# Accidents waiting to happen



## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Today we were walking in the snow on our Dutch isle of Texel. However, I oversaw a patch of icing ... whoooooooooooooosh :trp:.... and now I'm sitting at home with a stiff left leg. It was typically an accident waiting to happen. Please, share with us any of your stiff or black&blue experiences...


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I had a number of bad accidents when I was little. Not sure why I haven't had anything in a while (oops, don't mean to jinx myself by saying that!). When I wasn't even 3, I climbed out of my 2nd-story bedroom window and jumped down, and survived somehow with just 2 little scrapes.  Don't ask why I did it, I don't know anymore either. 

I've gotten hit in the face with a softball, got my tailbone severely bruised from being on a boat that hit a hard wave, and at least one knee scraped where I lost enough blood pressure to start seeing colors. And it all happened around elementary school years. But I've never gone to hospital for such injuries.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

This winter I fell on my bum and it hurt a few days. I remember some years ago I did a summersault trying to shovel snow, and had to look around to see if somebody had seen the fantastic spectacle...Also some winters ago the neighbour-dog came rushing towards the locked gate to bark at me, but slid and crashed into it. HAHA, I laughed big time and shut him up


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Couple years ago I was stuffing leaf bags and overzealous to cram the leaves in as tightly as possible I jumped up with one leg on the leaf bag. I lost my balance and came down backward on the other leg, then rolled onto the ground. I didn't notice having twisted anything badly, but that evening about 4 hours later, while sitting at dinner, my foot started to hurt. It worsened to the point that I could not walk. I hopped around much of the evening when I needed to move about, and even borrowed a cane for a while. Later it subsided and by the next morning I was walking fine.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

When I was 7 years old I played on a pee wee flag football team. Right after I scored the one and only touchdown I ever scored on that team, I stopped running, turned around, and another kid was still barreling towards me. I only saw him for a split second, but he seriously looked like he was getting ready to make a diving tackle. The top of his head rammed right into the side of my face, pretty much square on the cheekbone. Hurt pretty bad, and it took everything I had to not cry in front of everyone. I didn't help that a few kids were like "look, his face is turning purple!" Indeed, I had a swollen face for about a week. No, we didn't use helmets. 
About 9 years old- I was playing with rocks near a lake, trying to heave the biggest ones I could into the water to watch them splash. Lost grip of one, mashed the tip of the middle finger of my left hand almost flat and ripped the fingernail clean off. Very bloody and _very_ painful. Could hardly bend my finger for days, and for a while the slightest touch was agonizing. Fortunately, my finger healed fully, and there's no indication it ever happened. For a musician, that's a scary injury looking back. 
About four years ago, I was mowing the grass with a pushmower and the deck was too low, so I stopped the engine to raise the wheel height. The lever was rusted so it was kind of hard to move. To stabilize myself for more leverage, what do I grab with my left hand except the exhaust chute. Burned the heck out of my hand, specifically on my palm. That might be the worst pain I've ever felt, more so than my finger accident. But let me take this moment to STRONGLY recommend you keep aloe plants in your house for these types of things!! I immediately put aloe on the burn, and in seconds the agonizing pain was tolerable. Plus, it even miraculously prevented the burn from blistering, which it was starting to do, but I kept the aloe on it and it never did.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

When I was 10 or so, I fell off my bicycle into a barbed wire fence. Lots of blood, and still have the scars on my right leg as a reminder 50 years later.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Twice in the last two years I've fallen on by tailbone in my own bedroom. Each time has collapsed a vertebra. Fortunately a kyphoplasty, pumping the vertebra back up to size by injecting a cement, has been a near-total cure in each case. Just a few years ago I'd have been looking forward to living in intense pain for the rest of my life.

Did I mention that I'm a fan of modern medicine???


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

When I was six, I was playing in a field by the river in York with my brother (aged 9) and a girl of his age who lived in our street. We were climbing part way up a tree and jumping off it to the ground. An old man who was passing in the nearby lane told my brother that I was too young to be doing something so dangerous: 'That little girl could end up breaking her leg!'

'No, it's all right,' my brother replied. 'She's done it twice already with no trouble.' 

So I jumped for the third time and - guess what!

My left leg was in plaster for three months as my tibia was so badly broken. I remember how itchy my calf used to get and how I'd try to scratch it with pencils and then get the pencils stuck down my plaster. 

When the plaster was taken off, I had trouble learning to walk again - partly psychological. And I still have a left ankle that isn't perfectly aligned, which spoils my 'turn-out' for Scottish country dancing.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

One October evening a few years ago I was taking the dogs (Airedale & Border Terrier) out in the garden for toileting. I had to take them on leads because the fence dividing the back garden from the front had blown over in an autumn gale. The fence was lying on the ground by the kitchen door but unfortunately I forgot - caught my foot on a prone fence post - and couldn't put out my hands to stop myself because I was holding the dog leads. 

I fell straight on to the concrete - my face smashed into it and a millisecond later, I felt something 'give' at the top of my nose. I remember thinking, 'This is it! It doesn't seem fair that I've got to die at only 58.' The thought didn't seem to scare me though - just the unfairness of it! But a moment later, I realised that I was still alive. 

Taggart said, 'Are you all right?' He wanted me to get up at once & pretend that nothing happened, but I said he should call the ambulance, as it wasn't very long after Natalie Richardson had died of an epidural haematoma after falling on a skiing holiday. I remember that such patients, who seem to be okay at first, are nicknamed 'Talk-and-die' patients. 

I was taken to A & E where I had to wait a long time & was then x-rayed - no apparent damage. But I was kept in overnight for safety and every hour, just as I was drifting off, a nurse came and shone a light in my eyes to check for haemorrhages. 

The next day, a Saturday, the doctor making his rounds had medical students with him. He made me describe how I'd fallen: 'I was walking the dogs when I tripped over a fence post' - and he and the students found it hugely amusing. (I should add that my face was a complete riot of red, black & blue.)

So much so that half an hour later, when the doctor-tutor discovered that, though discharged, I was still there - Taggart was out shopping  - he came back with a different set of medical students and made me tell the story all over again!


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Numerous stupid accidents when I was a child - here are just three...

1/ When learning to ride a bike I was distracted by an insect and crashed into a wall spraining my wrist. It put me off bikes and over 40 years later I still can't ride one.

2/ When I was 10 I tripped over a cable at the local funfair and broke my right arm in three places.

3/ When me and a couple of friends were in the garden throwing darts at our Action Man toys one got careless with his aim and a dart ended up in my head. When I went running in tears to my mum my elder brother (who was an adult, would you believe?) took one look and burst out laughing....


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm always looking for "accidents waiting to happen;" thus, I am acutely aware of where I put things. If there is any possibility of it falling, I make it stable and accident proof. This includes glasses of iced tea, brooms, garden implements, guitars, stacks of papers, pets, chairs, books, plates of food, etc.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Must hear: A hilarious description of a bricklayer's accident, from tubist Gerard Hoffnung.


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## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Gordontrek said:


> ...But let me take this moment to *STRONGLY recommend you keep aloe plants in your house* for these types of things!! I immediately put aloe on the burn, and in seconds the agonizing pain was tolerable. Plus, it even miraculously prevented the burn from blistering, which it was starting to do, but I kept the aloe on it and it never did.


One of the greatest natural healers in the world. Especially for burns. I burned my hand a little over a year ago (same thing, palm) and a 500 F degree piece of steel. Soaked it over and over for the rest of the night (about 4 hours) until I went to bed. As soon as my skin absorbed it, I would reapply. It never blistered. Continued to apply it all day the next day. Within 4 days you could barely see where I burned myself. The stuff is a miracle!

V


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I frequently trip and fall up the stairs, which fortunately does not cause significant injury. I have a habit of catching a toe on the top of the step edge while hurrying up the stairs. Never had a problem going down stairs, thankfully.

If I have time later I will tell my accident story of an attempted wheelie on a garden tractor.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Florestan said:


> I frequently trip and fall up the stairs, which fortunately does not cause significant injury. I have a habit of catching a toe on the top of the step edge while hurrying up the stairs. Never had a problem going down stairs, thankfully.
> 
> If I have time later I will tell my accident story of an attempted wheelie on a garden tractor.


This would be more credible if Michigan was located in the Southern Hemisphere, Sydney.


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## geralmar (Feb 15, 2013)

Trampolines.

I still cringe when I see them in backyards and I remember roadside trampoline "parks" with children and adults bouncing up and down. Broken bones, necks; and devastating paralysis were endemic and quickly put the parks out of business. A few years ago I learned about a former high school classmate who died instantly of a broken neck on one of those damned things while amusing his grandchildren.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Playing the Violin on a trampoline whilst using a unicycle


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