So, what's the worst injury you've sustained due to a sudden lapse of judgement or just general childhood stupidity? -- 5 years old... I'm playing with some kind of wheeled toy that I can sit on and push with my feet, like a tricyle... My mom tells me to stay away from the back door because I'm going to roll down the steps. Do I heed my mothers advice? No... I roll right through the screen door and down the steps. As a result I have a scar over my left eyebrow! 6 years old... I decide to make a slide out of my brother's cars windshield, when I slid down, my foot met the windshield wiper blade and a 1.5" cut on the top of my foot below my big toe is what I got! My brother wrapped my foot up in his white work shirt and rushed me home...I still have the scar! 12 years old... I'm at a friends house with my bicycle. We figure it would be a good idea to jump our bikes off the porch.... the porch was about 3 feet off the ground, no railings. So I get on one side of the porch and my buddy says, "GO!" I peddle as fast as I can in about 12 feet of space and as soon as I hit the edge, the front tire goes off the porch and straight down, followed by me and the bike... hahahaa... no visible scars, but that story is always good for a laugh when I'm around my friend!
5th grade, I believe, in gym class. We were playing this game called German Baseball where half of the class stood in lines covering the entire gym. The other half was "at bat". The coach would pitch us a kickball that we'd hit with our hands. After you made contact, the goal was to run to one end of the gym and back without someone hitting you with the ball. I was the last batter, we were down by one, and my hand was about to touch the wall when the ball hit me in the back ending the game with a loss for our team. I promptly hit the wall in frustration and broke my wrist. That was smart. 8th grade football game. I caught a ball for a first down on a 4th down play late in the game. However, the idiot ref said I didn't catch it. I jumped up really fast to argue and when I came down, I sprained my knee. We'd watch that one in slo-mo for a long time, dying laughing. Near miss includes every idiotic time I'd jump off our roof into our pool. At first, we'd just jump from the porch roof which was pretty much over the pool. However, as we grew older and dumber, we decided that the second story roof which was like 15 feet away from the house was a more appropriate diving board. I'm still astounded to this day that none of us died.
Aaah, a subject near and dear to my heart. Age 13, 2 days after my Bar Mitzvah: I'm playing one-on-one hoops with my older brother in the driveway of my parent's house. At the time, my dad owned an 18 foot motorboat that he kept on a trailer in the garage. The trailer hitch stuck out about 4 inches from the garage, making it impossible to close the garage door. But that's OK....we're talking about Houston in 1974 when it was still safe to leave your back-door unlocked overnight. So I'm playing hoops with my brother...I dribble around the right side and drive baseline...twisted, lay the ball up, watch it go in....and slammed my right knee into the trailer hitch. Blood begins to gush everywhere. My folks take me to Bellaire Hospital where I need 8 stitches in the knee. The only thing I remember was my Filipino doctor, holding a horse needle full of antisthetic above my knee, telling me "dees no hurt one bit".
I'm sitting in the barber shop on a Saturday morning with my dad playing with a bee-bee. I'm rolling it around...throwing it up in the air. Being a goofy kid. Waiting to get my hair cut. Then I decide it would be a great idea to see if I can stick it in my ear. Sure 'nuff...it fits! But now...wait...huh? Stuck?? Stuck?? STUCKKK!!!! My dad looked at me like I was the biggest fool on the planet. Roughly, I was. We had to get the ear, nose and throat doctor to the office on a Saturday to fish this bee-bee out of my ear with a hook. Very pleasant. I also decided it would be a good idea to see if I could slap a wasp to death that was sitting on top of my pool. I snuck up behind it in serious stealth mode...and slapped the hell out of it. I also helped it force it's stinger and poisons further into my hand. My hand was so swolen I couldn't fit it in my baseball glove at UT baseball camp the next week. I was really a smart kid.
When I was about 8, I found a piece of leather that I decided I wanted to fashion into a quiver. I ran and got a needle and thread out of my mother's sewing box. The going was tough, so I placed the eye of the needle on top of a magazine on a table top. I stood up to put my weight behind it to get the needle through the leather. Press. Oops. Slipped. The sewing needle goes all the way through my thumb parallel to the thumbnail. Then I got to pull it back out... Have you ever been impaled?
When I was in Kindergarden, we had toy hour. Two kids could play with every toy, no more no less. So my favorite toy was in the corner of the room and there was only one kid next to it. He motioned for me to come here. I think it was a Tonka airport or something like that. It was the most popular toy in the room so I knew I had to act fast. I ran full speed towards the toy and some other kid stuck his foot out and tripped me. To this day, I don't know if it was a setup or not. Anyway I wake up with my head in the sink and 2 frantic teachers washing my forehead which was gushing blood. I had to get 4 stiches, a lot for a little kindergarden twerp like me. Still have the scar 25 years later.
got a lot to list but will just go with the most memorable......probably in 4th or 5th grade at camp, wathcing my counselour fish. he swings the pole back....the hook goes underneath my mouth right through my lip below my nose.......blood is gushing everywhere he runs over takes me to the nurse and i had to get stitches. lucky for me that night was the "dance" where all the girls and boys dance 3 feet away from each other but i had a nice little thing above my lip so dont think i got too many dances. another one: I was sitting on the couch waiting for my dad to get home. I was about 10 years old probably and my mom was talking on the phone. Being the ADD kid I am i start moving around digging through the sofa, find a button. Dont ask me how but I somehow managed to put the button up my nose. It was stuck and I still remember the look on my moms face when I turned to her and was crying. I had to go to some emergency room where they had to like strap me down so I would stop moving to get it out. Went to sorta a ghetto elementary school and we didnt really have any kickballs so me and a friend decided to bring one of those mini basketballs to play with. WEll i was playing around 1st and the ball came right at me and bent my finger backwards. it hurt pretty bad but I just decided to be the pitcher so i wouldnt get hurt. next pitch the ball comes right back at me and hits the same finger. nice and broken. i got a lot more I cant hink of but will type them later
Playing catcher with some friends isn't a really good experience, especially when the bat is solid metal (not alluminum, alot heavier) and you are around 5 years old. Anyway, my brother, who was really big for his age (8, in a teenager's body), is batting. I know nothing about catching, so I misjudged the distance I should stay back by a few feet. Brother loses control of bat and suddenly my head has a bump a few times the size of Hasim Rahman's bump vs. Holyfield. I'm talking about my forhead being Pinnochio's nose, and Pinnochio singing a freaking song of lies! It was huge! Anyway, good thing our neighbor was a doctor. To this day I don't know if that injury still effects me, but I think so . Wish I could remember the whole thing, but it was a freaking head injury! The bad part is, it happened 2 more times, except those weren't near as brutal. Another stupid childhood injury, except this one was kind of stupid on the adult's part. Was in Sunday School or something else at church, and the teacher thought it a bright idea to slide around the room with wax sheets under our feet! Sure enough, I slipped, my precious forhead hitting a chair hard. All in all, a few years of my life were blocked from my memory by head injuries. No wonder it has this odd shape. Thanks for rekindling my memories!
No one blew up there hands with firewords? I know I did My cousin ran over my foot with A GREEN MACHINE It had the little Brake thing . . he pulled it and went right over my pinky toe [i think i put my fool foot out to stop him] Nearly ripped the d*mn thing off Rocket River
I couldn't think of any until GiddyUp's story sparked my memory -- it happened when I was in seventh grade, in English class. We were going up to the teacher one at a time to talk about rough drafts for some paper we were doing in class. So I'm standing up there, and she's got a stapler on her desk. I'm just kind of fooling around with it while she's talking . . . I stick my middle finger underneath the place where the stable comes out and for whatever reason, I lean down on it REALLY HARD. Staple goes right into my finger, I pull my hand back quickly, sending the stapler flying while the staple tears itself out of my finger. It hurt . . . A LOT. Not an overly big deal compared to some of your stories, but I think it should definitely be up there at the top of the stupidity list.
Why I've never given in to peer pressure again. When I was about 4 or 5, I was at Fame City, now known as Fun Plex or possibly a church now. Anways, I was in this kiddie fun zone called Treasure Island where they had all kinds of stuff for kids, like jungle gyms and those ball pits and moon rooms. Anways, they had these bikes that are connected together and make a big ring, kind of like a self propelled merry go round or carousel. Some kids were sitting on the bars that connected the bikes and made the circle. The bars aren't really needed, since the bikes are fastened to the base, but they're there and I was dared to sit on the bar and try and stay on. I don't mean straddle by the way. Well, the kids on the bikes start going and they speed up and I lose my balance, and slip backwards hitting the back of my head on the base of the thing and splitting it wide open. 10 stitches.
I've got you all beat. When I was about 2 1/2 years old, I stuck my finger in our pet rabbits cage to pet him. He then bit the top third of my index finger at the joint and it was barely hanging by a thread when my parents took me to the hospital. After three surgeries including two skin grafts and over 200 stitches, they weren't able to save that part of my finger. So here I am 22 years later with almost half of my right index finger missing!
That reminds me of a friend's injury. His older brother liked to hold Roman Candles and fire the 8 rounds (or whatever you want to call them) at targets in his back yard. So, while he's doing that, his little brother decides to tempt fate by running in front of the Roman Candle in between rounds. He got hit in the ear with one of them. It healed nicely though. Now, for my own story. I was using a blender to make myself an ice cream shake, but the blender wasn't working properly. The blades felt gummed up and it was overworking the motor. For some reason -- and I really can't explain why -- I thought it would be a good idea to disassemble the cup and just put the blades on the mounting. I would hold the blades from turning with my hand, I figured, and let the motor turn the rest of the mechanism to break up the gumminess. So, I did and I turned on the blender. Fortunately, I didn't lose any fingers. But, I cut 3 or 4 of them, and the force of the thing knocked my hand up and I got a big bruise on my forearm from hitting the bottom of the upper cabinet. The part that makes this injury really stupid is not primarily the stupidity of it, but that I wasn't very young -- I was something like 15 at the time. Serious brain-freeze.
My little brother stabbed me with a pencil in the arm and the lead (obviously not REAL lead or I wouldn't be alive) Anyway, it's still in my arm. Pretty cool huh?
that is cool sparkle B.... I remember another one!!! I was like 4 or 5 years old in the early 70's and Porter Wagner (country singer) used to have a variety show on TV. He would sing then bring out some guests, do some skits then sing some more... well it was during the rousing closing number that I decided to get up and dance. I was also coloring at the time... I commenced to dancing and sure enough slipped right on the coloring book, BOOM, smacked my mouth right on the floor and lost one of my front teeth! It was a baby tooth, but I was supposed to have it for a few years. So for a few years I didn't have that tooth and I have many early school pictures without that tooth. I've hated Porter Wagner and country music ever since...
I remember one time when my dog and another dog were fighting. At the age of 5, I thought I could still break them up. That didn't work and I almost lost my ear. I don't remember how many stitches I needed. Another time, I rode around on my Big Wheel thing even though my parents told me not to. I was in another person's driveway and they backed up into my head. It hurt, but I don't think it really registered at the time. I think I was scared to get in trouble so I tried to quickly make it back home. When I was almost home, I felt what I thought was sweat on my head, but after I wiped it off and looked at my hand, I saw a whole lot of blood. Scared me big time so I started crying like I had broke my leg or something. This one, although not painful or really an injury, is pretty stupid. There was this antbed somewhere and I decided to let some ants bite me. At the time, it seemed logical since they hurt just like shots and shots were good for you so ant bites had to be good for you. I don't remember what happend. Actually, I may have only been bit like 5 times or something. I'm sure there were more, but my memory sucks so I may just ask my parents when they get home. I know I had an incident with a firecracker but I don't remember how it happend.
Wow! I can contribute to this one! Age 12 - Skiing, punk ass that can't control himself comes and is skiing to close because he can't help it, well his ski gets on top of mine so I can't move, and I am forced right into a tree. Two people proceede to run right into me, pushing me further against the tree. End up with my face scabbed up, and a scar on my leg where a tree branch punctured my leg. Had I not been wearing goggles I likely would have lost/seriousy damaged my left eye. For the importance of that see below! Age 15 - Dec '99, right before New Years my foolish friends are playing with the tiny little bottle rockets, about the size of Crayons on little sticks. Well one smart guy lights one, tosses it, it hits the ground, bounces and shoots right at my face, hits me in my right eye. Retina detatches, go through several surgeries, vision is now about 20/200 without correction, fortunately with a contact in I can see reasonably well. Age 18 - CURRENT! My left wrist is currently in a cast. I was dunking a basketball, but was going too fast and was off balance. When I grabbed the rim my momentum swung my legs into the air, about the time that my body was parralel to the ground my hand lost grip and I came flying down! Landed on my hips, and left wrist. Broke the wrist, had surgery a few weeks ago, now I've got a plate in my wrist... But the cast comes off in two days!
When I was about 8 years old I was riding a bike and the bike didn't have any brakes at all well I'm peddling and looking behind me then BAM!!! I ran into a mail box and the post went between my legs. The head of my partner was bruised and purple/black for about a week. Still hate that memory.
When I was 10, I watched people skateboarding & jumping over a stair case. When one of these guys asking me whether I would like to play... I tried to do the same with no skateboarding experience & consequently broke my arm...
