no serious concussion fortunately.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Please excuse me while I lock myself in my room and recoil from anything sharp, heavy, or hot that might venture near.
Good luck with that, in the mortality statistics there is a line item "bedclothes" -- basically dying from sheets is a thing and frequent enough to warrant a measurable stat, and it was not the bottom.
Me, I'm blessed, only sliced half way through thumb cutting the wrong way, noticed the knee ligament starting to peddle and saved but still notice the twinge a few years later. Did get compliments on my acting in a rehearsal where I pretend to be injured, then noticed the goose egg on my foot, only a bunch of weeks out.
posted by sammyo at 4:52 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Good luck with that, in the mortality statistics there is a line item "bedclothes" -- basically dying from sheets is a thing and frequent enough to warrant a measurable stat, and it was not the bottom.
Me, I'm blessed, only sliced half way through thumb cutting the wrong way, noticed the knee ligament starting to peddle and saved but still notice the twinge a few years later. Did get compliments on my acting in a rehearsal where I pretend to be injured, then noticed the goose egg on my foot, only a bunch of weeks out.
posted by sammyo at 4:52 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
The way I tucked my arm under my head when I slept on my side eventually messed up my shoulder and back enough that I needed physical therapy.
Years ago, I stood on the sofa in a hotel room to try to figure out how to close the blinds, lost my balance, and planted my hands on the glass table which thankfully did not break. But I sprained an ankle and had to speed-hobble through the airport the next morning.
I knew a woman who was in the Society for Creative Anachronism, who was in a spear throwing contest and managed to spear her own foot. The emergency room staff had fun with that.
posted by Foosnark at 4:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Years ago, I stood on the sofa in a hotel room to try to figure out how to close the blinds, lost my balance, and planted my hands on the glass table which thankfully did not break. But I sprained an ankle and had to speed-hobble through the airport the next morning.
I knew a woman who was in the Society for Creative Anachronism, who was in a spear throwing contest and managed to spear her own foot. The emergency room staff had fun with that.
posted by Foosnark at 4:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
I needed this laugh today, thank you.
posted by janepanic at 5:06 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by janepanic at 5:06 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have been wincing and grunting around all week from a sore back and I honestly don't know how I hurt it. By being alive probably.
Backs were a mistake. Or maybe just being bipedal.
My cat did nearly kill me by dragging his stupid toys into the hallway until one day I stepped on one and went flying. Just bruises that time.
Once a horse took me under a too-low branch and gave me a branch hickey, but that's really on him.
posted by emjaybee at 5:07 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Backs were a mistake. Or maybe just being bipedal.
My cat did nearly kill me by dragging his stupid toys into the hallway until one day I stepped on one and went flying. Just bruises that time.
Once a horse took me under a too-low branch and gave me a branch hickey, but that's really on him.
posted by emjaybee at 5:07 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
The first time I woke up with a sore back and went to the doctor I made a comment about how embarrassed I was about the cause of the injury and he said it happens *all the time*.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:09 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:09 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Sprained my ankle playing pinball. What do I win?
posted by ocschwar at 5:09 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by ocschwar at 5:09 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
Back in 2012, I was washing our baby in the tub of our narrow bathroom and had to get up for a moment. When I went to sit down again, I somehow positioned myself so that as my ass lowered, my knee raised up...right into the pointy bottom of the brass cabinet pulls under the sink. It tore a nice sized hole in my knee and the scar remains to this day. The upside is that the handle was a kitschy thing in the shape of a flamenco dancer, so when anybody asks about my knee, I can legitimately say that I was stabbed by a flamenco dancer.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [27 favorites]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 5:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [27 favorites]
I used to do long, multi day endurance bike events. I have rock climbed indoors and outdoors for years. I camp every other month. None of these activities have brought me permanent injury*, but I broke my right hand playing in a company golf tournament.
(I found out later that the hand had an enchondroma, or a benign bone tumor, that hollowed out one of my knuckles and it made it fragile like an egg shell, so it was one sharp impact away from shattering. Missing my golf swing and having the golf club eat a couple of inches of hard dirt would do that.)
* I have had a couple of bike crashes from single day dirt road events but those are totally different.
posted by bl1nk at 5:14 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
(I found out later that the hand had an enchondroma, or a benign bone tumor, that hollowed out one of my knuckles and it made it fragile like an egg shell, so it was one sharp impact away from shattering. Missing my golf swing and having the golf club eat a couple of inches of hard dirt would do that.)
* I have had a couple of bike crashes from single day dirt road events but those are totally different.
posted by bl1nk at 5:14 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
the world is a pachinko machine and we're just the balls it seems.
my last injury was using my back when picking up the laundry basket (w/ clothes), natch
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 5:18 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
my last injury was using my back when picking up the laundry basket (w/ clothes), natch
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 5:18 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Very similar to an early example: I pulled a muscle in my neck while drying my hair with a towel. I was out of sorts for weeks. Extremely painful. This was ~15 years ago, and to this day, I am very careful when drying my hair.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 5:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Good luck with that, in the mortality statistics there is a line item "bedclothes" -- basically dying from sheets is a thing and frequent enough to warrant a measurable stat, and it was not the bottomspecifically ICD10 T71.131 “ Asphyxiation due to being trapped in bed linens, accidental” which is set off to distinguish from
“Asphyxiation due to being trapped in bed linens, assault”
“Asphyxiation due to being trapped in bed linens, self-harm”
I used to work in healthtech and searching the ICD 10 dictionary updates for new death by accident lulz was a thing that I did in my 20s but soon lost the taste for after realizing there are some awful stories underlying those codes.
posted by bl1nk at 5:26 AM on May 19, 2021 [15 favorites]
Backs were a mistake.
I’ve always thought that the human body is the best possible evidence against the theory of intelligent design. What intelligent designer would make this crap?
No intelligent, benevolent designer, at least. Leaves the door wide open for a stupid or malicious god, though.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:27 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
I’ve always thought that the human body is the best possible evidence against the theory of intelligent design. What intelligent designer would make this crap?
No intelligent, benevolent designer, at least. Leaves the door wide open for a stupid or malicious god, though.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:27 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
Had back massage and glass of wine with girlfriends after Christmas, but instead of going home, I stopped by a local record store to peruse used vinyl. Was very mellow, deep into the reggae boxes when I failed to notice a short concrete platform halfway through the store. Tripped, fell hard on left knee. Limped to register to buy stack of vinyl. Realized i’d torn a meniscus later and canceled registration in upcoming half marathon. The knee was fucked for months. Still not entirely right and that was seven years ago.
posted by thivaia at 5:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by thivaia at 5:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I needed this laugh today, thank you.
Maybe, in light of this post, don't laugh too hard.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [46 favorites]
Maybe, in light of this post, don't laugh too hard.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 5:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [46 favorites]
I am ultra-careful as a middle aged person living alone, but one day I slipped in a puddle INSIDE St. Andrew subway station, while wearing flats mind you, and sprained a tendon the walk-in doctor said nobody sprains (MCL). It was raining, so it was probably not pee.
posted by wellred at 5:42 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by wellred at 5:42 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
(Ligament. It's in the name. I'm off my game this morning.)
posted by wellred at 5:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by wellred at 5:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Jumping back in to say that @Ghidorah is not alone with regard to rage-induced self-injury.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I cut off the tip of my thumb on Thanksgiving, while slicing potatoes. The vegetables were discarded.
It being Thanksgiving, I didn't bother going to the emergency room for "just" this, so I washed it and applied pressure while elevating the wound. I retired to the couch and watched television the rest of the day while making the "OK" sign over my head, while my wife (overcome by the sight of blood) swanned about the place.
It healed, but there is no fingerprint there now, so the whole thumb is useless for biometrics.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
It being Thanksgiving, I didn't bother going to the emergency room for "just" this, so I washed it and applied pressure while elevating the wound. I retired to the couch and watched television the rest of the day while making the "OK" sign over my head, while my wife (overcome by the sight of blood) swanned about the place.
It healed, but there is no fingerprint there now, so the whole thumb is useless for biometrics.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Doing nothing... I woke with a pain near my right shoulderblade. Over several days it got worse, to the point that I could only lie perfectly still on my back. To sleep I would take two aspirin, drink a pony glass of vodka and then smoke a hit of weed. The SO was an angel of mercy.
Then the pain moved. MOVED. From my right to my left shoulderblade. Just as bad. Same prescription for sleep. After about a month of this it went away. I was still very cautious about moving at all for a long while. I still dread every little twinge in my back. Could it be returning?
posted by Splunge at 6:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Then the pain moved. MOVED. From my right to my left shoulderblade. Just as bad. Same prescription for sleep. After about a month of this it went away. I was still very cautious about moving at all for a long while. I still dread every little twinge in my back. Could it be returning?
posted by Splunge at 6:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I once leaped out of my chair swearing because I killed a hardcore diablo character and spun the chair around while returning to it, fell off, tripped over a headset wire (pulling the wire out of the headset and breaking it,) sprained an ankle and chipped a front tooth.
posted by Typhoon Jim at 6:10 AM on May 19, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by Typhoon Jim at 6:10 AM on May 19, 2021 [17 favorites]
"Come On Eileen" was playing... and for that middle bit she rounded a bunch of us up into a kick line,
There ought to be an ICD-9 code just for this song, swear to God or whomever. It was closing time at a club in DC maybe 20 years ago and the song came on and basically everyone in the room wrapped arms over each others' shoulders and started a giant snaking kick line. Some very drunk person near me toppled over and it started a chain reaction that took out half the line. Can't speak for the others, but I twisted my knee and hobbled for two weeks.
But that was a late 20s injury. Nowadays it's more likely to be pet-related. We recently adopted a shelter doggo. She's very sweet but has anxiety issues and follows us room to room. Which is fine until it's late at night and I'm walking from the bathroom into the darkened bedroom and our russet-colored pooch has sneaked in behind me and laid herself down on the russet-colored carpet. She's taken me out twice so far.
posted by martin q blank at 6:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
There ought to be an ICD-9 code just for this song, swear to God or whomever. It was closing time at a club in DC maybe 20 years ago and the song came on and basically everyone in the room wrapped arms over each others' shoulders and started a giant snaking kick line. Some very drunk person near me toppled over and it started a chain reaction that took out half the line. Can't speak for the others, but I twisted my knee and hobbled for two weeks.
But that was a late 20s injury. Nowadays it's more likely to be pet-related. We recently adopted a shelter doggo. She's very sweet but has anxiety issues and follows us room to room. Which is fine until it's late at night and I'm walking from the bathroom into the darkened bedroom and our russet-colored pooch has sneaked in behind me and laid herself down on the russet-colored carpet. She's taken me out twice so far.
posted by martin q blank at 6:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
Physical injury only?
posted by sudogeek at 6:16 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by sudogeek at 6:16 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
mokey: Wow, seems like having legs is more dangerous than I thought.
Having two legs is dangerous. As the noted physiologist George Orwell observed, "Four legs good, two legs bad."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:22 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
Having two legs is dangerous. As the noted physiologist George Orwell observed, "Four legs good, two legs bad."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:22 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
These are... cute. I was being helpful after a beautiful wedding in a Japanese pagoda in a park in LA, emptying a cylindrical floor-standing glass vase out the window into the brook below, when it shattered between my hands, the base slicing into the inside of my left wrist, severing both flexor tendons – and my radial artery, which pumped blood into the floor as I crossed the large room to the bar for a towel to use for a tourniquet. All better now, but the artery actually closed itself off before it could be reattached.
posted by nicwolff at 6:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by nicwolff at 6:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
I slipped in the bath while standing up to shower and split my forehead open on a tap -- I'm very happy that I still have both eyeballs.
I sliced off the tip of my thumb while chopping a carrot with a wobbly meat carving knife because I was too lazy to wash a more appropriate knife.
While walking in an almost perfectly flat parking garage -- slightly awkwardly because I was getting tangled in a long, heavy skirt -- I tripped over a 10cm traffic island. Both my feet were trapped simultaneously, so I couldn't do anything to stop myself from pitching forward, and landed on my hands, knees and face (in that order) on a metal grate. Scratched up my palms and knees, cut my lip and chipped a tooth. I still have the scars.
Just last week I pulled a muscle in my groin by, as far as I can tell, doing absolutely nothing. I have already abandoned my earnest resolution to use a standing desk setup for my work (from home) laptop instead of sitting in bed with it; I'll see how long it takes me to abandon my resolution to restart exercising regularly.
posted by confluency at 6:28 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I sliced off the tip of my thumb while chopping a carrot with a wobbly meat carving knife because I was too lazy to wash a more appropriate knife.
While walking in an almost perfectly flat parking garage -- slightly awkwardly because I was getting tangled in a long, heavy skirt -- I tripped over a 10cm traffic island. Both my feet were trapped simultaneously, so I couldn't do anything to stop myself from pitching forward, and landed on my hands, knees and face (in that order) on a metal grate. Scratched up my palms and knees, cut my lip and chipped a tooth. I still have the scars.
Just last week I pulled a muscle in my groin by, as far as I can tell, doing absolutely nothing. I have already abandoned my earnest resolution to use a standing desk setup for my work (from home) laptop instead of sitting in bed with it; I'll see how long it takes me to abandon my resolution to restart exercising regularly.
posted by confluency at 6:28 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I bent over to pick up a scrap of paper and ruptured a disc in my lumbar spine. That was two and half years ago and I've managed to avoid surgery so I've got that going for me.
posted by tommasz at 6:28 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 6:28 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Nearly killed by ladybugs. While crossing a narrow footbridge, a swarm settled on me and, looking down, I saw my torso covered in blood-red spots. In a moment of panic I fell against the guardrail and was almost tipped over the side into freeway traffic. Then the ladybugs flew away and everything was OK again, once my heart re-started.
posted by SPrintF at 6:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [24 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 6:29 AM on May 19, 2021 [24 favorites]
I wrenched my neck turning over in bed. I think that it happened when I was tangled up in the sheets and couldn't just, you know, turn over, so in my sleepy not-thinking-it-through state, I tried using my head for leverage. Didn't work out so well. Hurt for a couple of weeks, and I was too embarrassed to see a doctor about it. (I expected the reply from the old joke: "Well, stop doing that, then!")
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I’ve always thought that the human body is the best possible evidence against the theory of intelligent design. What intelligent designer would make this crap?
Octopuses have no spine, and no blind spot. If there's an intelligent designer, they have eight legs.
posted by pompomtom at 6:32 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Octopuses have no spine, and no blind spot. If there's an intelligent designer, they have eight legs.
posted by pompomtom at 6:32 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Sprained one knee and bone-bruised the other when I was running because I saw footage of the Capitol Fuckery on someone's TV in nearby a window and literally just fell right the shit down.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:34 AM on May 19, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:34 AM on May 19, 2021 [23 favorites]
I assume every parent has stories of toddlers accidentally causing horrible havoc on the adult body. Just yesterday my husband told my 4-year-old a joke, she laughed so hard she threw her head back into his head, and he bit through his tongue.
Once my 18-month-old came toddling over for a great big hug, didn't aim very well, and scratched my cornea so badly I had to go to the emergency room.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Once my 18-month-old came toddling over for a great big hug, didn't aim very well, and scratched my cornea so badly I had to go to the emergency room.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
One colleague said I needed a better story— something with skiing and shrapnel. But I think the true lesson is to avoid boring talks.
Wow. I have made a lot of presentations in my life and some of them, I admit, were challenging to try to make entertaining. I’m sure a few people in the audience have been bored, but at least I think I never broke anyone’s bones through tedium.
I have a few scars from understandable things like bike accidents — although the nineteen stitches that went through my right eyebrow in September one year were in exactly the same spot that I had injured by falling over while stopping off a curb in April of that same year... if you’re going to have facial scars, best to get them all in the same spot, I say.
The most inexplicable injury was at age 26 [cw: temporary eye trauma]: I was lying on my back in bed reading when I felt what seemed to be a bit of sand in my eye. I blinked vigorously but could not dislodge it. After a day or two and a lot of eyedrops, I called my optometrist. He had a look and asked what I had been doing to get this, and was hard pressed to believe I hadn’t been working with industrial textiles or something of the sort.
I had a 2mm-long piece of nylon thread mostly buried, splinter-style, in the sclera of my eye. He sent me up the street to an ophthalmologist who put some drops in to numb the surface of my eye then extracted it. To this day, I have no clue where it came from or how it embedded itself in my eye.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:36 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Wow. I have made a lot of presentations in my life and some of them, I admit, were challenging to try to make entertaining. I’m sure a few people in the audience have been bored, but at least I think I never broke anyone’s bones through tedium.
I have a few scars from understandable things like bike accidents — although the nineteen stitches that went through my right eyebrow in September one year were in exactly the same spot that I had injured by falling over while stopping off a curb in April of that same year... if you’re going to have facial scars, best to get them all in the same spot, I say.
The most inexplicable injury was at age 26 [cw: temporary eye trauma]: I was lying on my back in bed reading when I felt what seemed to be a bit of sand in my eye. I blinked vigorously but could not dislodge it. After a day or two and a lot of eyedrops, I called my optometrist. He had a look and asked what I had been doing to get this, and was hard pressed to believe I hadn’t been working with industrial textiles or something of the sort.
I had a 2mm-long piece of nylon thread mostly buried, splinter-style, in the sclera of my eye. He sent me up the street to an ophthalmologist who put some drops in to numb the surface of my eye then extracted it. To this day, I have no clue where it came from or how it embedded itself in my eye.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:36 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
My wife just recently did the classic sneezed-and-threw-her-back-out trick.
I think I'm disqualified from this thread because I have EDS and routinely dislocate my fingers washing my hair. I once fully paralyzed my leg for a week by sitting still for too long. (Hip went for a little walk without my noticing and annoyed a nerve).
On the plus side, it does mean that we're fully stocked with the good painkillers and hot/cold packs for when my wife hurts herself sneezing.
posted by BlueNorther at 6:39 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I think I'm disqualified from this thread because I have EDS and routinely dislocate my fingers washing my hair. I once fully paralyzed my leg for a week by sitting still for too long. (Hip went for a little walk without my noticing and annoyed a nerve).
On the plus side, it does mean that we're fully stocked with the good painkillers and hot/cold packs for when my wife hurts herself sneezing.
posted by BlueNorther at 6:39 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I broke my ribs skateboarding, at 35 years old. It was during a skateboarding class - I was wearing a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards. Still managed to hit the one part of my body that wasn't protected. The triage nurse at the ER just sighed and shook her head.
posted by Ragged Richard at 6:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Ragged Richard at 6:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I'm laughing but also sitting here with my leg up because I hurt my knee to the point I can't put much weight on it last night. I was lying in bed and my knee started hurting like a son of a bitch. I didn't DO anything!
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I got up out of a chair once to walk into a mock interview in my 1L summer and blew my knee out so badly that I ended up in a weird strappy brace thing for the first three weeks of my 2L year of in a weird strapped on foam knee brace and crutches. Because nothing says "mature student" like severely injuring yourself by standing up.
Every time I see the lawyer who conducted the mock interview, I have the urge to ask him if he realized that I was in *intense* pain the entire time I was talking to him.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:52 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Every time I see the lawyer who conducted the mock interview, I have the urge to ask him if he realized that I was in *intense* pain the entire time I was talking to him.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:52 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I hesitate to add anything because I am now of the age where these kinds of injuries are probable and no longer surprising, but in my 30s, I
(a) sneezed while pregnant and threw out one side of my back.
(b) coughed while pregnant, a week later, and threw out the other side
(c) got slipper socks for Christmas and wore them on the stairs. Broke my little finger, which is still crooked ("do you wantit pretty or do you want it functional?" asked the doctor)
Non-age-related more recent dumb injury: In my 60s I was fencing with a very nice teenaged boy who threw a point-counter-attack to the hand. The completely intact knurled blunt sabre tip went through my palm and into my wrist. The coach thought I was yelling because I scored the touch (I had). Then the blood arrived. I drove home in my manual transmission Jeep alternately elevating the hand and shifting. It wasn't until the forearm turned black with blood later on that evening that I got my husband to take me to the hospital.
posted by Peach at 6:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
(a) sneezed while pregnant and threw out one side of my back.
(b) coughed while pregnant, a week later, and threw out the other side
(c) got slipper socks for Christmas and wore them on the stairs. Broke my little finger, which is still crooked ("do you wantit pretty or do you want it functional?" asked the doctor)
Non-age-related more recent dumb injury: In my 60s I was fencing with a very nice teenaged boy who threw a point-counter-attack to the hand. The completely intact knurled blunt sabre tip went through my palm and into my wrist. The coach thought I was yelling because I scored the touch (I had). Then the blood arrived. I drove home in my manual transmission Jeep alternately elevating the hand and shifting. It wasn't until the forearm turned black with blood later on that evening that I got my husband to take me to the hospital.
posted by Peach at 6:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I slipped a disc brushing my teeth.
(I was exactly 30. Yes, though, what has age got to do with it?)
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:54 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
(I was exactly 30. Yes, though, what has age got to do with it?)
posted by Cardinal Fang at 6:54 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I broke my ribs skateboarding, at 35 years old. It was during a skateboarding class - I was wearing a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, and wrist guards.
Don't tell me that, I just started skateboarding a few weeks ago, at age 42, and was feeling relatively safe because I wear a helmet and all the pads. I'm pretty sure if I end up injuring myself my wife will be doing the sighing and head shaking.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Don't tell me that, I just started skateboarding a few weeks ago, at age 42, and was feeling relatively safe because I wear a helmet and all the pads. I'm pretty sure if I end up injuring myself my wife will be doing the sighing and head shaking.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
A friend of mine my age (i.e. mid-40s) recently broke her arm (like, gorily bad) skateboarding. She's gonna be all right, but no more skateboarding for her.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:57 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:57 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm now glad that none of the stupid things I've done to injure myself have ever required more than a few staples. (Standing up underneath sharp things surely wins by number in my case.)
A minor one that stands out to me, because I still find it inexplicable, is that I cut myself with a very sharp blade while working under a microscope. There was absolutely no reason for it. I was carefully using the tool to strip insulation from very fine wire as I'd done hundreds of times before. Without any conscious decision or will to act, my hand just randomly moved in the opposite direction of what I intended and drove the point of the knife through a latex glove and deep into my finger. I watched it happen and then had several shocked seconds before I felt it. I still have no idea what happened. I'm confident there was no intention, even subconsciously, to do that. My brain just mixed up left and right at a critical moment. But, the memory of it makes me less confident around dangerous machines and cliffs than I would otherwise be.
posted by eotvos at 6:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
A minor one that stands out to me, because I still find it inexplicable, is that I cut myself with a very sharp blade while working under a microscope. There was absolutely no reason for it. I was carefully using the tool to strip insulation from very fine wire as I'd done hundreds of times before. Without any conscious decision or will to act, my hand just randomly moved in the opposite direction of what I intended and drove the point of the knife through a latex glove and deep into my finger. I watched it happen and then had several shocked seconds before I felt it. I still have no idea what happened. I'm confident there was no intention, even subconsciously, to do that. My brain just mixed up left and right at a critical moment. But, the memory of it makes me less confident around dangerous machines and cliffs than I would otherwise be.
posted by eotvos at 6:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Leaned over the bed to adjust the sheets with a magazine in my hand. Edge of magazine went right under my glasses and gave me a paper cut on my eyeball. Miserable pain the entire night.
posted by dlugoczaj at 7:01 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by dlugoczaj at 7:01 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
Also, my living history group has an actual award for Stupidest Injury of the Season, known as the canard or Fuck-Up Duck. My wife has one for knocking herself out with her own drum.
I probably don't need to explain how 'Eugene', as in "Careful With That Axe..." earned his.
posted by BlueNorther at 7:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I probably don't need to explain how 'Eugene', as in "Careful With That Axe..." earned his.
posted by BlueNorther at 7:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Not a week goes by that I don't think of this cartoon at least once.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:05 AM on May 19, 2021 [22 favorites]
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:05 AM on May 19, 2021 [22 favorites]
I was playing piano for a doomed play, and trying to liven things up, played "Lola" so hard I hurt my left hand. Two years ago. Still have a hard time gripping things with that hand. Am pushing 70 and things take longer to heal. I'm still banging on the piano, but more carefully now.
posted by kozad at 7:08 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by kozad at 7:08 AM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
Dislocated my knee randomly, due to nothing as far as I can tell. One moment I was standing, the next I was on the ground. I was in my basement carrying a bucket of waste water that I had bailed out from a leaky sewer pipe at the time, so when I fell I ended up lying in said waste water until the EMTs arrived.
posted by biogeo at 7:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 7:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
This list, while horrifying, is somewhat comforting as I can use it when I need to convince myself that my body’s not freakishly vulnerable. Going to send it to my husband in self-defense next time he marvels over the weird things that happen to me. Not sure if this first one counts, because young: when I was in Jr High, I used to —fairly often — twist my ankle painfully just sitting in a chair at my school desk. This did not bode well for my future.
Adulthood: we’ll just imagine a montage of all the times I’ve walked into walls, doors, solid objects such as the foot of any bed. Other highlights include:
1) Had to stop playing competitive pinball: kept triggering ominous multi-day numbness in hands, wrists, arms by leaning with too much weight into my palms while flipping. (waves to ocschwar!)
2) Injured my hand via trapping it inside the dryer’s lint catcher trying to reach just one more clump.
3) Stepped barefoot on a tree branch which rolled under my foot. Teeny splinters by the gajillion. Took months to get the last of them out.
4) Strained neck , shoulder, and arm muscles sleeping with my arm arched around my tiny dog.
5) Cut my fingers on rice.
posted by Nancy_LockIsLit_Palmer at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
Stepped in a disturbingly warm & fresh cat hairball while coming out of the bathroom post-shower; i. e. barefoot & naked. Did an unintentional revulsion jump, flailing my foot to get the offending substance out from between my toes. Kicked the padded ottoman at the end of the bed square on a corner, aka the only hard spot. Broke two toes and couldn't walk right for months.
I had made it to my mid-thirties without breaking any bones but my streak was ruined by CAT HORK.
posted by Ann Telope at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [22 favorites]
I had made it to my mid-thirties without breaking any bones but my streak was ruined by CAT HORK.
posted by Ann Telope at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [22 favorites]
I shattered my ankle walking down the street trying to catch the bus in the rain. I slipped walking down the hill and broke my ankle in three places and I will never run again. Never caught that fucking bus, instead sat in the rain for an hour begging passerby in cars to take me to the hospital.
posted by deadaluspark at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by deadaluspark at 7:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
We have limited backcountry experience and the first time we went as a family my wife fell and broke two ribs. She is often agitating to go camping again and my only response is to gesture vaguely around the room and ask “isn’t this dangerous enough for you?” This thread pretty much confirms that I’m right.
posted by simra at 7:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by simra at 7:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I was pretending to be a dog and was holding a pillow in my mouth. My husband pulled the pillow, as one does when a dog is holding a pillow its mouth, and pulled an unloose tooth out.
posted by waving at 7:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by waving at 7:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [23 favorites]
I sprained both butt-ocks (*Forrest Gump voice*) in my late '30s through a combination of running and cycling. I could only shuffle for about 6 weeks.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:32 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:32 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Also, gravity sucks.
posted by simra at 7:32 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by simra at 7:32 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Broke my achilles - 2 operations, a full reconstruction re-purposing one of the tendons from my big toe, 4 months on my back, 6 months of physio (learning to make that muscle that used to move my toe do something different and rebuilding those wasted muscles) and I can walk again, take short hikes, will probably never run again
Ahhh! I tore my achillies jumping on a 6inch tall box at the gym. But my surgery was more basic, my recovery boring but uneventful, and my physical therapy equally as long but I can run again, so I have learned nothing!
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:37 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ahhh! I tore my achillies jumping on a 6inch tall box at the gym. But my surgery was more basic, my recovery boring but uneventful, and my physical therapy equally as long but I can run again, so I have learned nothing!
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:37 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Just last night I flung the door open to the bathroom so I could go in. The door bounced off my foot and connected directly with my face on the backswing.
I said a bunch of bad words because the pain of my reflex-reaction was worse than the pain of the actual impact. I tweaked my back trying to get out of the damned way.
Being older is great. Getting older sort of sucks.
posted by jquinby at 7:48 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I said a bunch of bad words because the pain of my reflex-reaction was worse than the pain of the actual impact. I tweaked my back trying to get out of the damned way.
Being older is great. Getting older sort of sucks.
posted by jquinby at 7:48 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
When I had long hair I would occasionally hurt my neck combing it.
But my favorite is the time my ex hurt his back while lowering our chubby cat to the floor. Because he was putting Buster down slowly while making 'bomb dropping' sounds. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. :-)
posted by Occula at 7:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
But my favorite is the time my ex hurt his back while lowering our chubby cat to the floor. Because he was putting Buster down slowly while making 'bomb dropping' sounds. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone. :-)
posted by Occula at 7:49 AM on May 19, 2021 [14 favorites]
Tripped over my own feet while getting the towels off of the clothesline, for some reason did not put my arms out to stop my fall, banged my head on the concrete that makes up most of our garden, ended up with a concussion.
The stupidest injury of all time? I was making a joke about slitting my wrists with the cutting edge from a box of saran wrap and then actually cut my wrist. (not deeply, but ouch that stung)
posted by Katemonkey at 7:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
The stupidest injury of all time? I was making a joke about slitting my wrists with the cutting edge from a box of saran wrap and then actually cut my wrist. (not deeply, but ouch that stung)
posted by Katemonkey at 7:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I cut my thumb on a piece of hard sugar after cleaning up from making sugar decorations in culinary school and didn't realize it until I was in line for the wash sink and my classmates were like, "Um, you're dripping blood on the floor..." There was a pool of blood next to my foot. I still have the scar on my thumb.
posted by cooker girl at 7:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 7:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Many of these are basically scenes from the Final Destination movies, except nobody actually died.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
I was playing piano for a doomed play, and trying to liven things up, played "Lola" so hard I hurt my left hand.
I am not sure I have ever injured myself onstage but my band was once on the same bill with another group; I took note of the where the bass amps were, assessed the ceiling fan directly above, and thought to warn one of the bassists in another band (Paul had an oversized stage presence with lots of Pete Townshend sort of windmill moves, and I reckoned he was in danger of losing a hand to the rotating blades).
That said, I did once cut to the bone the pad of my fretting hand’s index finger, one day before a gig. I had 36 hours to teach myself an entirely new way to play bass.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I am not sure I have ever injured myself onstage but my band was once on the same bill with another group; I took note of the where the bass amps were, assessed the ceiling fan directly above, and thought to warn one of the bassists in another band (Paul had an oversized stage presence with lots of Pete Townshend sort of windmill moves, and I reckoned he was in danger of losing a hand to the rotating blades).
That said, I did once cut to the bone the pad of my fretting hand’s index finger, one day before a gig. I had 36 hours to teach myself an entirely new way to play bass.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I sliced a bit of the tip of a finger off trying to pull off the cover of the basement floor drain to clean out some sawdust. I did that early in morning as I was packing for a week-long camping trip. Rather than deal with it properly, I cleaned the wound, stuck the tip back on and bound it up with bandages. Amazingly, it healed okay despite having no way of keeping properly clean while camping and the tip of my finger "stuck" back on. But I had no feeling in the tip of that finger for years. It still is a bit numb compared to the rest of my fingers, and there is a circular scar around the bit I stuck back on.
That drain cover still makes me nervous when I have to pull it out to clean it.
I also tripped while using a belt sander outside when I was a teenager, and took off a good chunk of the palm of my hand. That was a couple days before a Florida beach vacation. Holy crap, but salt water hurts when you have no skin on your palm. I still have nice scar from that.
Right next to that scar is a permanent black spot where I accidently stuck myself with just-sharpened pencil in Grade 4. I wanted to see how sharp it was.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
That drain cover still makes me nervous when I have to pull it out to clean it.
I also tripped while using a belt sander outside when I was a teenager, and took off a good chunk of the palm of my hand. That was a couple days before a Florida beach vacation. Holy crap, but salt water hurts when you have no skin on your palm. I still have nice scar from that.
Right next to that scar is a permanent black spot where I accidently stuck myself with just-sharpened pencil in Grade 4. I wanted to see how sharp it was.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
As a child, I walked into a doorframe while reading, and busted open my left eyebrow on my eyeglasses frame. Very nerdy injury. Also, broke my left wrist doing an unsupported one-handed cartwheel in gymnastics class.
As a teen, while working at a Panera, I forgot to turn off the electric bagel slicer before grabbing a bagel, and slashed open my left thumb.
In my 20's, I was in a terrible car accident and totaled my car, but walked away with nothing worse than facial contusions. A few days later, I was pushing myself off the couch and snapped my left clavicle -- turns out I'd probably had a stress fracture from the impact of the air bag on the seat belt. Better than a broken head.
About seven years ago, I fell off a bicycle and broke my left foot and sprained my ankle.
I've asked multiple body workers (yoga, nia, physical therapists, massage therapists) about my predilection for injuring the left side of my body. (I'm right-handed, thankfully.) Everyone just shrugs and says my body is weird. I turn 40 this year and am hoping not to continue the streak of breaking a bone on the left side of my body once a decade.
posted by wicked_sassy at 8:00 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
As a teen, while working at a Panera, I forgot to turn off the electric bagel slicer before grabbing a bagel, and slashed open my left thumb.
In my 20's, I was in a terrible car accident and totaled my car, but walked away with nothing worse than facial contusions. A few days later, I was pushing myself off the couch and snapped my left clavicle -- turns out I'd probably had a stress fracture from the impact of the air bag on the seat belt. Better than a broken head.
About seven years ago, I fell off a bicycle and broke my left foot and sprained my ankle.
I've asked multiple body workers (yoga, nia, physical therapists, massage therapists) about my predilection for injuring the left side of my body. (I'm right-handed, thankfully.) Everyone just shrugs and says my body is weird. I turn 40 this year and am hoping not to continue the streak of breaking a bone on the left side of my body once a decade.
posted by wicked_sassy at 8:00 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
None of my stories could beat my friend's mom, who broke her wrist changing her dog's diaper.
posted by pinothefrog at 8:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by pinothefrog at 8:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
This reminds me that the last time I saw a live show by the Kids in the Hall, Kevin McDonald threw out his knee somehow toward the end.
Last summer - as I was mostly recovered from Bell's palsy - my right shoulder stopped working and started hurting. It was one of those rotator cuff things, I guess? Terrible pain, had to sleep on my back for weeks bolstered by spare pillows. Had to use my other hand to lift my right hand up to use my mouse. Luckily lockdown meant I didn't have to try to drive much. It gradually went away over the course of a couple of months but I still think about it a lot when I go to bed, because I always start the night lying on that side.
posted by Occula at 8:04 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Last summer - as I was mostly recovered from Bell's palsy - my right shoulder stopped working and started hurting. It was one of those rotator cuff things, I guess? Terrible pain, had to sleep on my back for weeks bolstered by spare pillows. Had to use my other hand to lift my right hand up to use my mouse. Luckily lockdown meant I didn't have to try to drive much. It gradually went away over the course of a couple of months but I still think about it a lot when I go to bed, because I always start the night lying on that side.
posted by Occula at 8:04 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
If we're including athletics-related injuries, I injured my knee from running and took up Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to take some of the strain off my knees and promptly tore my rotator cuff.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:06 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 8:06 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I thought these would be kind of darkly comic, but they're just scary as hell.
posted by skewed at 8:07 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by skewed at 8:07 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Not my injury but: last weekend, playing basketball, the ball got stuck on that little flat bit that connects the basket to the backboard.
Acquaintance jumps up to slap it off the ledge, traps his wrist, dislocates his shoulder.
...and dangles there by his wrist and dislocated shoulder for an hour while we go try to find several ladders to get him down. His shoulder is now completely wrecked, probably forever.
posted by aramaic at 8:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Acquaintance jumps up to slap it off the ledge, traps his wrist, dislocates his shoulder.
...and dangles there by his wrist and dislocated shoulder for an hour while we go try to find several ladders to get him down. His shoulder is now completely wrecked, probably forever.
posted by aramaic at 8:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Wiped out in an unseen bathroom puddle. Banged head on the cast-iron clawfoot tub on my way down. Husband heard the sound and came to find me motionless; tried to "help" me up but I had no control over my limbs and couldn't articulate same, so my head whacked into the tub again as he pulled my hands.
Not my first TBI, not even my worst TBI, but I was tired, furious, and disoriented for weeks.
posted by armeowda at 8:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Not my first TBI, not even my worst TBI, but I was tired, furious, and disoriented for weeks.
posted by armeowda at 8:12 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Put my back out bending down to pick a coffee cup off the floor. Couldn't work for a couple days after.
posted by hoodrich at 8:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by hoodrich at 8:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Turned my head on the subway platform to look down the tunnel to see if the train was coming. First major back injury.
posted by praemunire at 8:18 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 8:18 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I recently flew off a little e-scooter that was too small for my feet - which feet remained with the scooter as I flew away, resulting in a trimalleolar* fracture of one ankle, surgery, then being bedridden for two months - and the ankle will never be the same as its mate.
No more wheels at all for me.
This thread does suggest perhaps my favourite bit of comedy tho, so there are always silver linings to these cloudy stories.
* broken in three places.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 8:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
No more wheels at all for me.
This thread does suggest perhaps my favourite bit of comedy tho, so there are always silver linings to these cloudy stories.
* broken in three places.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 8:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Playing BMX tag in a forest near where I lived I decided to avoid the person who was it and was approaching me coming up a hill on one of two paths to the top by blazing my own trail down the wooded hill because the other trail was jammed with other BMXers. Halfway down the hill, with a full head of gravity assisted steam, my front tire wedged right into an uprooted branching tree trunk catapulting me over the handlebars, through the air and down the hill. I closed my eyes and tumbled and tumbled for what seemed like forever. Sitting at the bottom I called for a damage report, as any sci-fi fan would, and surprisingly all decks reported that systems were nominal. I had miraculously survived a major wipeout where injury was almost certain completely unscathed!
Then I opened my eyes. In what seemed like a fraction of a second my BMX bike fell from the sky and its head tube smashed right into my nose. I got up and holding my nose with one hand and my bike with other announced "I'm going home". I walked about 1.5 miles home with double barrels of shotgunning blood gushing down my front, horrifying everyone I passed on the way until I got home covered in blood and my mom met me at the side door and said "Oh" and went and lay down in bed so she could safely faint. I felt Wile E. Coyote. Three weeks of double shiner racoon face followed.
posted by srboisvert at 8:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
Then I opened my eyes. In what seemed like a fraction of a second my BMX bike fell from the sky and its head tube smashed right into my nose. I got up and holding my nose with one hand and my bike with other announced "I'm going home". I walked about 1.5 miles home with double barrels of shotgunning blood gushing down my front, horrifying everyone I passed on the way until I got home covered in blood and my mom met me at the side door and said "Oh" and went and lay down in bed so she could safely faint. I felt Wile E. Coyote. Three weeks of double shiner racoon face followed.
posted by srboisvert at 8:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
Some of these are hilarious and some of these are terrifying. I had mine recently. Stay safe Metafilter!
posted by gwint at 8:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by gwint at 8:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Picked a pillow up from the floor and set it on my bed while lying in said bed. Some muscle in my shoulder is still unhappy about similar movements several years later.
posted by FallibleHuman at 8:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by FallibleHuman at 8:31 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Everything I Thought Was Funny, I Know Now Was Cruel
(soz, I've lost track of which comment I dug up this song for...)
posted by pompomtom at 8:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
(soz, I've lost track of which comment I dug up this song for...)
posted by pompomtom at 8:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
The first time I threw my back out, in my early thirties, was attempting to remove an old uninterruptible power supply from under a desk - sitting under the desk, lifting the 40-ish pound battery thing, and turning to put it behind me was apparently the wrong thing to do.
The SECOND time I threw it out was a few years later, going down on my then-girlfriend in what turned out to be a just-awkward-enough position to inflame the older injury and leave me unable to move or breathe deeply.
posted by hanov3r at 8:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
The SECOND time I threw it out was a few years later, going down on my then-girlfriend in what turned out to be a just-awkward-enough position to inflame the older injury and leave me unable to move or breathe deeply.
posted by hanov3r at 8:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
You know how everyone says "mandoline slicers are really dangerous, use a hand guard"? I cut my hand on the hand guard.
posted by capricorn at 8:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [32 favorites]
posted by capricorn at 8:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [32 favorites]
My favorite stupid injury was going to bed one night. I dropped my phone by my dresser, and bent down to pick it up again. Proprioception fail of where I was in the dark room, and while bending down I cracked my forehead right into the upper edge of it, got a nasty deep cut right above my eye that I went to the ER over. (Expected at least a couple stitches, got medical-superglued instead; probably could have skipped the trip but then again that's likely why I don't have a visible scar there now.)
posted by Drastic at 8:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Drastic at 8:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
I thought these would be kind of darkly comic, but they're just scary as hell.
If it helps put your mind at ease - my own particular experience as one of the walking-wounded has been actually quite sweet, since I'm finding that people are overall kind, and I have three times as many examples of people being helpful or encouraging as I have examples of being injured. These are all just from my most recent:
* Early on, when I had to have an immobilizer brace on my knee, my roommate and I came up with a whole system for how to get me in and out of chairs or out of beds. When I was going in for the initial surgery (a week after the break, the soonest they could get me in), there was a moment when three nurses were standing around and trying to figure out how to move me from a chair to a stretcher, and were talking through (and finding fault with their various plans as my roommate and I listened. After a couple minutes, we finally interrupted and said, "wait, I think we got this." I looked at my roommate. "The usual, then?"
"I support the leg while you stand, then lift it into the stretcher once you're in?"
"Yup." We did exactly that and got me out of the chair and then into the stretcher within ten seconds, as the nurses all stood staring and marveled at us. "We've had practice," we just said.
* I started going back to work in January. It's close enough to walk or ride my bike, but there's also a bus stop around the corner that lets me off a half-block from the office. Throughout February and March, I would often be getting off the bus right when another dude was getting on - and after the third or fourth time we started nodding greetings at each other. He congratulated me when I shed my cane in March.
* In April I began walking to work again, at least part of the way (I'm in a business park, and there's a shuttle bus that circulates the whole campus and I hitch a ride on it for a couple dozen yards or so). I'm pretty okay with walking on my own now, I'm just slow - and paranoid that I might stumble while crossing a street and then the light might change and eek I'd get run over, so sometimes if someone is waiting at the same corner with me I will ask if they can just walk with me across the street as a sort of escort. Not a single person I've asked has ever refused. And just yesterday, there was a dude on a bike who rode past me hobbling towards a corner - when he saw me, he doubled back and offered to help me.
* Finally, this past weekend I was at an intersection on my own, trying to get to a bus stop. No one was there who could escort me, but the light seemed unusually long - so I hobbled across on my own, taking the full 30 seconds the light lasted to get across. There were three people at the bus stop I was heading for who had seen the whole thing, and when I got there they all offered me a high five for making it safely on my own.
The injuries are scary. The insights into human nature I've gotten from being injured, and how deep down people can generally be good, have been encouraging.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
If it helps put your mind at ease - my own particular experience as one of the walking-wounded has been actually quite sweet, since I'm finding that people are overall kind, and I have three times as many examples of people being helpful or encouraging as I have examples of being injured. These are all just from my most recent:
* Early on, when I had to have an immobilizer brace on my knee, my roommate and I came up with a whole system for how to get me in and out of chairs or out of beds. When I was going in for the initial surgery (a week after the break, the soonest they could get me in), there was a moment when three nurses were standing around and trying to figure out how to move me from a chair to a stretcher, and were talking through (and finding fault with their various plans as my roommate and I listened. After a couple minutes, we finally interrupted and said, "wait, I think we got this." I looked at my roommate. "The usual, then?"
"I support the leg while you stand, then lift it into the stretcher once you're in?"
"Yup." We did exactly that and got me out of the chair and then into the stretcher within ten seconds, as the nurses all stood staring and marveled at us. "We've had practice," we just said.
* I started going back to work in January. It's close enough to walk or ride my bike, but there's also a bus stop around the corner that lets me off a half-block from the office. Throughout February and March, I would often be getting off the bus right when another dude was getting on - and after the third or fourth time we started nodding greetings at each other. He congratulated me when I shed my cane in March.
* In April I began walking to work again, at least part of the way (I'm in a business park, and there's a shuttle bus that circulates the whole campus and I hitch a ride on it for a couple dozen yards or so). I'm pretty okay with walking on my own now, I'm just slow - and paranoid that I might stumble while crossing a street and then the light might change and eek I'd get run over, so sometimes if someone is waiting at the same corner with me I will ask if they can just walk with me across the street as a sort of escort. Not a single person I've asked has ever refused. And just yesterday, there was a dude on a bike who rode past me hobbling towards a corner - when he saw me, he doubled back and offered to help me.
* Finally, this past weekend I was at an intersection on my own, trying to get to a bus stop. No one was there who could escort me, but the light seemed unusually long - so I hobbled across on my own, taking the full 30 seconds the light lasted to get across. There were three people at the bus stop I was heading for who had seen the whole thing, and when I got there they all offered me a high five for making it safely on my own.
The injuries are scary. The insights into human nature I've gotten from being injured, and how deep down people can generally be good, have been encouraging.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:56 AM on May 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
I iust started passing put after age 40. It just happens sometimes. I’m 6’4 and when I come to with a smashing headache from the collision and everyone around me terrified from the “timber” effect of a very large man suddenly sweeping everything before him as he careens to the floor.
Doctors after a bunch of tests: “Yeah, sometimes this happens to people. We’ll put “history of falling” on your charts.””
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Doctors after a bunch of tests: “Yeah, sometimes this happens to people. We’ll put “history of falling” on your charts.””
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:02 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
I also have sneezed so hard that something in my back went "PING!" The next morning I wasn't able to get out of bed, where I stayed for 36 more hours, periodically rolling to the toilet because that was the only form of locomotion I could manage.
I have no wisdom to offer. Don't sneeze?
posted by 1adam12 at 9:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have no wisdom to offer. Don't sneeze?
posted by 1adam12 at 9:03 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I have repeatedly sprained or broken the fourth toes on both my left and right feet, almost always by cracking them against a bedpost. I have no idea why my toes are magnetically attracted to bedposts. This happened again just a few weeks ago, leading to the following dialogue with my mother:
mom: you know, they've invented technology for that
me: ...shoes?
mom: yes. it's not even new technology
me: but shoes indoors are not good for the floor
me: I suppose I could wear steel-toed socks
mom: also not good for the floor. buy shoes to wear indoors only
posted by thomas j wise at 9:11 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
mom: you know, they've invented technology for that
me: ...shoes?
mom: yes. it's not even new technology
me: but shoes indoors are not good for the floor
me: I suppose I could wear steel-toed socks
mom: also not good for the floor. buy shoes to wear indoors only
posted by thomas j wise at 9:11 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Once upon a time I will as in the kitchen making breakfast. I needed a coffee cup. I went to the cupboard, opened the door, reached for the cup, and BANG! my back started spasming with really horrible pain. My hands went down to support my weight on the counter. Now, part of my brain was screaming in pain, but there was another part that was calm and carefully making plans to get myself down on the floor with a minimal amount of pain. That part of my brain got me to the floor. It was the first time I experienced that cool and calm in an emergency brain. I hope it’s still there just in case.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Broke my knee gardening.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Playing beach football with my nephews, tried nutmegging the little one, tripped over my own feet and fell heavily on my arm, cracked a rib. Two months of pain, for trying to humiliate an 8-year old.
posted by ceiriog at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by ceiriog at 9:13 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I have thankfully so far not gotten to the "randomly break parts of my body" stage of aging, but most embarrassing injury is probably a tossup between two:
1) Walking home late at night from a party, slipped on some ice, and instinctively stuck my hand out to steady myself. The brick wall next to me did not prevent me from sliding all the way to the ground, and I managed to cut about a two-inch gash in the palm of my hand from the rough bricks. I was literally across the street from my apartment. Went home, cleaned it up, wouldn't stop bleeding, looked at the clock and decided "I'll deal with it tomorrow, if I die tonight then oh well" and went to bed. Still have a scar but otherwise unharmed.
2) On a business trip, we were touring a B-52 in depot maintenance to see where we could put some electronics. The entire plane was ripped apart, and our tour guide warned us not to hurt ourselves because of all the sharp edges. Last in line, I climbed up into the crew section and immediately hit my head on something. Didn't think much of it until I caught up with everyone else, and they're all staring at me like I've grown an extra head. Then my scalp started feeling warm, and I realized I've got a pool of blood around me. I managed to cut myself open and was bleeding all over everything. Took forever to stop.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:14 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
1) Walking home late at night from a party, slipped on some ice, and instinctively stuck my hand out to steady myself. The brick wall next to me did not prevent me from sliding all the way to the ground, and I managed to cut about a two-inch gash in the palm of my hand from the rough bricks. I was literally across the street from my apartment. Went home, cleaned it up, wouldn't stop bleeding, looked at the clock and decided "I'll deal with it tomorrow, if I die tonight then oh well" and went to bed. Still have a scar but otherwise unharmed.
2) On a business trip, we were touring a B-52 in depot maintenance to see where we could put some electronics. The entire plane was ripped apart, and our tour guide warned us not to hurt ourselves because of all the sharp edges. Last in line, I climbed up into the crew section and immediately hit my head on something. Didn't think much of it until I caught up with everyone else, and they're all staring at me like I've grown an extra head. Then my scalp started feeling warm, and I realized I've got a pool of blood around me. I managed to cut myself open and was bleeding all over everything. Took forever to stop.
posted by backseatpilot at 9:14 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I tore my calf muscle while walking across the road at a moderate pace on my way to a work Christmas party. Four weeks on crutches, didn't get to the party.
posted by YoungStencil at 9:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by YoungStencil at 9:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was demonstrating to a friend how NOT to injure yourself slicing veggies on a mandolin, when... oh shit.
She thought I was joking around.
posted by functionequalsform at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
She thought I was joking around.
posted by functionequalsform at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Broke toe bringing handful of Skittles to 10 year old.
Pulled shoulder lifting 10 year old out of tub.
Severe burns on foot making ramen for 10 year old.
Pulled back removing 10 year old from car.
posted by Wetterschneider at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Pulled shoulder lifting 10 year old out of tub.
Severe burns on foot making ramen for 10 year old.
Pulled back removing 10 year old from car.
posted by Wetterschneider at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Coughing while pregnant at age 38. I had a terrible virus of some kind and did something awful to my back while coughing so many times that I ended up calling an ambulance in agonizing pain. They gave me laughing gas.
When I went into labour two days later, I was like, yay I'll get to have that laughing gas - it totally works and so I won't need morphine and I won't get all loopy! Alas, the laughing gas cannister wasn't working and none of the nurses could figure it out and I didn't get any at all. Sadly ironic.
posted by kitcat at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
When I went into labour two days later, I was like, yay I'll get to have that laughing gas - it totally works and so I won't need morphine and I won't get all loopy! Alas, the laughing gas cannister wasn't working and none of the nurses could figure it out and I didn't get any at all. Sadly ironic.
posted by kitcat at 9:17 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I also have sneezed so hard that something in my back went "PING!" The next morning I wasn't able to get out of bed, where I stayed for 36 more hours, periodically rolling to the toilet because that was the only form of locomotion I could manage.
Yeah, sneeze-induced back and chest pain has happened to me a few times over the past 30 years, and it’s excruciating. Doctor said it was a rib subluxation, which is when the rib bone slips away from its position at the sternum or vertebrae. This causes all of the muscle around it to seize for days.
Having cat allergies was a killer, so no more cats for me.
posted by waving at 9:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah, sneeze-induced back and chest pain has happened to me a few times over the past 30 years, and it’s excruciating. Doctor said it was a rib subluxation, which is when the rib bone slips away from its position at the sternum or vertebrae. This causes all of the muscle around it to seize for days.
Having cat allergies was a killer, so no more cats for me.
posted by waving at 9:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think injuries received while going down on someone deserve some kind of medal, hanov3r.
posted by emjaybee at 9:20 AM on May 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 9:20 AM on May 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
I don't think I can even enumerate all of the "oh I must have slept funny, guess that hurts now and maybe forever?" or "gee, moving in that perfectly normal way like I always do was a big mistake this time for unknown reasons" anymore now that I'm almost fifty. I'm just happy when I don't wake up with mysterious pain.
But now that I think more about it, probably the stupidest injury I had was when gutting and renovating the super disgusting old, mouldy basement bathroom in our house a couple years after we bought it. Now in my middle ages with loads of practical, hard-earned experience about why safety equipment is important, I wore work gloves, safety glasses, work boots, N95 dust mask, the whole lot when working on the demolition. No way was I going to get injured through stupidity.
Then after I was done for the day, I needed a screwdriver which I left in the bathroom. Annoyingly, on top of a ladder (in the hole on the ladder shelf designed to hold screwdrivers, not just balanced there). I stepped up the ladder, got the screwdriver, stepped off the ladder, and right onto a nail. I was wearing a pair of crocs because why would I change back into workboots just to grab a screwdriver?
I ended up with a deep horrible puncture wound in ball of my foot near my big toe. It got infected, of course, because the old bathroom was DISGUSTING, and took over a year to heal up properly. I walk to work, so that was a fun time.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
But now that I think more about it, probably the stupidest injury I had was when gutting and renovating the super disgusting old, mouldy basement bathroom in our house a couple years after we bought it. Now in my middle ages with loads of practical, hard-earned experience about why safety equipment is important, I wore work gloves, safety glasses, work boots, N95 dust mask, the whole lot when working on the demolition. No way was I going to get injured through stupidity.
Then after I was done for the day, I needed a screwdriver which I left in the bathroom. Annoyingly, on top of a ladder (in the hole on the ladder shelf designed to hold screwdrivers, not just balanced there). I stepped up the ladder, got the screwdriver, stepped off the ladder, and right onto a nail. I was wearing a pair of crocs because why would I change back into workboots just to grab a screwdriver?
I ended up with a deep horrible puncture wound in ball of my foot near my big toe. It got infected, of course, because the old bathroom was DISGUSTING, and took over a year to heal up properly. I walk to work, so that was a fun time.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Doctors after a bunch of tests: “Yeah, sometimes this happens to people. We’ll put “history of falling” on your charts.””
At some point just before the pandemic, I woke up in the middle of the night with a bit of an urgent intestinal complaint. I jumped up out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and plunked myself down on the toilet.
Seconds after I did so, my vision started greying out.
Some undetermined amount of time later I regained consciousness, and discovered I was lying on the bathroom floor, shorts around my ankles, with a trickle of blood emanating from a cut in my eyebrow. After re-orienting myself and sorting out WTF just happened, I hauled myself off the floor and examined the gash in my brow.
After cleaning it with some alcohol, I determined that it wasn't in the "Let's go get stitches right now" category and bandaged it up. Judging by small pool of blood on the floor, I'd been out for a few minutes.
It looked like I had tumbled forward off the toilet and my head made contact with the wall (which isn't too far away), and then I clipped my eyebrow on the sharp-ish upper edge of the baseboard on my way to the floor.
As luck would have it, I had a doctor's appointment two days later, and her first question was (naturally), "What happened to your forehead?" to which I had to say, "I, uh, fell off the toilet."
After some discussion, she seemed satisfied that I'd just had a good old-fashioned fainting spell from getting up too quickly.
Hasn't happened since, and the thing I have to be thankful for is that, given the reason I jumped up and ran to the toilet in the first place, I didn't shit myself while lying unconscious and pantsless on the bathroom floor.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
At some point just before the pandemic, I woke up in the middle of the night with a bit of an urgent intestinal complaint. I jumped up out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and plunked myself down on the toilet.
Seconds after I did so, my vision started greying out.
Some undetermined amount of time later I regained consciousness, and discovered I was lying on the bathroom floor, shorts around my ankles, with a trickle of blood emanating from a cut in my eyebrow. After re-orienting myself and sorting out WTF just happened, I hauled myself off the floor and examined the gash in my brow.
After cleaning it with some alcohol, I determined that it wasn't in the "Let's go get stitches right now" category and bandaged it up. Judging by small pool of blood on the floor, I'd been out for a few minutes.
It looked like I had tumbled forward off the toilet and my head made contact with the wall (which isn't too far away), and then I clipped my eyebrow on the sharp-ish upper edge of the baseboard on my way to the floor.
As luck would have it, I had a doctor's appointment two days later, and her first question was (naturally), "What happened to your forehead?" to which I had to say, "I, uh, fell off the toilet."
After some discussion, she seemed satisfied that I'd just had a good old-fashioned fainting spell from getting up too quickly.
Hasn't happened since, and the thing I have to be thankful for is that, given the reason I jumped up and ran to the toilet in the first place, I didn't shit myself while lying unconscious and pantsless on the bathroom floor.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
Most recently, dislocated my thumb in my sleep. Multiple times. I cna also do it by opening my hand up to grasp things, like a doorknob or a spoon.
I was home alone as a teenager, blasting my music on the living room stereo. I saw motion out the window and it was mom's car, so I jumped up from the couch to turn down the music (only Dad was allowed to turn it up that high) but did something terribly wrong and ended up on the floor sobbing in pain. Managed to crawl over, turn off the music, and haul myself upright before mom got to the front door. I hurt in so many places I could not explain what was wrong, but mom-the-nurse checked me over and thought my wrist was at least sprained, and something might be broken up by my elbow.
Spent a couple hours in the ER waiting room, long enough for dad to show up so mom could go home and sleep before her shift at work. When they finally called my name I tried to stand up and immediately fell over, dad caught me and carried me a few steps until they brought over a wheelchair. A few hours sitting without moving had allowed my ankle to swell, but it was numb rather than painful so all I had noticed was the arm.
End result was something torn in the ankle, non weight bearing for several weeks. No breaks in the arm, but had to learn to hop-shuffle on one crutch and one foot because I could not support any weight on the bad arm. Ankle still makes clicky sounds 30 years later, but eventually I learned that wearing hiking boots stops me from flopping over sideways so often (apparantly I have loose sub-taylor joints?). That arm unfortunatly has been injured several more times, when I do fall I almost always catch myself with that arm.
My sister still brings it up, only I could got the hospital with a suspected broken arm and come home on crutches.
posted by buildmyworld at 9:22 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was home alone as a teenager, blasting my music on the living room stereo. I saw motion out the window and it was mom's car, so I jumped up from the couch to turn down the music (only Dad was allowed to turn it up that high) but did something terribly wrong and ended up on the floor sobbing in pain. Managed to crawl over, turn off the music, and haul myself upright before mom got to the front door. I hurt in so many places I could not explain what was wrong, but mom-the-nurse checked me over and thought my wrist was at least sprained, and something might be broken up by my elbow.
Spent a couple hours in the ER waiting room, long enough for dad to show up so mom could go home and sleep before her shift at work. When they finally called my name I tried to stand up and immediately fell over, dad caught me and carried me a few steps until they brought over a wheelchair. A few hours sitting without moving had allowed my ankle to swell, but it was numb rather than painful so all I had noticed was the arm.
End result was something torn in the ankle, non weight bearing for several weeks. No breaks in the arm, but had to learn to hop-shuffle on one crutch and one foot because I could not support any weight on the bad arm. Ankle still makes clicky sounds 30 years later, but eventually I learned that wearing hiking boots stops me from flopping over sideways so often (apparantly I have loose sub-taylor joints?). That arm unfortunatly has been injured several more times, when I do fall I almost always catch myself with that arm.
My sister still brings it up, only I could got the hospital with a suspected broken arm and come home on crutches.
posted by buildmyworld at 9:22 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Broke my little finger playing football. Doesn't sound too bad, right?
Well, not playing football, but tossing around a football. At an office picnic. A smaller than regulation-size, red, plastic, Spiderman football.
I thought it was a sprain at first, until I caught it badly a second time, and then it was like "wow, this really hurts." Our IT guy, who had an ice pack with him (!) dressed it up and eventually I went home, figuring it would abate after time.
When I pressed it on a coffee table to get up from the couch, and got 10/10 pain (0.6 x childbirth pain, probably), we went to the hospital and got the x-ray.
posted by kurumi at 9:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Well, not playing football, but tossing around a football. At an office picnic. A smaller than regulation-size, red, plastic, Spiderman football.
I thought it was a sprain at first, until I caught it badly a second time, and then it was like "wow, this really hurts." Our IT guy, who had an ice pack with him (!) dressed it up and eventually I went home, figuring it would abate after time.
When I pressed it on a coffee table to get up from the couch, and got 10/10 pain (0.6 x childbirth pain, probably), we went to the hospital and got the x-ray.
posted by kurumi at 9:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
At 12 , yes, 12 I threw out my back sitting in a preschool chair as my mother taught Sunday school. At the end if the lesson I couldn't get up and burst into tears.
I was prescribed a wheelie backpack for textbooks and was distinctly uncool.
That is the first of many i was doing nothing back injuries.
posted by AlexiaSky at 9:30 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was prescribed a wheelie backpack for textbooks and was distinctly uncool.
That is the first of many i was doing nothing back injuries.
posted by AlexiaSky at 9:30 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Forgot this one: In the 90s my workplace had a long wall of filing cabinets. I was working in the bottom drawer of one, and someone called my name. I stood up with a step back, not realizing that someone had opened the top drawer behind me. Hit the back of my head hard enough to see stars.
Tired to find out who had called my name, but everyone was freaking out. I had sliced my head and was dripping blood everywhere. When to urgent care but after cleaning me up they could not see the cut under my hair so no stiches.
Went back to work, and still no one would admit to being the one who called my name. Or the one who opened the drawer behind me and walked away.
posted by buildmyworld at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Tired to find out who had called my name, but everyone was freaking out. I had sliced my head and was dripping blood everywhere. When to urgent care but after cleaning me up they could not see the cut under my hair so no stiches.
Went back to work, and still no one would admit to being the one who called my name. Or the one who opened the drawer behind me and walked away.
posted by buildmyworld at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I have really bad depth perception, which is necessary for you to know to have context for this story.
I leaned forward to pick something up off a desk that had a shelf attached to the wall above it. I hit my head on the corner of the shelf, and in the process, cut a nice L shape into the middle of my forehead.
posted by SansPoint at 9:43 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I leaned forward to pick something up off a desk that had a shelf attached to the wall above it. I hit my head on the corner of the shelf, and in the process, cut a nice L shape into the middle of my forehead.
posted by SansPoint at 9:43 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I have a scar on my right hand from a laceration incurred while opening a can of tuna.
I have a scar on my left hand from opening a can of cat food.
For me it was the right index finger while opening a can of corned beef. Three stitches. Still have the scar.
It wasn't as embarrassing as the other scar on that finger, gotten while demonstrating pocket-knife safety to another kid, only to have the blade collapse close onto it. Only two stitches but lost a lot of social capital.
posted by Quasirandom at 9:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have a scar on my left hand from opening a can of cat food.
For me it was the right index finger while opening a can of corned beef. Three stitches. Still have the scar.
It wasn't as embarrassing as the other scar on that finger, gotten while demonstrating pocket-knife safety to another kid, only to have the blade collapse close onto it. Only two stitches but lost a lot of social capital.
posted by Quasirandom at 9:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I once managed to tweak my sacroiliac joint so badly just by vacuuming that I passed out in pain going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It's bothered me on and off since then, but it's never been quite so bad as the first time. Fear of a repeat is now my excuse for why our floors are so dirty.
posted by mollweide at 9:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 9:50 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Doing laundry, slipped on a comforter edge that was trailing on the stairs and separated my patellar tendon.
Do not recommend.
posted by dragstroke at 9:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Do not recommend.
posted by dragstroke at 9:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was in the garage, trying to hoist a big bag of dog food to put it into the garbage can we keep the food in to avoid ant/rodent issues. I would grab the top of the bag, and do sort of a clean-and-jerk type move to then grab the bag more in the middle. As I did so, and my hand moved up, I hit it on a gutter downspout that was stored on a shelf behind me. Punched a beautiful L shaped gash on the back of my hand.
Or when I was a kid, playing with my dog and a ball. Bounced the ball and hit it handball-style. Dog didn't wait, and my hand hit her in the open mouth, catching a tooth. Was hard explaining to the doctor that "No, it wasn't a dog bite"...
posted by Windopaene at 9:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Or when I was a kid, playing with my dog and a ball. Bounced the ball and hit it handball-style. Dog didn't wait, and my hand hit her in the open mouth, catching a tooth. Was hard explaining to the doctor that "No, it wasn't a dog bite"...
posted by Windopaene at 9:53 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
not_that_epiphanius, sounds like an earlier and frankly better version of The Sick Note. Thanks for introducing me to that!
posted by BlueNorther at 10:00 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by BlueNorther at 10:00 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ballet class, double tour en l’air (standing 720deg jump), landed off balance, stumbled backwards, sliced open my ring finger on a mirror clip. 3” scar, still there.
Making oatmeal, banged the brown sugar jar on the counter edge to loosen the contents. It shattered and a spike of glass with a kilo of sugar behind it severed my big-toe tendon. Every medical person involved in recovery (surgery, six months rehab) asked if I was a chef.
Visiting Oaxaca, woke up, stretched out with one leg across my body, coughed. Screaming pain, MRI the same day. Herniated a disc.
posted by sixswitch at 10:01 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Making oatmeal, banged the brown sugar jar on the counter edge to loosen the contents. It shattered and a spike of glass with a kilo of sugar behind it severed my big-toe tendon. Every medical person involved in recovery (surgery, six months rehab) asked if I was a chef.
Visiting Oaxaca, woke up, stretched out with one leg across my body, coughed. Screaming pain, MRI the same day. Herniated a disc.
posted by sixswitch at 10:01 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
The odd thing is, to avoid all these issues, you could just remain motionless on the couch. But, by an amazing coincidence, that's how three weeks of sciatica occurs which was fucking terrible. But I knew it would be over at some point (I tend to be an illness pragmatist). So I basically moved my kettle into the lounge, along with all my teas, and hauled myself, with dignity, on my hands and knees for a while, carrying water like some kind of crippled camel.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
If you're going to try to teach yourself tightrope by walking along the top of a steel roadside crash barrier, make sure the grass you were stepping up there from isn't wet.
Because if it is, then your wet rubber soles can slip sideways off the rail, which makes your whole body pivot in mid air as you come down, and it takes just about as long to get completely sideways as for your fall to be interrupted by your greater trochanter introducing your entire bodyweight to the half inch wide lip of a very unforgiving chunk of steel.
Or so I've heard.
posted by flabdablet at 10:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Because if it is, then your wet rubber soles can slip sideways off the rail, which makes your whole body pivot in mid air as you come down, and it takes just about as long to get completely sideways as for your fall to be interrupted by your greater trochanter introducing your entire bodyweight to the half inch wide lip of a very unforgiving chunk of steel.
Or so I've heard.
posted by flabdablet at 10:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Four-year old me and four-year old neighbour were playing with Dinky Toy cars on the curb of the sidewalk in front of our flats, when one of his cars drove off into the storm drain, one of those things that have fist-size openings in the side of the curb. As the stupid drain refused to give back the car I got all pissed off at it, and started whacking the cover with a shovel. On the second or third whack the rebound made the handle hit my chin, and there's a bit missing between that and my mother carrying me up the stairs to our flat. Apparently it's caused a rather specific brain damage that has made me not remember any subsequent stupid sad injuries, because it's extremely improbable I didn't have any.
Twisting my knee skiing? Stupid, but not sad stupid I'd say. Also, I was able to get off the piste, to a doctor, get it X-rayed showing a crack in the tibia a bit below the knee, and drive home 800km all on my own.
Getting thrown off my racing bike with the crank then hitting my lower leg in such a way that the discoloration is still visible 20 years on? Looking what could have caused it I noticed a narrow strip of something very slippery but barely visible as such from the direction I was coming from. Getting thrown off another bike and having the crank hit my lower leg roughly the same way in the same spot probably qualifies though, as I could have known that ice on a cycle path is to be avoided.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:16 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Twisting my knee skiing? Stupid, but not sad stupid I'd say. Also, I was able to get off the piste, to a doctor, get it X-rayed showing a crack in the tibia a bit below the knee, and drive home 800km all on my own.
Getting thrown off my racing bike with the crank then hitting my lower leg in such a way that the discoloration is still visible 20 years on? Looking what could have caused it I noticed a narrow strip of something very slippery but barely visible as such from the direction I was coming from. Getting thrown off another bike and having the crank hit my lower leg roughly the same way in the same spot probably qualifies though, as I could have known that ice on a cycle path is to be avoided.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:16 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Also, do not leave the steel rake leaning on the fence, lest one of the horses knock it down and hide it tines-upward in the long grass; you will find it very suddenly. First with your boots, and then almost immediately with your face.
posted by flabdablet at 10:20 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 10:20 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Then there was the time my Shih Tzu Max tried to kill me. I was walking from the master bath to the bedroom door. Max positioned himself so that I would have to step on his fluffy tail. Not wanting to do this, I tried to pivot in midair. I missed the tail but fell... face first into the metal doorjamb. I sorta greyed out for a second. Eventually I peeled myself off of the floor. Both knees were in pain, I was in shorts so, rugburn. My forehead and right eye were turning lovely colors. I'm lucky that it wasn't much worse. Like SO coming home and finding me unconscious in a pool of blood worse.
Just lucky I guess. :)
posted by Splunge at 10:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Just lucky I guess. :)
posted by Splunge at 10:21 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also, do not leave the steel rake leaning on the fence, lest one of the horses knock it down and hide it tines-upward in the long grass; you will find it very suddenly. First with your boots, and then almost immediately with your face.
That's not an accident, though. That's just horses fucking with you.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
That's not an accident, though. That's just horses fucking with you.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:23 AM on May 19, 2021 [16 favorites]
OK, flabdablet, yours was the first one to make me yell OWWWWWW out loud.
posted by wellred at 10:24 AM on May 19, 2021
posted by wellred at 10:24 AM on May 19, 2021
Not so much of an injury, but flabdablet's story reminded me of when I was working for the Ecology department cleaning freeway medians and I accidentally stepped on a piss bottle in such a way that it exploded all over my face, helmet, shirt, and pants. I was bending over to pick up an unrelated piece of trash and I didn't see the piss bottle in the tall grass. It was the only time on that job that I literally screamed.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:27 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by deadaluspark at 10:27 AM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
These are supposed to be funny, but I can’t sleep, and, well, here goes. Apologies for length.
I was helping a friend run his 24 hour food tent at Fuji Rock. He would run the tent overnight, and I was pretty much in charge during the day shift. 12 hour shifts manning a griddle in 35C+ heat with high humidity and on and off torrential rain for five straight days. For the most part, the staff my friend collected were utterly inexperienced in kitchen/food work, and mostly just there for the chance to see a couple bands. The first day, because I wasn’t drinking enough fluids, I lost about five kilograms (wearing nitrile gloves, every once in a while, I’d step out back and hold my hand up, loosen the wrist, and let the pooled sweat pour out down my wrist.
On the second or third day, it starts pouring rain again, and the tent isn’t doing a very good job of holding out the water. I’m busy on the griddle because there’s a rush, so I tell one of the guys to move the cardboard boxes of plastic bottles of soft drinks so they don’t get wet. Said idiot, who’s annoyed that we’ve made him the gofer because he literally isn’t good for anything other than moving things, carrying things, or taking out the garbage (and, really, he even sucked at that) decided to take that moment to explain why he didn’t think it was his job to do that (when, it had been made very clear that it was, in fact, his job, and the reason he was being paid at all). In a hurry because I’m not interested in talking to this idiot anymore, and I’m trying to finish six or seven different orders, I run back to the corner of the tent where water is coming in, in an awkward spot next to the gas canisters, twist my way in, pick up a case of coke bottles, and something popped in my side. I saw actual stars, and had to go out in back of the tent to sit down. I couldn’t stand for ten minutes because of the pain. Just intense pain right at the top of my gut, right where the front of my torso turns into my side. After ten minutes, I go back in, and get back to work, with the idiot trying to give me shit for taking a break (while he did nothing the whole time).
My friend comes back later towards the end of my shift, and immediately points out that there’s a visible bulge in my side, and there’s some discussion as to whether or not I can keep going. Not wanting to leave him in a lurch, I stick through the next three days with a weird lump and significant pain, working twelve hour griddle shifts and staring daggers at that little fuck.
I get back to the world, and go to the hospital. They’re like, hey, CT scan! Then nope, there’s nothing wrong! When I ask why I’m still in significant pain, they basically just don’t respond, saying once again, the scan showed nothing wrong. A couple week later, I go to a different hospital, and same routine. I have now more than spent the money I made at Fuji Rock. I give up. I just go through the next several months with throbbing intermittent pain in my side.
Then, in July, when the deteriorating discs in my neck and back make me go back to the spine clinic for more therapy, the doctor asks how I’m doing, aside from my back. I mention my side, and he’s like, want an X-ray? Sure, why not, I sez.
Evidently the torque of twisting and lifting a twenty-four pack of Coke bottles had been enough to break the tip of the second rib from the bottom on my right side, and for the tip to point inwards. It healed that way, and years later, I still have random unpleasant pain in my side from it. In my mid forties, I’m trying to balance having an ongoing unpleasant pain and (to this day) a weird lump in my side with the general terror of strange pains in my gut. Every time I’ve been back to a doctor because of this pain, of this weird lump, I just get a shrug and a clean bill of health.
I didn’t see a single band while I was there, and the rain on the three mile walk back to our shared room where we slept in shifts was so heavy it destroyed my iPhone. Had a great time though.
Tl/dr I broke the tip of a rib picking up a case of coke, it healed funky, poking me directly in the guts, leaving me with a weird lump in my side.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I was helping a friend run his 24 hour food tent at Fuji Rock. He would run the tent overnight, and I was pretty much in charge during the day shift. 12 hour shifts manning a griddle in 35C+ heat with high humidity and on and off torrential rain for five straight days. For the most part, the staff my friend collected were utterly inexperienced in kitchen/food work, and mostly just there for the chance to see a couple bands. The first day, because I wasn’t drinking enough fluids, I lost about five kilograms (wearing nitrile gloves, every once in a while, I’d step out back and hold my hand up, loosen the wrist, and let the pooled sweat pour out down my wrist.
On the second or third day, it starts pouring rain again, and the tent isn’t doing a very good job of holding out the water. I’m busy on the griddle because there’s a rush, so I tell one of the guys to move the cardboard boxes of plastic bottles of soft drinks so they don’t get wet. Said idiot, who’s annoyed that we’ve made him the gofer because he literally isn’t good for anything other than moving things, carrying things, or taking out the garbage (and, really, he even sucked at that) decided to take that moment to explain why he didn’t think it was his job to do that (when, it had been made very clear that it was, in fact, his job, and the reason he was being paid at all). In a hurry because I’m not interested in talking to this idiot anymore, and I’m trying to finish six or seven different orders, I run back to the corner of the tent where water is coming in, in an awkward spot next to the gas canisters, twist my way in, pick up a case of coke bottles, and something popped in my side. I saw actual stars, and had to go out in back of the tent to sit down. I couldn’t stand for ten minutes because of the pain. Just intense pain right at the top of my gut, right where the front of my torso turns into my side. After ten minutes, I go back in, and get back to work, with the idiot trying to give me shit for taking a break (while he did nothing the whole time).
My friend comes back later towards the end of my shift, and immediately points out that there’s a visible bulge in my side, and there’s some discussion as to whether or not I can keep going. Not wanting to leave him in a lurch, I stick through the next three days with a weird lump and significant pain, working twelve hour griddle shifts and staring daggers at that little fuck.
I get back to the world, and go to the hospital. They’re like, hey, CT scan! Then nope, there’s nothing wrong! When I ask why I’m still in significant pain, they basically just don’t respond, saying once again, the scan showed nothing wrong. A couple week later, I go to a different hospital, and same routine. I have now more than spent the money I made at Fuji Rock. I give up. I just go through the next several months with throbbing intermittent pain in my side.
Then, in July, when the deteriorating discs in my neck and back make me go back to the spine clinic for more therapy, the doctor asks how I’m doing, aside from my back. I mention my side, and he’s like, want an X-ray? Sure, why not, I sez.
Evidently the torque of twisting and lifting a twenty-four pack of Coke bottles had been enough to break the tip of the second rib from the bottom on my right side, and for the tip to point inwards. It healed that way, and years later, I still have random unpleasant pain in my side from it. In my mid forties, I’m trying to balance having an ongoing unpleasant pain and (to this day) a weird lump in my side with the general terror of strange pains in my gut. Every time I’ve been back to a doctor because of this pain, of this weird lump, I just get a shrug and a clean bill of health.
I didn’t see a single band while I was there, and the rain on the three mile walk back to our shared room where we slept in shifts was so heavy it destroyed my iPhone. Had a great time though.
Tl/dr I broke the tip of a rib picking up a case of coke, it healed funky, poking me directly in the guts, leaving me with a weird lump in my side.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
When I was young, maybe six or seven, the school I attended had these massive chestnut trees in the grounds. We were tiny humans so we couldn't climb them, but we did take advantage of their dropped fruit. Chestnut Wars was a popular game. Two sides, one victor over the course of 45 minutes. During one of these games I tripped and slipped, like I was on ice, but there was grass all around, and it was Spring. My knee had slid along a flint buried in the ground, and it was now wide open.
Eh. I threw a few more chestnuts before I noticed the blood leaking out the bottom of my trousers, and I had to tell someone. The scar has since disappeared, but the feeling of that experience has never left me. Flint like a scalpel.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Eh. I threw a few more chestnuts before I noticed the blood leaking out the bottom of my trousers, and I had to tell someone. The scar has since disappeared, but the feeling of that experience has never left me. Flint like a scalpel.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
We were going to start to run this past spring, but it was still a little bit chilly, so I felt like I needed some outdoor workout clothes. I decided to go to the mall to buy some new workout clothes. Wanting to avoid public transit, I walked to and from the mall (up and then downhill). Long story short, I somehow hurt my back just walking. The pain lasted about a month.
posted by exolstice at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by exolstice at 10:35 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
24 year old me: Drunkenly horsing around with some friends, slipped and fell 5 feet directly onto the end of a slide with my back half on / half off, sore in the morning and fine by the next day.
47 year old me: Looked to quickly to my left last Tuesday and couldn't sit at my desk for 3 days because my back was too sore.
posted by cirhosis at 10:38 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
47 year old me: Looked to quickly to my left last Tuesday and couldn't sit at my desk for 3 days because my back was too sore.
posted by cirhosis at 10:38 AM on May 19, 2021 [12 favorites]
I got up for a piss, and my back went "Ping! Here are new kinds of pain! Also, you can't stand up any more". I hit the floor like a sack of spuds, and after a short while of writhing and wishing for death I work out that I can't get up, and yet I still need that piss.
Pro-tip: use your elbows to drag yourself close enough to a phone that you can shove it all the way to the laundry with your nose. That way, once you've used the mop bucket to improvise a way to obtain the necessary relief you can just stay put while you wait for the ambos.
They were very kind, and the Green Whistle is amazing.
posted by flabdablet at 10:40 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Pro-tip: use your elbows to drag yourself close enough to a phone that you can shove it all the way to the laundry with your nose. That way, once you've used the mop bucket to improvise a way to obtain the necessary relief you can just stay put while you wait for the ambos.
They were very kind, and the Green Whistle is amazing.
posted by flabdablet at 10:40 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Stepped down carefully from a curb with my right foot, and ripped the bursa in my knee. Fucking aggro for a year, with lots of rehab and various meds. Better now.
posted by scruss at 10:43 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by scruss at 10:43 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Turned to the side of the bed and fell to the ground awkwardly, ass first. Sprained my neck and had to wear a neck brace for a month and a half. I did this a week before my cousin's wedding and had to explain to everybody in the party how I injured myself.
posted by Omon Ra at 10:44 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Omon Ra at 10:44 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I did this a week before my cousin's wedding and had to explain to everybody in the party how I injured myself.
Foreplay.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:46 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Foreplay.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 10:46 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's probably wrong of me to enjoy this thread as much as I am.
Talking to my wife about it, we realised that the weekend she and Careful-With-That-Axe-Eugene earned their Fuck-Up-Ducks was not only the same weekend I paralyzed myself by sitting quietly in a chair, but also the same weekend another member of the group set himself on fire.
It turned cold overnight, and he decided to bring his little primus stove inside his tent for warmth. He then rolled onto it in his sleep, and his blanket, which was full of gunpowder because he'd been filling cartridges in his tent, went up in an intense but fortunately brief fireball. He was somehow unscathed, the blanket was not.
My wife was telling her boss about this, and boss asked, "Had he been camping before?"
He's an ex-Para.
posted by BlueNorther at 10:48 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Talking to my wife about it, we realised that the weekend she and Careful-With-That-Axe-Eugene earned their Fuck-Up-Ducks was not only the same weekend I paralyzed myself by sitting quietly in a chair, but also the same weekend another member of the group set himself on fire.
It turned cold overnight, and he decided to bring his little primus stove inside his tent for warmth. He then rolled onto it in his sleep, and his blanket, which was full of gunpowder because he'd been filling cartridges in his tent, went up in an intense but fortunately brief fireball. He was somehow unscathed, the blanket was not.
My wife was telling her boss about this, and boss asked, "Had he been camping before?"
He's an ex-Para.
posted by BlueNorther at 10:48 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
I paralyzed myself by sitting quietly in a chair,
I have questions. Did the inferno happen at the same time as the inferno? How long were you in the chair? Did you ever sit in the cursed chair again?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:01 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have questions. Did the inferno happen at the same time as the inferno? How long were you in the chair? Did you ever sit in the cursed chair again?
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:01 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Sorry, that made no sense. "Did the paralysis happen at the same time as the inferno?"
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:16 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:16 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I once walked full speed, glasses-first, into a closed wooden door at the office when I arrived early with the lights off. It only hurt for a short while, but my dignity took the rest of the week to recover.
Changing the taillight of my parents' camper, I was startled by a wasp and squeezed the bulb suddenly, breaking it, cutting myself and making it really awkward to finish unscrewing the bulb.
posted by Foosnark at 11:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Changing the taillight of my parents' camper, I was startled by a wasp and squeezed the bulb suddenly, breaking it, cutting myself and making it really awkward to finish unscrewing the bulb.
posted by Foosnark at 11:19 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Peach: In my 60s I was fencing with a very nice teenaged boy who threw a point-counter-attack to the hand. The completely intact knurled blunt sabre tip went through my palm and into my wrist. The coach thought I was yelling because I scored the touch (I had). Then the blood arrived. I drove home in my manual transmission Jeep alternately elevating the hand and shifting. It wasn't until the forearm turned black with blood later on that evening that I got my husband to take me to the hospital.
Not to make light of your injury, but that's some non-science-fiction-equivalent latter-day-Obi-Wan-Kenobi stuff right there.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Not to make light of your injury, but that's some non-science-fiction-equivalent latter-day-Obi-Wan-Kenobi stuff right there.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
really awkward to finish unscrewing the bulb
A trick for doing this that should be better known than it is: use a cork. Just jam the end of the cork onto the jagged glass ends and you'll find that the base of the bulb comes out easily.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
A trick for doing this that should be better known than it is: use a cork. Just jam the end of the cork onto the jagged glass ends and you'll find that the base of the bulb comes out easily.
posted by flabdablet at 11:24 AM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Reading all these stories about sneezing resulting in back injuries, I feel much better about my loud unrestrained "dad sneezes".
Being a fairly cautious non-thrill-seeking (and apparently monumentally lucky) soul, I've managed to avoid serious injuries thus far in my life. But now I'm at the age where pains just randomly show up without any cause on my part, coming and going as they please. Getting older is so exciting!
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Being a fairly cautious non-thrill-seeking (and apparently monumentally lucky) soul, I've managed to avoid serious injuries thus far in my life. But now I'm at the age where pains just randomly show up without any cause on my part, coming and going as they please. Getting older is so exciting!
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:25 AM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Getting older is so exciting!
One of the weird things about it, for me, has been the extent to which sudden injuries don't so much hurt as deliver instant detailed multi-page reports about how much damage has just been done and what the likely time lost for recovery will be. So, not so much AAH, FUCK! as aah, fuck.
posted by flabdablet at 11:30 AM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
One of the weird things about it, for me, has been the extent to which sudden injuries don't so much hurt as deliver instant detailed multi-page reports about how much damage has just been done and what the likely time lost for recovery will be. So, not so much AAH, FUCK! as aah, fuck.
posted by flabdablet at 11:30 AM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
My story has shame as well as embarrassment: the shame from the fact that I injured myself because I lost my temper and acted like an idiot.
I feel ya on that. I was in the shower one morning and the damn water temp kept vacillating from hot to cold. It had been doing so for a while but for whatever reason, we never got it fixed. I got absolutely furious, reached up and slapped the showerhead in rage. Showerhead broke off not-cleanly and I ripped the webbing between my middle and ring finger. So there I am bleeding profusely, naked and scared that I might have permanently damaged my left (writing) hand. Spouse took me to the ER and got me stitched up and a had to get a tetanus shot to boot.
Dumbest acting-out incident of rage, ever. Was fun explaining to folks at work why my hand was bandaged up, "I got mad at an inanimate object in my house".
posted by sundrop at 11:33 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I feel ya on that. I was in the shower one morning and the damn water temp kept vacillating from hot to cold. It had been doing so for a while but for whatever reason, we never got it fixed. I got absolutely furious, reached up and slapped the showerhead in rage. Showerhead broke off not-cleanly and I ripped the webbing between my middle and ring finger. So there I am bleeding profusely, naked and scared that I might have permanently damaged my left (writing) hand. Spouse took me to the ER and got me stitched up and a had to get a tetanus shot to boot.
Dumbest acting-out incident of rage, ever. Was fun explaining to folks at work why my hand was bandaged up, "I got mad at an inanimate object in my house".
posted by sundrop at 11:33 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Also, anything that bleeds will generally do much better after a good scrub with plain soap and plenty of warm running water and then a thorough rinse out, even if that hurts more than the original injury did. A soap and water scrub beats antiseptic creams hollow.
posted by flabdablet at 11:36 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 11:36 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Coworker: "I can't even touch my toes anymore."
Me: "Sure, I can."
*proceeds to fuck up L4/L5 and miss three months of work*
posted by furtive at 11:38 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Me: "Sure, I can."
*proceeds to fuck up L4/L5 and miss three months of work*
posted by furtive at 11:38 AM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Was doing box jumps at the gym when my foot slipped off the box edge and all my weight came down on my shin, opening a few centimetres nearly to the bone. Being me, my first thought was 'did anyone see that'; after confirming nobody had walked myself to the locker room and applied several plasters over the wound, which was deep enough it didn't bleed until a few minutes later. The damage kicked in a few hours later, and after I got home had to leave the wound open with a sort of paper-towel halo taped round it as the blood and plasma oozed out, and my lower leg was a spectacular patchwork of colours for a few months after.
Now I only do box jumps in full-length leggings, with total concentration.
Whilst watching a film on my laptop in bed, I lifted my knees too high and the laptop tipped forward, the top edge of the screen impacting just below my nose and putting a surprisingly deep and almost surgically clean horizontal split in the skin. Fortunately because of the facial geometry of that spot it healed completely just by leaving it alone and not moving my upper lip more than necessary for a few days. When examining it more closely the next morning I realised I'd been stupidly lucky, as a couple centimetres higher or lower I would have likely had a broken nose or broken teeth.
> I iust started passing put after age 40. It just happens sometimes.
This happened to me as well; fortunately it seems to be limited to severe nausea attacks. The first three times I fainted were during a single bout of food poisoning, coming to some seconds later after using my face to break the fall to a tile floor, with an eyebrow gash pissing blood or in full ass-out, pajamas-round-the-knees indignity after going sideways off the loo, looking for all the world like a Dagsson cartoon. One of those times I'd been in a sort of straight-arm brace position over the sink and went straight down, driving a tooth into my lip on the edge of the sink; in retrospect it's likely a miracle I kept all my teeth.
Now if I feel even the slightest hint of nausea I immediately get myself horizontal, as I'm nowhere near attractive enough to tolerate many more facial insults.
posted by myotahapea at 11:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Now I only do box jumps in full-length leggings, with total concentration.
Whilst watching a film on my laptop in bed, I lifted my knees too high and the laptop tipped forward, the top edge of the screen impacting just below my nose and putting a surprisingly deep and almost surgically clean horizontal split in the skin. Fortunately because of the facial geometry of that spot it healed completely just by leaving it alone and not moving my upper lip more than necessary for a few days. When examining it more closely the next morning I realised I'd been stupidly lucky, as a couple centimetres higher or lower I would have likely had a broken nose or broken teeth.
> I iust started passing put after age 40. It just happens sometimes.
This happened to me as well; fortunately it seems to be limited to severe nausea attacks. The first three times I fainted were during a single bout of food poisoning, coming to some seconds later after using my face to break the fall to a tile floor, with an eyebrow gash pissing blood or in full ass-out, pajamas-round-the-knees indignity after going sideways off the loo, looking for all the world like a Dagsson cartoon. One of those times I'd been in a sort of straight-arm brace position over the sink and went straight down, driving a tooth into my lip on the edge of the sink; in retrospect it's likely a miracle I kept all my teeth.
Now if I feel even the slightest hint of nausea I immediately get myself horizontal, as I'm nowhere near attractive enough to tolerate many more facial insults.
posted by myotahapea at 11:47 AM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Just a few weeks ago, in a chilly morning shaky-handed attempt to trim my nose hair, I stabbed myself in the eye with a pair of scissors. Thankfully it was not serious and healed quickly.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 11:51 AM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Good luck with that, in the mortality statistics there is a line item "bedclothes" -- basically dying from sheets is a thing and frequent enough to warrant a measurable stat, and it was not the bottom.
A theory: in our never ending quest to sand off all the sharp points in life, we will not end up making things safer as much as making everything equally dangerous.
posted by pwnguin at 11:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
A theory: in our never ending quest to sand off all the sharp points in life, we will not end up making things safer as much as making everything equally dangerous.
posted by pwnguin at 11:55 AM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Just a few weeks ago, in a chilly morning shaky-handed attempt to trim my nose hair, I stabbed myself in the eye with a pair of scissors. Thankfully it was not serious and healed quickly.
Dude, just buy a nasal hair trimmer. I have one with an attachable device that does my eyebrows. I took my left eyebrow clean off the other week, and didn't leave the house for a while, but my nostrils were fantastic.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
Dude, just buy a nasal hair trimmer. I have one with an attachable device that does my eyebrows. I took my left eyebrow clean off the other week, and didn't leave the house for a while, but my nostrils were fantastic.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 11:58 AM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
Rather than walk the fifteen feet from the kitchen to the room I keep the scissors in, I decided to open the plastic baggie of brownie mix with a table knife. The serrations on the tableware I bought the previous week were, unlike those I grew up with, actually sharp and dug in pretty deep when I accidentally slid it across my finger in the process.
I now own two pairs of scissors.
posted by pwnguin at 12:08 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I now own two pairs of scissors.
posted by pwnguin at 12:08 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Oh and not age-related, but at age 18 months my daughter was diagnosed with hyper mobile joints because of her tendency to roll her joints and double-jointed fingers.
"But...I have those things..." I said, and suddenly my many inexplicably clumsy accidents as a child made more sense.
posted by emjaybee at 12:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
"But...I have those things..." I said, and suddenly my many inexplicably clumsy accidents as a child made more sense.
posted by emjaybee at 12:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
a coach named Roger Craig cut his hand on a bra strap...
brb, installing razor blades on all my bras, Peaky Blinders-style.
Only bone I've ever officially broken (tibia and knee) was when I was jogging back to the house the day after Christmas near St. Louis, slipped on a patch of ice which I had looked at on my way out and thought "better be careful about that ice," screamed bloody murder and was rescued by a passing postal worker. My tendons still crackle on one side, and I do not jog in months with an "r" in them.
posted by All hands bury the dead at 12:26 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
brb, installing razor blades on all my bras, Peaky Blinders-style.
Only bone I've ever officially broken (tibia and knee) was when I was jogging back to the house the day after Christmas near St. Louis, slipped on a patch of ice which I had looked at on my way out and thought "better be careful about that ice," screamed bloody murder and was rescued by a passing postal worker. My tendons still crackle on one side, and I do not jog in months with an "r" in them.
posted by All hands bury the dead at 12:26 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
So I had a stroke recently. The best theory anyone has at the moment is that I damaged one of my carotid arteries via a blow (I have no memory of such a thing happening, but the damaged artery is definitely there, with a stent in it now), and the artery de-laminated, forming a place that a clot could form.
So I seem to have had a stroke from an injury so fleeting I didn't even note it at the time. Possibly turning my head in the wrong way? Maybe playing with the dog? I've always heeded the strongest wisdom to come from the x-files: "auto-erotic asphyxiation is no way to die, Mr. Mulder" so there is not a good story of that nature, either.
posted by maxwelton at 12:50 PM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
So I seem to have had a stroke from an injury so fleeting I didn't even note it at the time. Possibly turning my head in the wrong way? Maybe playing with the dog? I've always heeded the strongest wisdom to come from the x-files: "auto-erotic asphyxiation is no way to die, Mr. Mulder" so there is not a good story of that nature, either.
posted by maxwelton at 12:50 PM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
I was washing a saucepan used to prepare instant ramen the night before. As I was scraping a dried noodle off the side of the pan, it broke off and went under my fingernail. Had to have it removed by a doctor.
posted by technodelic at 12:52 PM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by technodelic at 12:52 PM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
At summer camp, the counselors had dug a hole a couple of feet deep and maybe ten feet across. They ran a hose into it and stirred with shovels and it became The Mud Pit and we all visited it before the afternoon swimming session.
DUNK your head!
GO down the slide!
FEEL a brief pain that only later is revealed as a gash the full length of the heel, now absolutely packed with muck, which will take three nurses half an hour -- and all of the hydrogen peroxide swabs in camp -- to clean out!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:59 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
DUNK your head!
GO down the slide!
FEEL a brief pain that only later is revealed as a gash the full length of the heel, now absolutely packed with muck, which will take three nurses half an hour -- and all of the hydrogen peroxide swabs in camp -- to clean out!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:59 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
In my experience, the right time to get in the mud pit is the day it was dug.
After ten days of summer-assisted brewing of whatever's been abraded from the surfaces of countless ill-washed nudists they get pretty festy. I would not like to have the results forcibly inserted under my skin.
posted by flabdablet at 1:25 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
After ten days of summer-assisted brewing of whatever's been abraded from the surfaces of countless ill-washed nudists they get pretty festy. I would not like to have the results forcibly inserted under my skin.
posted by flabdablet at 1:25 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Self-inflicted hammer wound to the head!
Wait, I thought you said “most badass.”
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:32 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Wait, I thought you said “most badass.”
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 1:32 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
I have laugh-cried all the way through this thread. I’m so sorry.
My mom had just turned out of the driveway in her classic Volkswagen Beetle and was heading down the road, gathering speed.
I happened to be in the garden as she left and, inexplicably, decided to run alongside the car and attempt to jump onto the (very narrow) running board on the passenger side. I bounced off the door and cracked my forearm as I landed. Once she’d recovered from the initial shock, my mom couldn’t stop laughing.
posted by tuckshopdilettante at 1:33 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
My mom had just turned out of the driveway in her classic Volkswagen Beetle and was heading down the road, gathering speed.
I happened to be in the garden as she left and, inexplicably, decided to run alongside the car and attempt to jump onto the (very narrow) running board on the passenger side. I bounced off the door and cracked my forearm as I landed. Once she’d recovered from the initial shock, my mom couldn’t stop laughing.
posted by tuckshopdilettante at 1:33 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
In my 47-year-old arm, yesterday's tetanus booster is a pulsing, harvest-gold-tinged flashback to being stuck in a station wagon with an 8-year-old punch-buggy fiend...
I should call my cousin.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:35 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I should call my cousin.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:35 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
I sneezed and tore a ligament in my hip. It was the first day of my holiday in Menorca and I had to lay flat for the whole week.
Last year I tore my rotator cuff, who knows how.
I also once cut my hand on a crusty baguette.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:39 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Last year I tore my rotator cuff, who knows how.
I also once cut my hand on a crusty baguette.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:39 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]
Oh, the story about ice reminded me:
I'd moved to Oslo with an idea of what winter was (I am from the south, so I got it as a CONCEPT, but not in the sense that "there will be months of it"). And when I saw a funny looking patch on the pavement in front of my apartment building, I was not fooled.
"Ah ha!" I said. "That's probably ice. But there's only one way to be sure. A science experiment. If I try to walk over it and slip, it's ice! Brilliant!"
So, resolutely, in the name of science, I marched over to it and tried to walk over it.
It turns out it was ice.
My fall wasn't graceful. It was pretty Three Stooges. Or maybe Looney Tunes. I wiped the hell out. So bad I skinned my knee and tore my pants.
As I'm laying there, in a daze, I see the confused face of my landlady looking down at me and asking if I am alright.
"It was..." I said, in my daze, "A science experiment. I'm fine."
She looked worried and hurried off, probably wisely.
I had to limp into work with my knee sore and bloodied and the knee of my pants torn. (No, I didn't think to go back into the building I'd just left and save what was left of my dignity, I'd already exhausted my brain cell for the day).
As a post-script, my wife and I wondered how our elderly landlady moved so daintily over the ice patch in front of the building. Until we saw she had those ice spikes on her shoes one day. "I can't believe SHE'S CHEATING!" my wife fumed.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:14 PM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
I'd moved to Oslo with an idea of what winter was (I am from the south, so I got it as a CONCEPT, but not in the sense that "there will be months of it"). And when I saw a funny looking patch on the pavement in front of my apartment building, I was not fooled.
"Ah ha!" I said. "That's probably ice. But there's only one way to be sure. A science experiment. If I try to walk over it and slip, it's ice! Brilliant!"
So, resolutely, in the name of science, I marched over to it and tried to walk over it.
It turns out it was ice.
My fall wasn't graceful. It was pretty Three Stooges. Or maybe Looney Tunes. I wiped the hell out. So bad I skinned my knee and tore my pants.
As I'm laying there, in a daze, I see the confused face of my landlady looking down at me and asking if I am alright.
"It was..." I said, in my daze, "A science experiment. I'm fine."
She looked worried and hurried off, probably wisely.
I had to limp into work with my knee sore and bloodied and the knee of my pants torn. (No, I didn't think to go back into the building I'd just left and save what was left of my dignity, I'd already exhausted my brain cell for the day).
As a post-script, my wife and I wondered how our elderly landlady moved so daintily over the ice patch in front of the building. Until we saw she had those ice spikes on her shoes one day. "I can't believe SHE'S CHEATING!" my wife fumed.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:14 PM on May 19, 2021 [9 favorites]
Woke with a start thinking I heard cats fighting downstairs in the middle of the night. Leaped out of bed and into the hallway to get downstairs. We had a bright mat at the very top of the stairs on the landing, that you could see in the dark to know where the stairs ended/began. It had been moved in the night by frisky cats so was actually one step down.
My fuddled night-brain and adrenaline contributed to me thinking the stairs were somewhere they weren't, so I ended up losing my footing, RUNNING down the first flight of stairs, concussing myself against the wall, then tumbling sideways into another wall and completely annihilating my clavicle.
So, that was fun.
About two months in to my recovery I had metal in my shoulder and my arm was all slinged up, and I was cooking pizza in the oven in an oven safe skillet, and it was ready so I opened the oven and my brain thought "handle" so I GRABBED THE HANDLE WITH MY (GOOD) BARE HAND and immediately sustained second degree burns to my hand and fingers.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:11 PM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
My fuddled night-brain and adrenaline contributed to me thinking the stairs were somewhere they weren't, so I ended up losing my footing, RUNNING down the first flight of stairs, concussing myself against the wall, then tumbling sideways into another wall and completely annihilating my clavicle.
So, that was fun.
About two months in to my recovery I had metal in my shoulder and my arm was all slinged up, and I was cooking pizza in the oven in an oven safe skillet, and it was ready so I opened the oven and my brain thought "handle" so I GRABBED THE HANDLE WITH MY (GOOD) BARE HAND and immediately sustained second degree burns to my hand and fingers.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:11 PM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
“I sprained my wrist from falling from a twisted my knee, which I got because I was walking on a twisted ankle with crutches because I was walking on a different twisted ankle without crutches (yes both ankles were twisted at the same time) because I was showing off my shoe's grip on ice.”
Screaming.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Screaming.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I have questions. Did the paralysis happen at the same time as the inferno? How long were you in the chair? Did you ever sit in the cursed chair again?
urbanwhaleshark-
The paralysis happened the day before, and to be fair it wasn't the chair's fault. I'm a mutant, and as such my joints are held together with old chewing gum and tend to slowly slide out of their assigned positions if I'm not keeping an eye on them. On this occasion, my hip went walkies and took out a nerve en route.
Like I say, I think it sort of disqualifies me from this thread, but it does make for some really funny injuries.
posted by BlueNorther at 3:32 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
urbanwhaleshark-
The paralysis happened the day before, and to be fair it wasn't the chair's fault. I'm a mutant, and as such my joints are held together with old chewing gum and tend to slowly slide out of their assigned positions if I'm not keeping an eye on them. On this occasion, my hip went walkies and took out a nerve en route.
Like I say, I think it sort of disqualifies me from this thread, but it does make for some really funny injuries.
posted by BlueNorther at 3:32 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
mom: also not good for the floor. buy shoes to wear indoors only
After breaking a toe in 2015 and another toe in 2017, I bought a pair of Birkenstocks with solid toes for wearing indoors. I'm on my second pair now. They've saved me from a broken toe at least once.
I once injured my back leaning forward to dust something. And, once after falling while playing volleyball, I woke up the next morning unable to turn my head to the right. While removing laundry from the dryer later that morning, I tore something in my back. The next morning, I woke up bent double; it took a year and a half to recover.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 3:38 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
After breaking a toe in 2015 and another toe in 2017, I bought a pair of Birkenstocks with solid toes for wearing indoors. I'm on my second pair now. They've saved me from a broken toe at least once.
I once injured my back leaning forward to dust something. And, once after falling while playing volleyball, I woke up the next morning unable to turn my head to the right. While removing laundry from the dryer later that morning, I tore something in my back. The next morning, I woke up bent double; it took a year and a half to recover.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 3:38 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
An hour ago I went to lift a window air conditioner, grasped it by the wrong edges, and the cooling grid at the back of it sliced the inside of my wrist open in a neat grid pattern. There was a lot of blood.
Still got the bastard installed though.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 3:51 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Still got the bastard installed though.
posted by DangerIsMyMiddleName at 3:51 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I slept in a weird position and woke up with excruciating upper back pain that got worse with every movement. I spent hours that day lying on the bed quietly screaming. By the next day, it still hurt, but I was mostly able to function. Now the pain has subsided, but I live in terror of that happening again.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 4:23 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 4:23 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
couched by depression for 18 months will fuck up your back. i swear, staying still is more injurious than moving around. after a year of yoga, I'm 95% back.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:48 PM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 4:48 PM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
Halloween Jack: Unfortunately, puncture wounds from those blunt sabre points turned out to be common. Mine isn't even the most gruesome one I know of (a friend had a point travel all the way up her forearm and halfway up the upper arm. Another got stabbed through the thigh and tried to keep fencing). They mandated stronger gloves, which probably didn't have any effect, and changed the timing of the scoring machine, which did.
I'm having so much fun reading these, it didn't occur to me that despite the fact that though I do 25 squats every day, I injured my quad squatting down to look for the cat's toy three weeks ago and Monday, after daily stretching and caution, was the first day it didn't hurt like blazes.
posted by Peach at 4:57 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I'm having so much fun reading these, it didn't occur to me that despite the fact that though I do 25 squats every day, I injured my quad squatting down to look for the cat's toy three weeks ago and Monday, after daily stretching and caution, was the first day it didn't hurt like blazes.
posted by Peach at 4:57 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
It's not exactly the same sort of injury as most of the stories here, but at the beginning of the pandemic, when grocery stores were out of whole wheat flour and longer waits between grocery store trips meant a reduction in the amount of fresh fruits and vegetables I was eating, I very painfully discovered that getting enough fiber is, in fact, quite necessary for the proper functioning of my gastrointestinal system. I will not go into further detail.
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:01 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Zalzidrax at 5:01 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Lest we forget the world’s most accident-prone critter, here’s a small sampling of Wile E. Coyote’s Top 10 Fails (YT).
posted by cenoxo at 5:23 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by cenoxo at 5:23 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Oh right. About two months ago, I was switching attachments on the vacuum cleaner, and pinched the meaty pad of palm at the base of my thumb in between the hose nozzle and the attachment I was putting on, thereby opening a substantial wound that bled extensively. It has left a small scar.
tl;dr: I cut myself with the vacuum cleaner.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:02 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
tl;dr: I cut myself with the vacuum cleaner.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:02 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Had a wee cough on the toilet and blew my asshole clear inside out. Absolute casserole down there for a week.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:09 PM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:09 PM on May 19, 2021 [13 favorites]
Twenty-something me was enjoyably harvesting wild blackberries when my back suddenly said NOPE and the only thing I could do was fall over sideways into the whole bed of evil thorns. Nobody else was around so I eventually had to rollover to my hands and knees and crawl my way out of the vicious patch.
They won: I never picked wild blackberries again.
posted by mightshould at 6:20 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
They won: I never picked wild blackberries again.
posted by mightshould at 6:20 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
There's a closet where the vacuum cleaner used to go but it's inconvenient. A better place would be this little nook area right by the refrigerator. The problem with that is, before the vacuum cleaner can move into its new nook home, I need to take about 35 seconds to shift some crap out of the way. So consequently for maybe a month or two the vacuum cleaner has been sitting in the hall like a malevolent toad just waiting for anybody barefoot or wearing only socks to walk by without shutting out all else and achieving a zen state of total concentration and fixing the vacuum cleaner with an unbreaking stare. Consequently we have both stubbed our toes on the vacuum cleaner multiple times. The last time I tangled with it, I broke my left little toe. It's not a big deal: I break one of my little toes about every two years or so, and it's always this kind of stupid thing. Somehow it's never from rescuing dogs and elderly people from fires.
posted by Don Pepino at 7:03 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 7:03 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
I also once cut my hand on a crusty baguette.
I’ve done that! And once I snapped a fresh carrot in half to share and the wedge on my half was so sharp it cut me. (Worth it.)
posted by clew at 7:23 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
I’ve done that! And once I snapped a fresh carrot in half to share and the wedge on my half was so sharp it cut me. (Worth it.)
posted by clew at 7:23 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: Absolute casserole down there for a week.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:35 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:35 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Q: What has two and seven-eighths thumbs and loves weeding with a machete? (gestures wtih bandaged hand)
A: This guy!
posted by kgander at 7:46 PM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
A: This guy!
posted by kgander at 7:46 PM on May 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
I very painfully discovered that getting enough fiber is, in fact, quite necessary for the proper functioning of my gastrointestinal system. I will not go into further detail.
I too have had an anal fissure and to this day it is the worst pain I have experienced in my life.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:01 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I too have had an anal fissure and to this day it is the worst pain I have experienced in my life.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:01 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
I thought there would be like a dozen, maybe twenty, replies to this post but two hundred in it looks like when real world MeetUps start again we'll have to set up field hospitals for attending MeFites.
Still, it looks like sleep is the main cause of injuries {catches up on thread} wait WHAT THE
I have a scar on my left hand from opening a can of cat food...
I tweaked my back scooping cat litter...
I injured my knee when I stepped and slid in a hairball my cat had just puked up...
My cat did nearly kill me by dragging his stupid toys into the hallway until one day I stepped on one and went flying...
Stepped in a disturbingly warm & fresh cat hairball while coming out of the bathroom post-shower...
But my favorite is the time my ex hurt his back while lowering our chubby cat to the floor...
Having cat allergies was a killer...
It had been moved in the night by frisky cats so was actually one step down...
I injured my quad squatting down to look for the cat's toy...
posted by Wordshore at 8:06 PM on May 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
Still, it looks like sleep is the main cause of injuries {catches up on thread} wait WHAT THE
I have a scar on my left hand from opening a can of cat food...
I tweaked my back scooping cat litter...
I injured my knee when I stepped and slid in a hairball my cat had just puked up...
My cat did nearly kill me by dragging his stupid toys into the hallway until one day I stepped on one and went flying...
Stepped in a disturbingly warm & fresh cat hairball while coming out of the bathroom post-shower...
But my favorite is the time my ex hurt his back while lowering our chubby cat to the floor...
Having cat allergies was a killer...
It had been moved in the night by frisky cats so was actually one step down...
I injured my quad squatting down to look for the cat's toy...
posted by Wordshore at 8:06 PM on May 19, 2021 [19 favorites]
Correlation does not equal...*checks logs*...oh god...
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Had a wee cough on the toilet and blew my asshole clear inside out. Absolute casserole down there for a week.
Was it like one of those party elephant whistle things that unfurl when you blow into it? And did it let out a merry "toot"?
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:26 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Was it like one of those party elephant whistle things that unfurl when you blow into it? And did it let out a merry "toot"?
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:26 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Good luck with that, in the mortality statistics there is a line item "bedclothes" -- basically dying from sheets is a thing and frequent enough to warrant a measurable stat, and it was not the bottom.
When I was first in charge of my own sheet-buying, I bought polyester satin bedsheets. Come to find out, you will squirt out of satin bedsheets like a seed out of a squeezed orange, right onto the floor. This property is actually helpful for people with mobility issues -- horses for courses. But for me, not so much.
This thread makes me feel better about a whole lot, particularly the fact that I get stress fractures or bone bruises whenever I try to get in shape and do an exercise.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:28 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
When I was first in charge of my own sheet-buying, I bought polyester satin bedsheets. Come to find out, you will squirt out of satin bedsheets like a seed out of a squeezed orange, right onto the floor. This property is actually helpful for people with mobility issues -- horses for courses. But for me, not so much.
This thread makes me feel better about a whole lot, particularly the fact that I get stress fractures or bone bruises whenever I try to get in shape and do an exercise.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:28 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Q: What has two and seven-eighths thumbs
You've still got more thumbs than most of us!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:51 PM on May 19, 2021 [25 favorites]
You've still got more thumbs than most of us!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:51 PM on May 19, 2021 [25 favorites]
I am more than month out on my latest fall. Urgent care doc commented on my impressive edema. Looking for cause of five bad falls over the last 4 years. But first funny injury was remodeling in a restaurant whose interior looked like a galleon. I was on the second floor and in great shape, so I grabbed a jute rope in my hands and slid down to the first floor, instantly removing most of the skin on my palms. In one three day period years ago, I fell off my friends front step, going to buy a pie. The puffy silver bracelet I was wearing, saved my wrist. The next day, I was bitten by a dog, whose owner left him in a car with the window open, next to my car. The next day I was raking at my friend's house and bent down, missing the sight of a board sticking out, that tore an inch and a half gash above my left eyebrow. I was locked out of their house, and blinded by blood stumbled next door to see if the lady surgeon who lived there could end me a hose to clear away the blood to see if I needed stitches. She said she had glue and glued it for me. I thanked her, because by the time I waited for plastics to come, in an ER, hours would pass and infection would be more likely.
However this comment, "said "Oh" and went and lay down in bed so she could safely faint," caused me to laugh long and hard.
posted by Oyéah at 8:51 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
However this comment, "said "Oh" and went and lay down in bed so she could safely faint," caused me to laugh long and hard.
posted by Oyéah at 8:51 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
This post and resultant thread are making me feel MUCH better about my own ridiculous injuries.
Saddest post-40 injuries:
-I threw out my back by emptying the kitchen compost into the garden compost bin
-I threw out my back by toweling off post-shower
-I hurt my neck while yawning
Stupidest self-inflicted injury incurred pre-40:
-I decided to "get in shape" by doing 100 sit ups in a row (after not having done one for probably years). Guess what, that's not how you get in shape. But it is how you injure your stomach muscles so you can't sit up straight for several days!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:58 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Saddest post-40 injuries:
-I threw out my back by emptying the kitchen compost into the garden compost bin
-I threw out my back by toweling off post-shower
-I hurt my neck while yawning
Stupidest self-inflicted injury incurred pre-40:
-I decided to "get in shape" by doing 100 sit ups in a row (after not having done one for probably years). Guess what, that's not how you get in shape. But it is how you injure your stomach muscles so you can't sit up straight for several days!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 8:58 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
My stupidest injury: the time I decided to mow the lawn with a push mower, despite it being way too long. Since I couldn't get any momentum going, the only thing to do was use a lot of force to inch the mower forward. So I lurched forward, again and again, putting as much force as I could into the mower. All of that force went through my hands. I don't know exactly which parts of my hands broke, but ever since then, the range of motion of both of my thumbs is severely limited, and moving them on certain axes or doing weight-bearing things is painful. It's been eight years. I count myself lucky that typing and playing the piano are not affected.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:24 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:24 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
Several years ago spent far too much time standing at a craps table in some casino, drinking about one million Coronas. They’d bring the bottle with the lime wedge perched in the top. I’d push the lime in, cover the opening with my thumb, then slowly turn the bottle upside down and back upright to get the lime mixed in there, as one does. Tendinitis as a result.
posted by zoinks at 10:27 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by zoinks at 10:27 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Q: What has two and seven-eighths thumbs?
Rounding up a bit, see previously on Metafilter, heyho, 7/3/2017: What would you do with a third thumb? (The Third Thumb design project was also featured on Gizmodo yesterday.)
posted by cenoxo at 10:41 PM on May 19, 2021
Rounding up a bit, see previously on Metafilter, heyho, 7/3/2017: What would you do with a third thumb? (The Third Thumb design project was also featured on Gizmodo yesterday.)
posted by cenoxo at 10:41 PM on May 19, 2021
couched by depression for 18 months will fuck up your back. i swear, staying still is more injurious than moving around. after a year of yoga, I'm 95% back.
And just 5% head, arms, legs and chest? That's ... rather peculiar. Looks like you're doing yoga wrong.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:45 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
And just 5% head, arms, legs and chest? That's ... rather peculiar. Looks like you're doing yoga wrong.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:45 PM on May 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Incidentally, German (of course) has a great word for sudden lower back pain, namely Hexenschuss or "witch shot".
posted by scorbet at 12:41 AM on May 20, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by scorbet at 12:41 AM on May 20, 2021 [15 favorites]
A theory: in our never ending quest to sand off all the sharp points in life,
you soon find it's a strenuous and endless task, and you reach for the belt sander...
posted by Stoneshop at 1:21 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
you soon find it's a strenuous and endless task, and you reach for the belt sander...
posted by Stoneshop at 1:21 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have a tattoo. I didn't plan on it, it happened when I put my hand in my pants pocket really fast, only there was a felt-tip pen pointing straight up with no cap--the type with the really thin tip. It pierced the skin and hurt like a mutha. That was about 6 years ago, and I still have the blue-ish dot on my left index finder. A tiny prison tattoo minus the prison.
posted by zardoz at 5:43 AM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 5:43 AM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]
If your local shire council has installed beach-side litter bins with lids that flip up when you press on a foot pedal, like hugely overgrown office wastepaper bins, and you find one whose lid has been bent and jammed down so that stepping on the pedal isn't making it lift, your best option does not involve stamping harder and harder on the pedal and eventually leaning forward a little to try applying your full weight with a bit of a bounce for good measure.
The black eyes were mostly gone in three days but the goose egg on my forehead lasted two weeks.
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on May 20, 2021 [14 favorites]
The black eyes were mostly gone in three days but the goose egg on my forehead lasted two weeks.
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on May 20, 2021 [14 favorites]
I mis-stepped while cleaning up the driveway, the shoes had a slippery bottom, fell on my tailbone. Couldn't breathe for a minute. Couldn't move for @ 10 minutes. Cracked my tailbone, spent 48 hours on the couch and was hobbled for a month. It felt stupid and scary and made me feel old, like I should have one of those geezer call buttons around my neck.
posted by theora55 at 12:14 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 12:14 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
Metafilter: my streak was ruined by CAT HORK.
posted by theora55 at 12:14 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 12:14 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
My dad just phoned to say he is in hospital because he turned to pick something off a table and wrecked his back. Getting old sucks.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:50 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:50 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
I feel too late to post this, but 2 years ago next weekend, I broke my leg walking too fast in the rain on the way to the main stage at a techno festival.
That's it. Literally bent my right leg in half, shattered both bones, because my foot shot out from under me when I stepped on the edge of a metal sewer drain.
I saw my tibia and fibula snap in mid-air literally in front of my eyes before hitting the ground.
Hilariously, I fell right in front of a million-dollar sound system. It was so loud, it took the EMTs a good hour to find a broken wheelchair to carry me downstairs in before loading me into an ambulance.
First surgery, first stitches, first ambulance ride, first hospital stay. All because I "couldn't wait" to get somewhere I was already well within in earshot of, and on vacation.
I'll spare y'all the gruesome details, but the fact that they had 2 guys running holding different parts of my body and dropped my leg while they were setting it in the ER felt like some kind of traumatic injury lagniappe.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:44 PM on May 20, 2021 [8 favorites]
That's it. Literally bent my right leg in half, shattered both bones, because my foot shot out from under me when I stepped on the edge of a metal sewer drain.
I saw my tibia and fibula snap in mid-air literally in front of my eyes before hitting the ground.
Hilariously, I fell right in front of a million-dollar sound system. It was so loud, it took the EMTs a good hour to find a broken wheelchair to carry me downstairs in before loading me into an ambulance.
First surgery, first stitches, first ambulance ride, first hospital stay. All because I "couldn't wait" to get somewhere I was already well within in earshot of, and on vacation.
I'll spare y'all the gruesome details, but the fact that they had 2 guys running holding different parts of my body and dropped my leg while they were setting it in the ER felt like some kind of traumatic injury lagniappe.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:44 PM on May 20, 2021 [8 favorites]
Oh and also, in 6th grade, I accidentally stuck a compass in between my right eyeball and my ocular bone.
What caused me to do this? I was learning geometry.
The girl right behind me had tapped on my shoulder to alert me that our teacher, who wore prosthetic breasts (cancer), had one up, one down from writing on the chalkboard and felt amused by this. I thought this observation rude, grunted, "uh huh, seen it before" and turned back around to face forward, then turned to look down at my work.
Unfortunately, I was holding the compass pointing UP right when I decided to look down.
No worries, though, I still have that eyeball.
The school nurse called her to pick me up, but Mom demurred, screeching "the eyeball's still in there. Go back to class!" before peeling out in the school parking lot.
And I did. I wore an eyepatch for at least a week afterwards.
So, I nearly blinded myself in one eye because a girl in class thought prosthetic breasts were funny.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:58 PM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
What caused me to do this? I was learning geometry.
The girl right behind me had tapped on my shoulder to alert me that our teacher, who wore prosthetic breasts (cancer), had one up, one down from writing on the chalkboard and felt amused by this. I thought this observation rude, grunted, "uh huh, seen it before" and turned back around to face forward, then turned to look down at my work.
Unfortunately, I was holding the compass pointing UP right when I decided to look down.
No worries, though, I still have that eyeball.
The school nurse called her to pick me up, but Mom demurred, screeching "the eyeball's still in there. Go back to class!" before peeling out in the school parking lot.
And I did. I wore an eyepatch for at least a week afterwards.
So, I nearly blinded myself in one eye because a girl in class thought prosthetic breasts were funny.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:58 PM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
Metafilter=Lagniappe.
posted by Oyéah at 4:20 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 4:20 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
A couple of years ago, when travel was still a thing I got to do from time to time when I was lucky, I was visiting Budapest, taking some personal time after traveling to another capital in Central Europe for a work meeting. I had arranged to have several days to visit Budapest but with only one day remaining of my stay I had seen rather less of the city than I had hoped/planned because I wound up working from my AirBnB more than I had expected (in order to cover for a co-worker whose spouse had had a truly awful accident in the city where the meeting took place.)
It was my last day and I had been looking forward to visiting the Széchenyi Thermal Baths. I had also had it impressed upon me by a Polish co-worker that I would be a fool to visit Budapest without getting a lángos basically any time the opportunity presented itself. The intimation at the time was that they were the perfect late-night after-drinking street food but since I hadn't been doing much that would produce opportunities for late-night after-drinking consumption, I was pleased to find a stall selling them just 50m or so away from the bath complex -- even though it was broad daylight I still thought "great, I can cross it off my list and won't get grief from my colleague when he asks about it later."
Unfortunately, I tripped on a loose flagstone on the park pathway that led to the lángos stand, and landed hard. The lángos did not live up to expectations, though I can't say whether it was because I'm not a lángos man or because I was in pretty serious pain, but afterwards I managed to hobble over to the baths and pay the entrance fee, thinking that at least that would give me a place to sit and rest for a while and maybe soak my bumps and scrapes if I felt up to it.
I knew I was in trouble, though, when I found, in the changing room for the baths, that I couldn't remove my pants -- or even reach down to re-tie my shoes -- because in the intervening time my injured knee had swollen alarmingly.
To cut to the chase: that's how an oversized, overweight American wound up being carried out of the historic thermal spa in Budapest's main park on a stretcher by a bunch of nice Hungarian men. They loaded me into an ambulance which took me to a hospital where the people were extremely nice and helpful but where mutual intelligibility was severely limited. So in the end I wound up seeing some parts of Budapest that had not been on my list when I arrived; I guess there's that.
I was very fortunate that another colleague from my company was also in Budapest, taking a scenic detour on his way home from our meeting, and that he understood enough Hungarian to help me get discharged from the hospital. I was even more fortunate that he had a car available and could return me to my AirBnB. I was not so fortunate to find, when we got there, that the intermittently working elevator in the building was having a bad day but I did, with his help and a lot of stops, make it back to the apartment on the 5th floor.
At any rate my last full day in Budapest was a memorable one. Of the subsequent early morning check-out, re-navigation of the stairs (this time alone, plus luggage!) and all-day bus ride to Krakow the next day, the less said the better. I was in so much pain from the knee that it wasn't until I got back home to North America and realized that the bone had healed crookedly that I even figured out that I had also broken one of my fingers in the fall.
In case anyone is wondering: before being discharged from the Hungarian hospital it was requested that I kindly settle my bill. I have it around here somewhere but I think I was charged 7,000 forints, which at the current exchange rate equates to about $24.50. For that, the Hungarian health service provided a distressed visitor an ambulance ride, several x-rays, and a consultation with a physician, albeit one that took place mostly in gesture and sign language. Many thanks to the people of Budapest and the workers at that hospital; I hope someday I have a chance to visit again under happier circumstances.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:40 PM on May 20, 2021 [14 favorites]
It was my last day and I had been looking forward to visiting the Széchenyi Thermal Baths. I had also had it impressed upon me by a Polish co-worker that I would be a fool to visit Budapest without getting a lángos basically any time the opportunity presented itself. The intimation at the time was that they were the perfect late-night after-drinking street food but since I hadn't been doing much that would produce opportunities for late-night after-drinking consumption, I was pleased to find a stall selling them just 50m or so away from the bath complex -- even though it was broad daylight I still thought "great, I can cross it off my list and won't get grief from my colleague when he asks about it later."
Unfortunately, I tripped on a loose flagstone on the park pathway that led to the lángos stand, and landed hard. The lángos did not live up to expectations, though I can't say whether it was because I'm not a lángos man or because I was in pretty serious pain, but afterwards I managed to hobble over to the baths and pay the entrance fee, thinking that at least that would give me a place to sit and rest for a while and maybe soak my bumps and scrapes if I felt up to it.
I knew I was in trouble, though, when I found, in the changing room for the baths, that I couldn't remove my pants -- or even reach down to re-tie my shoes -- because in the intervening time my injured knee had swollen alarmingly.
To cut to the chase: that's how an oversized, overweight American wound up being carried out of the historic thermal spa in Budapest's main park on a stretcher by a bunch of nice Hungarian men. They loaded me into an ambulance which took me to a hospital where the people were extremely nice and helpful but where mutual intelligibility was severely limited. So in the end I wound up seeing some parts of Budapest that had not been on my list when I arrived; I guess there's that.
I was very fortunate that another colleague from my company was also in Budapest, taking a scenic detour on his way home from our meeting, and that he understood enough Hungarian to help me get discharged from the hospital. I was even more fortunate that he had a car available and could return me to my AirBnB. I was not so fortunate to find, when we got there, that the intermittently working elevator in the building was having a bad day but I did, with his help and a lot of stops, make it back to the apartment on the 5th floor.
At any rate my last full day in Budapest was a memorable one. Of the subsequent early morning check-out, re-navigation of the stairs (this time alone, plus luggage!) and all-day bus ride to Krakow the next day, the less said the better. I was in so much pain from the knee that it wasn't until I got back home to North America and realized that the bone had healed crookedly that I even figured out that I had also broken one of my fingers in the fall.
In case anyone is wondering: before being discharged from the Hungarian hospital it was requested that I kindly settle my bill. I have it around here somewhere but I think I was charged 7,000 forints, which at the current exchange rate equates to about $24.50. For that, the Hungarian health service provided a distressed visitor an ambulance ride, several x-rays, and a consultation with a physician, albeit one that took place mostly in gesture and sign language. Many thanks to the people of Budapest and the workers at that hospital; I hope someday I have a chance to visit again under happier circumstances.
posted by Nerd of the North at 4:40 PM on May 20, 2021 [14 favorites]
I regret to report that reading this thread has badly sprained my Sympathetic Wince tendon. I may need to avoid further injury-related posts for a couple of weeks to let it recuperate.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:34 PM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:34 PM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
I worked as an ESL teacher in Korea for a number of years. One school had bathroom stalls outside under an overhang. It was very damp that day. As I sat down, my foot slipped on the tile and I broke my little toe on the side of the stall.
I picked up my cat one day and she scratched me on my leg. The next day, my leg was red and swollen. I went to the hospital. I was this close to sepsis. I vaguely remember laying in the hospital bed saying my knee hurt. They doctor tapped it and that night I was in the OR to debride the septic joint.
A few years ago, I was teaching preschool and I went to help a kid. My foot hit one of the floor pillows and I went down. I broke my proximal humerus on my left arm. I was in a sling for 8 weeks. The next summer, I was putting the bike back where they went outside and I fell over the curb.
When I lost all the weight, my blood pressure went from my usual 140/90 to 90/60 on a good day. I passed out at least twice and sprained my ankle both times. This is the same ankle that I hurt when a kid dumped me off my chair in middle school and I hurt jumping up and down after getting accepted to a summer science program at CWRU. Now I take 3 grams of NaCl a day to keep my blood pressure up.
As my mother used to say. 15 years of dance classes and you still can't walk.
posted by kathrynm at 7:03 PM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
I picked up my cat one day and she scratched me on my leg. The next day, my leg was red and swollen. I went to the hospital. I was this close to sepsis. I vaguely remember laying in the hospital bed saying my knee hurt. They doctor tapped it and that night I was in the OR to debride the septic joint.
A few years ago, I was teaching preschool and I went to help a kid. My foot hit one of the floor pillows and I went down. I broke my proximal humerus on my left arm. I was in a sling for 8 weeks. The next summer, I was putting the bike back where they went outside and I fell over the curb.
When I lost all the weight, my blood pressure went from my usual 140/90 to 90/60 on a good day. I passed out at least twice and sprained my ankle both times. This is the same ankle that I hurt when a kid dumped me off my chair in middle school and I hurt jumping up and down after getting accepted to a summer science program at CWRU. Now I take 3 grams of NaCl a day to keep my blood pressure up.
As my mother used to say. 15 years of dance classes and you still can't walk.
posted by kathrynm at 7:03 PM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
The ceiling fan was making a weird noise and I couldn't sleep, so I stood up on the bed (in the dark) to figure out what was going on. The fan blades smacked me in the face, breaking my glasses, cutting the bridge of my nose, and nearly blinding me.
I was trying to open a can of beans & the lid cut a deep, curving gash across the pad of my thumb. I should have gotten stitches, but we were in the middle of a literal blizzard, plus all the adults in the house were drunk. By the time the 1.5+ feet of snow melted enough to go to the clinic a couple days later it was too late for stitches. That batch of chili came out pretty good, despite everything.
posted by belladonna at 7:46 PM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
I was trying to open a can of beans & the lid cut a deep, curving gash across the pad of my thumb. I should have gotten stitches, but we were in the middle of a literal blizzard, plus all the adults in the house were drunk. By the time the 1.5+ feet of snow melted enough to go to the clinic a couple days later it was too late for stitches. That batch of chili came out pretty good, despite everything.
posted by belladonna at 7:46 PM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
Cut the top of my hand open on the plastic door of a portajon before a 5k race. I still have a scar.
posted by msladygrey at 7:54 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by msladygrey at 7:54 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
I stood up on the bed (in the dark) ... The fan blades smacked me in the face, breaking my glasses
I have questions
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:08 PM on May 20, 2021 [9 favorites]
I have questions
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:08 PM on May 20, 2021 [9 favorites]
I have a cool metal plate in my left wrist from a fall which started with trying to move a futon into the living room for an expected house guest. My slipper got caught under the futon edge, and the rest was gravity, yelling, and the distinct feeling of puzzlement because my wrist was surely not supposed to look all bent like that. The next year my partner similarly broke her right wrist mopping the kitchen floor, so now we match, metal plates and all.
posted by jokeefe at 10:37 PM on May 20, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by jokeefe at 10:37 PM on May 20, 2021 [8 favorites]
I put my t-shirt on this morning, causing a sharp ray of pain to shoot down my neck and across my shoulder. hahahahahahahahahaha*sobs*
posted by halcyonday at 1:08 AM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by halcyonday at 1:08 AM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
My most fun injury as an adult came with the realization that I'd just sliced my belly open with a slice of broken porcelain sink, but that due to the bit of a tummy I've added since the beginning of the pandemic it only cut into the fat, rather than my actual stomach muscle. Or I suppose it's possible that without the tummy it would have missed me entirely, but something about glasses and the fullness thereof.
posted by aspersioncast at 10:09 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by aspersioncast at 10:09 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Two weeks ago, I woke up, took a drink of water and tried to carefully place the glass back on the bedside table. I missed somehow, over corrected, smacked the corner of my eye of the table, bled for two hours, and then had a massive half face black eye thing for a week which was really the zoom filter I needed all along to keep conversations going.
posted by recklessbrother at 5:37 PM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by recklessbrother at 5:37 PM on May 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
I stood up on the bed (in the dark) ... The fan blades smacked me in the face, breaking my glasses
I have questions
I was horribly sleep-deprived, thanks to a newborn who never slept. Somehow it made sense to put on my glasses, even though I could only see vague shadows, thanks to the light from a street lamp outside.
posted by belladonna at 7:10 PM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
I have questions
I was horribly sleep-deprived, thanks to a newborn who never slept. Somehow it made sense to put on my glasses, even though I could only see vague shadows, thanks to the light from a street lamp outside.
posted by belladonna at 7:10 PM on May 21, 2021 [5 favorites]
No further questions, Your Honor.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:19 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:19 PM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
sleep-deprived, thanks to a newborn
* googles Samuel L. Jackson narrating Go the F#@k to Sleep *
posted by darkstar at 10:20 PM on May 21, 2021
* googles Samuel L. Jackson narrating Go the F#@k to Sleep *
posted by darkstar at 10:20 PM on May 21, 2021
Tore all the ligaments connecting my foot to leg, all the way through, because I missed one step. I was 23.
posted by Neekee at 7:26 AM on May 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Neekee at 7:26 AM on May 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Spent the whole weekend doing landscaping around the house, including hauling buckets of soil up an elevated structure. Also went to the skatepark with the kids for the first time and tried some ramps, fell a whole bunch of times. Perfectly fine, not even particularly sore. Sliced an old baguette this afternoon and gashed my knuckle with the edge of the bread. Not a major injury but after so many reasonable opportunities to hurt myself over the weekend, for it to happen like this is a bit frustrating.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:10 PM on May 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:10 PM on May 31, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm a responsible baguette owner. I keep my bread locked in a safe.
posted by flabdablet at 12:18 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 12:18 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
Three people in this thread with baguette injuries. That stuff is dangerous!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:48 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:48 PM on May 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
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My first thought was, “Oh god, my coworkers are probably watching this on the CCTV, how embarrassing!”, followed a few minutes later by “Crap, nobody saw this happen, I’m gonna die alone in this parking lot!”’
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:54 AM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]