Either by chance, stupidity or just poor management, last night I managed to completely bugger up the index finger on my right hand. It was basically unusable, to the point where I needed an ice pick just to reduce the throbbing pain.
Of course, I’ve incurred actual injuries in the past. Some arsehole stomped on my hand while playing basketball once and fractured the snot out of my finger; I also managed to slice my heel completely open on a wheelbarrow when I was little.
So it got me thinking: what injuries have you incurred? I put the question to people around the office as well:
- Mark’s brother once got a fractured skull, jaw and cheekbone following a fight in a bar once. Some bloke apparently socked him with a piece of scaffolding, and when he hit the deck the point of impact was just above the eye socket, leaving a scar.
- Our publisher, Danny, once broke his nose in soccer because he headbutted the back of someone’s head instead of the ball.
- Gizmodo’s Campbell jumped down a flight of stairs, landed wrong, and basically damaged everything. His left ankle’s still buggered, apparently.
- Hayley, our social media editor, got tendinitis in her index finger from League of Legends.
- Chris from Lifehacker had the worst birthday ever — because he fell off his bike, broke his leg in three places and fell so badly that his teeth got pushed into his jaw. “They had to get tweezers to pull them out of my jaw,” Chris added. Good God.
- Amanda, our early morning sub-editor, had a seizure and fell down an escalator at Myer.
So those are some of the worst ways we’ve screwed ourselves up. How about you?
Comments
62 responses to “Off Topic: Injuries”
Performing kitchen duties as a lad. Caught a falling glass off the bench once, but it shattered against a shelf as I grabbed it. Cut the webbing between my middle and index fingers pretty deep.
Needless to say I’m not really domesticated.
Had a friend do something similar, filling pasta sauces at IGA, dropped one of the glasses, went to catch it but it got to the floor before he got to it, plunged his hand into shards of broken glass slicing up around one of his fingers.
Oh fuck. I recoiled reading that.
I’m going to have a bad time in this thread today, aren’t I
Yeah I was cutting an apple once, the knife slipped and I sliced through the webbing between my thumb and index on the left hand. Didnt actually hurt though so it was just a “Oh hey, look at that, my hand’s bleeding. Oh well time for some apple!”
I sliced open the same webbing really nastily with the lid of a tin of tuna I was opening. Hurt like hell and took months to heal.
I did a similar thing a few months ago. Put a ceramic mug on the shelf but not quite, and I caught it as it hit the bench and shattered. Deep jagged cut to the side of my left little finger, at the knuckle, which bled like crazy.
One spot is numb, another feels like a low current battery when touched. I remember in the few weeks after it healed it got squished under my youngster’s knee when we were playing. That hurt – I saw the blue stars…
And then a couple of weeks after that I sliced the other little finger washing a knife in the sink. *sigh*
I tend to not injure myself often. The worst I’ve done lately is getting a bruise for hitting my arm against the front door because I’m an idiot
However, I remember in year 5 in school, I was chasing one of my friends around the school’s basketball courts. I latched my hand onto one of the fence’s metal posts and used it to swing around to catch her. She laughed when I slammed my hands down on her shoulders, then screamed when she saw blood soaking into her shirt.
Turns out there was a big fat metal wire sticking out of the fence and it sliced straight into my right hand. It didn’t hurt until I saw it, of course. At least I got a cool scar out of it – my mum was a bit silly and forgot to get me stitches.
You know there are easier ways to amputate a finger than an ice pick right?
You beat me to it.
But you have to admit it would be pretty cinematic 🙂
“Making a ham sandwich” nearly did it for my pinkie – turns out you need something larger than a butcher’s knife to get through bone by accident. Tho I’m still trying to figure out how my uncle “accidentally” lopped off his ring finger with a hatchet…
My brother lost the tip of his ice skating
dislocated my knee playing football (soccer) when i got tangled up in a tackle (apparently knees aren’t supposed to bend sideways). couldn’t walk for a month. fun times. still hurts a bit when i kneel & this is like 16 years later…
when i was learning to walk, i tripped & bashed my face on the pointy corner of a table & split my lip wide open. apparently it was torn like paper. got a rad scar out of it though.
hit by a car walking home from school. dislocated shoulder, some grazes & a concussion.
been pretty lucky that nothings been too serious i guess.
Edit: my brother had a good one. parked his car at my parent’s place – the driveway runs beside the house & slopes down from the road. the handbrake in his car failed or wasn’t latched properly or something, so his car started rolling down the hill. now, common sense says you get away from that sorta thing, but he just reacted without thinking – grabbed the car door to try & get to the handbreak before it hit the house. the car didnt roll straight ahead, so as it veered off a bit, it pinned him against the letterbox at the top of the driveway as it kept rolling down hill. his leg got jammed up against the sharp edge of the brick work & the results weren’t pretty – a vertical slice running from just above his ankle to just below his knee, down to the bone, running alongside his shinbone. also, the car rolled over his foot, so that was broken too.
spent a lot of time recovering from that, but he’s ok now.
Yeah I had a car roll over my foot once because I was trying to exit a car while it was still moving and didnt time it right. I was really lucky it didnt rip some random tendins and stuff because it rolled over my ankle. It’s not fun kids, dont do it!
Similar kind of thing for me. The car was stopped outside the garage while the door was opening and usually we’d get out there, but Mum didn’t notice I was doing that and drove the car forward, running over my foot which was slightly under the car for balance. I get knocked to the floor and yell out, she realises and panics…then reverses back over it again :p
Luckily I was wearing these sandals with a chunky-arse sole that managed to protect my foot from any actual injury and take the entire weight of the car. Twice.
When I used to do Brazilian Jiu jitsu, I dislocated my shoulder, another time my elbow, also at one stage broke my little toe getting it hooked on the mat.
When I was about 12 I stepped on some chicken wire and 4 of the cut ends went up into my foot.
I’ve got a scar on my index finger from putting a PC together and cutting it open on the case when pushing the panels out for where the CD drive goes.
First major injury I had was when I was a young tacker and swinging on a farm gate. Being the littlest I got shuffled to the end repeatedly until I got pushed off the edge and my finger got squished in the gate hinge.
Never had any really bad injuries (touch wood) but an running list of small things if I run through the scars I have
Was chasing my brother around the house and as he ran he flung open the glass buffet door to make me stop. I didn’t stop.
Bike crash on steep hill dirt road that took huge chunks out of me and left me with so ugly looking scars.
Digging ditches and stepped back into ‘dirt’ that had a broken bottle which sliced my heel which needed a bunch of stitches
Dropped a lathe tool and sliced a chunk out of my finger
Like I said, I’ve been pretty lucky.
This is more a funny story. I dislocated my knee as a teen playing basketball and it just never healed right so it seems to re-occur if I don’t warm up properly or don’t wear a knee brace when playing sport.
Anyway started a new job towards the end of last year and joined the company basketball team. Was not prepared for my first game (which was in the 2nd week at the job) and dislocated my knee doing the most basic of crossovers. I had to use a walking stick and we had our Xmas party the next week, which had a Great Gatsby theme.. so my walking stick was a functional prop for my outfit that night.
I’ve found that the severity of an injury is inversely proportional to how mundane the thing you’re doing is. For example:
* Learning to ride a peewee I was too big for, getting it into a wheelie and then stacking it. Injury: Grazed elbow.
* Going around a corner on a push bike, sliding on some lawn mulch left after someone mowed the grass around the footpath and then stacking it. Injury: Somewhat deep hole in my elbow and temporarily jarred muscles (opposite one to the motorbike injury).
* Walking down the disabled access ramp after rain and slipping over. Injury: Hole in my elbow and soft tissue damage that has never quite healed (same elbow as push bike injury).
How serendipitous that this got posted today. Just this morning I went for a run in centennial park. I was running uphill and by this point i was pretty tired and dragging my feet a little, and managed to trip and tear a hugehunk of skin right off my knee and right hand.
I had to limp all the way back to the office to get it cleaned up. Interestingly, pretty much everyone i walked by just ignored the limp and copious amounts of blood pouring down my leg aside from one truck driver who asked if i was ok. I guess its an eastern suburbs thing….
I came off my motorbike and the first point of contact with the road was my knee. It promptly swelled up and I was on crutchers for a week. I had a bruise on my kneecap for a year after that.
I was getting prepped to make some curry. Step one is to grate a large amount of ginger.
Literally on the first downward stroke on the grater my hand slipped and … well, I ended up with some grated ginger, just not the ginger I was expecting.
I still bear the scar.
How was the curry though?
Well considering that the first thing I sliced was my finger instead of any ingredients I just bandaged myself up, washed the grater and chopping board and then just picked up where I was about to start.
Curry came out fine, no Soylent Green at all.
The direct cause of me breaking my foot? Reading a book.
I was happily engrossed in a novel for an hour or two late one night, not really noticing I had one foot tucked up under the opposing leg. As a result, my foot was completely numb by the time I stood up. This, I also didn’t really notice until I put my foot on the floor. Stumbled a little at first and then, somehow, managed to put my entire weight on the side of my numb foot, causing my foot to basically fold in half, clean snapping the two outer metatarsals.
I literally crawled in to bed trying not to wake up my wife, ice pack on my foot, convinced I had just sprained it. Next morning, I woke to a balloon animal where my foot had been. Not able to put any weight on it. Hospital, X-ray, in a cast for 8 weeks.
Not my finest moment.
Also, when I was younger and a lot more adventurous, I tried my hand at skateboarding. Terrible idea. Skated over a pebble which got caught under the trucks. Board stopped, I kept going. Fell awkwardly and ended up with a spiral fracture of my right tibia. This was set and put in a cast at a local x-ray clinic. Four weeks later I saw an orthopedic surgeon for the first time. He looked at my x-rays and told me it was the worst leg fracture he had seen in 20 years. Worse still, it had been set incorrectly and it was going to have to be re-broken and then reset. That one ended up being almost five months in a cast.
You know that saying about sticks and stones, right?
:O
My most recent injury was at work. Was carrying some car scales (square shaped like house scales, weigh around 15kg) and dropped it. The scales on its corner, right on my foot. It hurt a fair bit but I didn’t say anything to my boss at the time as we were with a client. I had to squat down to keep from passing out…basically had a shock reaction.
Turned out I broke one of my toes. The scales hit my toe with enough force to burst the bottom of my toe due to the pressure.
Had some stitches in it to fix the bottom of the toe, wore a moon boot for a couple weeks. Got a week off of work due with workers comp so wasn’t too bad. All staff now have to wear steel cap boots when on a site and we had to do more WHS training.
I used to ride my bike all the time back in primary school. One time my dad and sister joined me on a bike ride to this nature park area, and on the way there was a giant hill. I would always belt down it because I was 10 and it was awesome, but on this day, my trusty bike breaks failed on me and before I knew it I was playing slip and slide with the asphault. I think I actually blacked out for a few minutes when a random family had run out of their house I apparently stopped in front of to help. Also, people say you shouldnt wear a hat under your helmet, but that hat I wore saved my face from getting chewed up by the road, since the brim hit the ground first. I actually have only ridden a bike 3 times since then.
Stupidest one I remember was my friend and I were in Geography class and were messing around, and he accidentally shoved my head into a brick wall. Initially I was like “Oh hey, no big deal I’ll walk it off.” And then the teacher pointed out the fact that I was leaking major claret from the head, and I was ejected from class due to the blood rule. Later that day it turned out I had my first case of major concussion and I couldnt actually walk home from school.
I tore the ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in my right knee from an accident at judo, five years ago. The resulting injury lead to two surgeries… one procedure to clean up the torn up cartilage, then a month later another procedure to remove what was left of my ACL and replace it with a synthetic one, made of carbon fiber and held in place by titanium screws… LARS, they call it, Ligament Augment Repair System.
About four weeks ago, I hurt my right shoulder at judo, courtesy of someone being very stupid. The result was a damaged SC joint (collar bone to sternum), AC joint and some muscle and nerve pulling. It’s not a serious injury, e.g. needing surgery, but it hurt like crap at the time.
One time I was doing over head pressing at the gym, lifting about 60 kg (132 Ibs). I accidentally dropped the barbell on the bridge of my nose.
I had never been sacked (hit in the balls) until I started doing judo. I have been sacked countless of times now within the past seven years and each time is as horrible as the last, perhaps worse.
When I was eleven years old, I accidentally slipped on mud and fell face first onto the concrete of a road, sliding across the ground. I had grazes all over my body and face, one hell of a concussion.
While a nipper I had my right middle finger (my finger finger, so very important) broken by being shut in a car door. To this day the section above the top joint is a bit over 5% off where it ought to be. I’ve been using it as an excuse to give people the finger for almost as long as I remember. “See how bent my finger finger is?” *gives finger*. It was a painful experience, but the payoff has been significant.
A few things, thankfully when I was a lot younger. Nothing recent, touch wood.
When I was about 7 my mum got a bike for Christmas and I decided to check it out inside. It was WAY too big for me but that didn’t put me off. I got going and then realised I was going to hit a wall (duh). Grabbed the brake and went flying crotch-first into the bike frame. I passed out instantly (thankfully).
When I was about 12 we had a totem tennis set in the back yard and I was leaping about all ninja-like, just playing by myself. For whatever reason I landed on one foot and twisted my ankle pretty badly. Couldn’t walk properly for a week.
When I was about 13 I had an operation to swap the top and bottom tendons in some of my toes to try to correct a curvature in them. After I got out of hospital I was hobbling around for a while. A mate of mine thought it would be funny to come up and put his full weight on my toes by standing on both my feet. I found out the true meaning of excruciating that day.
I suppose i have been relatively lucky as a kid, i have never broken a bone, my worst injury was i was playing on an old kitchen table in my backyard as a kid and i fell off and hit an exposed bolt on the fence and ripped open my scalp, i think it took 15 stitches to close up. i now have a scar and supposedly it looks like the Nike tick.
I’m one of those people who should be dead but isn’t. My life is full of accidents and the worst I’ve ever done is a little scar on my chin and a little scar on my knee. Both of which faded after a year or two. I probably should have suffered a serious head wound yesterday but instead all I got was grease in my hair.
It caused my parents a lot of stress when I was little. I was very curious and smart so there was a lot of ‘take the safety covers off and stick my head in’ and ‘climb up jump down’ moments.
I’ve broken my left wrist twice. First time I fell out of a tree as a kid. Second time I broke it in two places playing basketball as a teen.
Also split my head open as a kid. I was playing Indiana Jones on our brick barbecue and fell off, hitting my head on the corner of a brick.
I have so many to choose from, this will be tough…
When I was 8 I dragged a section of pool fence up a tree to use as a teeehouse base. It was going well until it randomly slipped off of the branches and I fell out of the tree.
When I hit the ground i had to instantly flip over to “catch” the fence sheet which had followed me! Result: Telescopic fracture of the humerus.
Also when I was 15 i hit a tree with my shin when mountain biking alone, causing a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula. I had to drag my arse out of the forest to get help, using the taco’d bike as a crutch.
Never go anywhere alone!
I maybe most likely broke my toe on New Years Day tripping on a manhole cover. I was thankfully? a bit numb to the pain due to the amount of alcohol Id had over the past 48 hours. Either way It really hit me the next morning when I realized I couldn’t stand on that foot.
Also I once fell off the first floor of the house and maybe broke or fractured both my ankles due to landing bolt upright. But I walked it off reluctantly over a few weeks. Been a bit iffy ever since.
I dropped part of a lathe on my finger during woodwork once. Went to next class sat down, felt a bit of shock come over me and then was made to go to the school nurse by some other kids. Lost that fingernail but the blood bruise under the nail before it fell off looked cool.
I Tripped on a piece of coral and sliced my knee open and learned what it feels like to have blood in your socks. That took forever to heel cause it was right on the middle of my knee so shits always moving. My parents said ti probably couldn’t be stitched up so never went to doctor for it.
Apart from that I scared my face as a baby and frequently rip my nails up off the bed of my finger and when I was a Barista I’d burn myself a lot. Thats all that really stands out in my mind.
Oh and my mum dislocated my arm apparently. Who cares was a baby I don’t remember
You are lucky that the coral cut didn’t get infected. Apparently they are notorious for that and really, really bad when they do
Oh it was bad. Was all gross and weeping for months.
I got my foot crushed by the bucket of a 26 tonne excavator at work. Broke the first 3 metatarsals. This was wearing steel cap boots btw.
Funny thing is I often find minor injuries hurt more because you don’t go into shock. Although i think it might be different if you had a major injury to your internal organs.
I’ll give the best of version
– Got bitten on the arse by a greyhound when I was 5, it took a chunk out and I still have a dimple in my right butt cheek
– Went fishing with my brothers and their friends when I was like 6 and had a fishhook go through my thumb
– Stabbed myself in the leg with a pocket knife when I was 8 because I’d never used one before and was just absentmindedly opening and closing it, got distracted by a cool looking dog, fumbled it knife, tried to catch it and bam! whole blade slides into my leg.
– Got clipped by a bus riding my bike and ended up sliding 20 metres down a road, had some neat road rash and gouges going down my left side.
– Got a chipped tooth from when my brother punched me in the face because he was playing my copy of Tony hawks pro skater 2 in my room at like 2 in the morning and I was tired and pulled the plug from the wall after asking to stop repeatedly.
– Got hospitalised for a seizure when I was 12 and they put a drip in my arm and covered the thing with a giant adhesive pad, I’d twitched when I was unconscious and the drip came out of my vein and was just sitting in the muscle. After a few days I woke up to a massive pain in my arm which turned out to be the drug they were pumping into me killing the flesh. So had to have emergency surgery to get that all removed, ended up with a hole that went about a third of the way down my forearm and permanent nerve damage in that part of my arm. Healed good though.
– Kicked a pen when I was in year 7 and it went between my big toe and whatever you call the one next to it, it was one of those shitty kilometrico pens with the coloured tips, basically that whole coloured part was in my foot.
– Got bitten on the back of the leg by a blue heeler when I was a door to door salesman so there’s a little dip in my calf muscle.
That’s about all I can think of
Doctor: Any medical history to speak of?
Tofu: Hold up, I have the 23rd revised edition here…
Now in pop up and audiobook forms
– As a toddler, headfirst off our front steps onto concrete (might explain a few ooh squirrel!)
– Went into a sort-of coma because I sat on an ants nest and “ingested” too much ant venom
– Messed up my palms falling off a friends bike onto rocks, couple of weeks of grazed hands and dirt “growing out” of them heh
– Broke my arm falling off the mankey-bars
– Scar on my stomach from sliding down an embankment (running away from someone who was pretty mad at me…)
– Scar on my foot where I tore the skin off, like a flap, on some bricks
– Scar on my heel where I was torn open by sheet metal I was kicking. I should have had stitches…
– Scar on my thumb where I was using a scroll saw to cut some wood and I went through a knot quicker than expected. Also because stupid.
– Scar on my eyebrow where it was sliced open by a spinning cricket ball. 4 stitches.
– Had a sewing machine needle go through and break off in my index finger in home studies. Weirdest feeling having a thread pulled through your flesh…
– Messed up my left little finger with a broken ceramic mug (nerve damage)
– Sliced open the other with a knife in the sink soon after
I’m sure there’s more, plenty more.
Thankfully seem to have pretty much avoided any major injury. Had stitches once as an infant from splitting my head open on a wall, tripped over in my room as a kid and smashed my lip on the back of my chair, got some pretty big scars from a bike crash on a scout camp, accidentally drove a hobby knife into the back of my wrist because I’m an idiot and didn’t think to put it down first. All pretty minor stuff.
(6) sliding on knees across concrete after i tripped
(8) Accidentally set myself on fire
(9) crash bike into fence at speed, went nuts first into metal part beneath handlebars
(10) Cut open ankle while being double on a bike
(12)
No Injuries in this only surprised because it was over so quick i was watching people doing something similar to the TreeTop Challenge as i looking i step backwards and went over the side of wire bridge.
(13)
Strobe Lights
running around and slam headfirst into a stack of metal chairs, ending requiring a single stitch which hurt about 10 times more.
(14)
Dropped something heavy on my foot can’t remember what, have permanent white scar below Big Toe
(17)
sliced thumb with knife while preparing chicken
(30)
walked on wet grass almost broke my ankle – fuinny how it only took one step off the pavement to happen.
stories unrelated to me
i do know someone who hair got caught in machine and it started pulling of their scalp
when my mother was a child she stood on glass while swimming and nearlt sever her toes
Is it weird that the “sliding on knees on concrete” made me shudder more than the others? Ugh.
Many injuries..
One interesting one was driven home by a mate back at high school.
I said I’d get out at point A, but I guess he didn’t hear.
I had one leg out the door on the passenger side back door. About to step out fully when the driver finished talking to the other fella who got out on the drivers side.
He took off driving the car while I was still inside, and drove over my ankle. I’m probably lucky to have a leg.
I looked down, it hurt a bit but didn’t seem too bad, and i was pissed off . So I walked home still. I made it halfway when I realized my white socks were soaked red and blood was coming out of my shoe.
Only ended up being a few stitches, and a weird scar.
I tore some cartilage in my knee recently. How? Picking up a tennis ball and turning a little funny. The most simple thing and now it hurts to walk up stairs.
I cracked my skull open falling off a swing. I hit the back of my head on the corner of a brick. Any time I see a new hairdresser I end up having to explain the scar.
I broke my thumb by having it snap completely backwards in a car accident. It still hurts 10 years on. No-one believes me when I say I can’t do dishes without being in agony.
And the worst ever involved my testicles. But I’m not sure I want to go into that. Suffice to say I was in hospital for a while and have a 3 inch scar none of you folk will ever see.
Plenty of little scars on my hands from cooking-related injuries, although the worst one was a cut on my left thumb that required 3 stitches. That one hurt. I ruptured the lateral ligment in my ankle when I was 15 – 4 weeks in a cast, 6 months of physio and it’s never been quite the same. Pregnancy and c-section while not an injury as such, has definitely taken the longest to recover from and had the biggest impact on my day-to day life.
Of course after a c-section you get lots of time for rest and recouperation
i used to be an adventurer, but then i took an arrow to the knee….
in all seriousness though.
4yo – fell off a top bunk onto a doll house which had raised corners at each corner of the rood, pierced my chin like a hole punch – had stitches.
5) running through a class room, made a sharp ninty degree turn around a table, slipped mid turn and smacked my forehead on the very corner of the table – had stiches after having 4 doctors pin me to a bed, while a fifth injected directly into the wound so they could stitch it. (i still sometime cry when i get needles (im 31 yo male))
6) ran down an embankment after crossin a road, jumped before i got to the flat ground, and landed on my hands and knees, little did i know that my hands hand landed either side of a block of concrete/bitumen slag, and the inertia from my falling caused my head to still travel in a a downwards motion making me headbutt the concrete – 2nd time i was pinned by doctors to have injections and stitches (makes sense why im traumatised hey?)
6) had my back to a pole, special girl in my class was in my face annoying me and i swung around to get away and headbutted a pole – concussion
6) ran out of the class room at recess, wanted to be the first to the playground, ran across the netball court (it was empty) and straight into a net ball pole – concussion
11) playfully pushed a guy at the playground, as he chased me, i jumped onto one of the platforms to get away, but slipped, he caught up to me and slammed my head into the platform – concussion
12) swung off a fireman pole into a near by tree, my legs went out too far and i landed on my arm – greenstick fracture
13yo) was hanging from a pergola at highschool, went to drop onto a permapine log directly underneath me, but it was damp, so me feet slipped straight off and i landed coccyx bone first onto the ninty degree edge of a sleeper laying on the ground. – couldnt feel my legs for about half an hour and just sat there freaking out.
15) jumped over a bonfire and landed ankle first on a log sticking out the other side, ankle the literal size of a tennis ball.
between ages of 15 and 31 ive done both ankles so many times over the years, i have bone fragments in both ankle joints.
i have two shattered elbows.
so many burns i lost count.
and one i have to mention, not mine, but happened to a close female friend in year 10.
she was riding on the back of a motorbike at her dads farm, her brother was riding. speeding along and her foot slipped off the back foot peg and her Achilles tendon got caught in the wheel and torn straight off her bone.
Is a greenstick fracture better or worse than a normal fracture/break?
greenstick is where there is a crack in the bone that DOESN’T go all the way through from one side to the other.
I looked it up as I hadn’t heard of it before and it started talking about how the other side of the bone bends rather than breaking. So I wasn’t sure if that caused more issues than a clean break as things bend out of shape or something of it it just meant less of a break
yeah, i always understood it as a stress fracture type scenario. arm in a cast for a period of weeks and voila, fixed.
Did both my ACL and MCL (at the same time) playing footy.
Have played basketball for over 20 years so lots of small niggling injuries, needed double hip scopes earlier this year but that was due to wear and tear.
Optometrist scanned my retina with a laser used for eye surgery. Now blind in left eye.
Dislocated pinky and adjacent finger while splitting logs. They lock when touching base of fingers with finger tips.
Had a horse run out in front of the ute while doing about 120kph through the forest. Swerved to miss him and started fishtailing. The ute had a frame on the back for carrying pine tree seedlings and that tipped us over. We rolled for 100+ meters and ended up with the car on its side with the frontend pointing back the way we came.
While we were rolling my leg went out the window and got snapped in half. I ended up still in the cab sitting on the grass through the passenger window. I didn’t even realize my leg was broken until I grabbed the drivers side window frame and hauled myself up. I could feel blood pissing out of my leg and when I looked down I could see the bones sticking out. I climbed out the window and threw myself down to the ground and stuffed the bones back in. I tried to make a splint and walk, but kept passing out. Old mate that was with me got thrown out of the car while we were rolling and was just a bit battered and bruised so I sent him off toward the highway to get help. It was a D.P.I rdo, so we were pretty much the only ones in the forest.
I ended up laying there for about 6 hours until luckily one of the D.P.I blokes came past on his way to get something from work. Turned out that my passenger had a bad concussion and wandered off into the middle of a paddock and passed out, he was lucky to be found. 12 months and 8 operations later the docs managed to save my leg, but some days I honestly wish the bastard thing was gone.
And that’s just one story. Would have enough childhood ones to fill several volumes and enough drunken ones to fill several more. 😛
I’ve been surprisingly lucky – nearly took an eye out when I was 4, and broke my arm in middle school, but other than little cuts and scrapes and small footy-related complaints, nothing too major since.
My brother, on the other hand…
Has anyone been to the Go Kart track in Hervey Bay? My brother single-handedly forced them to install seatbelts.
The first corner out of the gates is a hairpin turn, and they explicitly warn you not to try overtaking on it. Anyway, I went there with my brother and dad, who both drive very well (I do not). They were both trying to overlap me, so my brother was tailgating me, and my dad was tailgating him. Anyway, I slow down for the hairpin turn and my brother decides that this is his chance to overtake me. I take the turn too tight trying to stay ahead, and spin out. He is too close to slow down, so swerves to the side and hits the tire barrier.
Worth noting at this point is 1. No seatbelts, and 2. There was a big bolt sticking out under the steering column. My brother flies out of the kart, and the bolt tears through the back of his leg on the way out. We all stop to see if he’s ok, and there’s blood everywhere. The attendants get my dad to hold his leg shut while they go call an ambulance.
At the same time, there was a car crash on the other side of town, which all the ambulances prioritized. My dad ended up holding his leg shut for nearly an hour until the paramedics showed up. 46 stitches later his leg is sewed up, and now he has a killer scar.
That’s probably the worst one, but he’s split his head open to the extent you could see his skull through the wound twice, gone face first down a flight of stairs, and just generally wrecked every part of his body.