Your stupidest injury

I currently have a cut on my hand that I got from a tube of moisturiser that stabbed me when I was trying to open the lid. My other stupidest injury was when I was a kid and I walked head on into a parking bollard and cut my head open. I screamed A LOT, apparently. 
 

What (do you consider to be) dumb injuries have you have inflicted upon yourself? 

At secondary school I had an inspiral carpet bowl cut in 3rd year for a (brief) spell

A teacher sent me on an errand to another class full of 5th years.  I walked in and as I couldn't see due to hair over my eyes I smashed into a cupboard and knocked myself out, to the hilarity of observers

I have been hit by the boom of a boat and did a backwards somersault into the water. 

Run into french windows.

dropped a cigarette down my top and burnt my boob. 

wiped hairs off a razor blade with my thumb.
 

The last was probably the dumbest! 

Oh I also just remembered falling through a table at school and cutting my finger on my good luck charm just as I was about to do an exam so much so I nearly fainted and had to be taken out the exam there was so much blood.

Walked into a lamp post while trying to light a fag and got a black eye. 

Slipped on ice while smashed on port fetching something from my car. The ice was only there as I'd washed my car earlier that day and the water had pooled around the car and frozen. Got massive bruising all around my right arse cheek. But now I don't own a car, so I had the last laugh. 

Couple of years ago, the Mrs was doing some sewing on the sewing machine while I was playing the pianoforte. Heard a scream of pain from the other room, jumped up, ran towards the Mrs, stubbed my toe on a door frame and broke my toe. 

Mrs had a very minor cut to her hand and I could barely walk for 3 weeks. 

Exhasperated the problem by getting pissed with the Mrs one Saturday afternoon, got the tube back and at Canada Water station the Mrs had to sit on the floor of the platform as she was going to vom. Due to my crouching on my haunches next to her, and the alcohol dulling any pain, put too much pressure on the toes and could barely walk for the next 2 weeks. 

I have several injuries worthy of a mention:

1) Aged 8/9 broke my collarbone tripping over a dog;

2) Aged 35 broke my hand whilst riding my horse - I tried to stop him and three bones in my hand snapped - I heard them go. Didn’t even fall off.

3) Last week, sprained my foot and ankle tripping over a gym mat. 
 

 

 

 

Oh, number 4) in Feb, tore the tendon which attaches the bicep into the shoulder/rotator cuff whilst dancing wildly at a ball. Only just started having physio because of lockdown. 

Stupidest - whilst assembling the Mrs hand blender after a fully comped day at WHL with much imbibery I chopped off the end of my left hand middle finger.  Top tip: do not plug in the blender whilst assembling.

Other top fails were injuring my arse falling down the stairs of a hayloft.  Bruised on the inside by my own hip bone.  Still have a numb patch on my arse 25 years later.

Telling  my mum my girlfriend wad pregnant when I was 16 whilst she was cooking.

 

Got a broken finger from the swung frying pan. Girlfriend had her period the next day 

When I was playing soldier as a young man I dived to take cover behind a tree and managed to get a broken off tree branch/twig right in the eye.  The entire exercise (about 100 people) had to stop everything while the medics examined my eyeball and flushed it out.  Tore the eyelid but eye ok thank God.  Was awarded the stupid award at endex and had to buy many beers.  

On the subject of eyeballs, when I worked in a woodyard during 6th form we were bored one day and decided to see who could blow the most sawdust out of the groove on the big scary saw. I went first. Turns out that blowing a load of sawdust into your unprotected eyes is a bad plan.  Cue casualty, some sort of weird orange dye and a couple of hours painfully crying whilst the doc picks them out with tweezers

Pinkus - did the same thing. Walked through a door and managed to catch just my little toe on the door frame (breaking it). Absolute agony.

Was loading up a trailer once and tried to look cool by jumping into the back. Forgot it was one with a metre high metal frame all around the top and smashed straight into my forehead. Amazed there was no fracture (especially from falling backwards and then cracking the back of my head too).

Broke my ankle getting my gold Nike blade football boots tangled in 3G AstroTurf and falling over. 

One plate, 6 screws and 2 pins in my ankle together with a week in hospital. Worth it to look cool in them boots tho. 

Up on a ladder, changing a lightbulb, and it didn't work straight away, so I wasn't sure if it was a dodgy lightbulb, or there was a problem with the electrics (it was one of those pull cord switches, so I couldn't tell by looking if the switch was on or off).

Rather than being bothered to get off the ladder and back up again etc. to pull the cord, for some reason, I thought I would check if it was the electrics by, obviously, sticking my finger in the bulb socket.

Thank goodness for it no longer having been the olden days, because - as I understand it - I would very likely not be here now. As it was, I got a decent shock, which meant I fell off the ladder (more from the surprise than anything else), I was only a couple of rungs up, so all I had was a sore, tingly hand and arm, and a bit of a hurt ankle as I twisted it when I stepped back, but I think I was so overwhelmed with embarrassment and shame at my own  stupidity, that I didn't really feel the pain for a while.

Climbed over a wire fence when I was about 15 and caught my knee on it. I still have the scar 25 years later.

Fell down an escalator running in new boots. Won't do that again. Still have scars 15 years later and it could have been horrific if I hadn't been wearing jeans.

Far too many RDIs to count.

Heh @ Cru, testing an electric bulb socket by sticking your fingers in it is on a par with bleach injections for covid or testing your eyesight with a daytrip to Barny Castle. Bravo

At school there was a very big drop between two rugby pitches (probably around 6-8 metres).

I told some older boys in my boarding house that I could probably jump down it to which they obviously replied 'go on then'.

I took a run up and did it and amazingly didn't break an ankle but did manage to somehow roll over the top of my shoulder in a way that snapped my collar bone.

The housemaster took me to hospital and I sat with the nurse and I as I was being examined. When I took my shirt off he just said 'for god's sake, Mugen' and the nurse started laughing.

I'd all this after prep time and spent the latter half of prep time drawing on myself a hairy chest, a six pack, and colouring in my nipples with a felt tip pen and then running around my floor with my shirt off. 

The nurse definitely thought I was cool.

“Playing the drums” on an electric cooker which someone else had just finished using, unbeknownst to me.

I also once tried to slide down the handrail on an underground escalator and had to bail because my hands (which I was using as brakes) were about to catch fire. I somehow managed to escape with a few bruises and scratches, even though I tumbled down a long way. It was a miracle I wasn’t killed or paralysed.

Yeah, I am a moron.

It's like a Chaplin movie in our house. Okay the list:

I have:

pulled a muscle in my back wiping my arse,

fell asleep on the bog whilst drunk, fell off and broke a finger,

went down stairs in the dark to let the cat in and mistakenly thought I'd reached floor level when in fact I was still two steps up, went flying across the living room and broke a toe,

executed a turn in karate class, got my toe stuck between the crash mats and broke another toe,

walking up Wimbledon high street with bags of shopping. Went head over heels because I was trying to run for the bus and did a flip and landed on my back. Some bloke asked me what I was doing on the floor. I said "oh I'm just having a rest." Dickhead. I didn't smash any of the shopping though,

Tripped up the stairs coming out of bank station and landed on two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts I was carrying. Everyone had Krispy kreme pancakes that morning.

My twin sister:

smacked herself in the eye when one of those pull exercises that you hold with your feet slipped off and hit her in the face;

walking into a glass bus shelter getting off the bus;

rode my scooter up the wall in an underground car park because she over reved it thinking she could park it up on a 5 inch curb.

The list just goes on and on and on...

In the last week, I have:

  • Sliced my thumb very badly while taking a veggie peeler out the dishwasher
  • Burned the same thumb on a saucepan
  • This morning, cut my fingertip on a contact lens holder.

 

Fishing with my dad on a boat about 9 years old.. he hooked a really large fish and needed the gaff hook to get it over the side. Asked me to go get it.

Running back, holding the fish gaff in one hand I slipped and managed to somehow drive the whole hook completely through my whole right calf muscle and out the other side. 

I essentially fish gaffed my own leg.

Fortunately gaffs hooks don't have barbs on the end of them so it was a relatively easy job of sliding it back through the same hole it went through.

I once jumped down the last flight of stairs into leicester square tube station when pissed, wearing leather soles brogues, and broke a metatarsal

1. Age 10: Wondering whether my fingers could stop the whisks of my mother’s food mixer.  They could, after a fashion.

2.  Age 11:  Showing how it was possible to leap from one end of a climbing frame to the other, grabbing and swinging on the middle bar.  It was.  The encore proved it was a fluke, and a broken arm resulted.

3.  Age 23: Demonstrating to some CX girls that one could safely leap from the top of the office junk onto Star Ferry pier rather than using the gangway.  One might, but I fell between the junk and the pier and, but for an alert boat boy, might have been crushed.  Fuelled by San Miguel, I limped onto the MTR, only to wonder why other passengers were looking at me in a funny way. I looked down and saw my knee cap was not looking right, and was hosing blood.  I promptly vomited on the floor of the train.   The story featured in Hong Kong Tatler in a piece on why gwei los had a bad reputation.

4.  Age 45:  bottling cider into old demi johns.  Overfilled to ensure as little air as possible remained.  Forgot basic law of hydraulics about incompressibility of fluids.  Forced a cork in with the heel of my right hand.  Demi john shatters, hand sliced open along palm and up two fingers.  Lots of blood.  Emergency surgery fixed up and then a couple of sessions of micro surgery gave me back use of the hand.

5. Aged 46:  post slammed a post too enthusiastically, slammer came off the top and slammed my head. Crescent scar in scalp remains as evidence of stupidity.

Loads of drunken twisted ankles and hurt fingers etc when young.

Most embarrassing was probably jumping down the last couple of stairs in a fancy Indian restaurant in what I thought was a jaunty fashion and badly twisting my ankle. I made it home but awoke the following the morning unable to walk and with a towel tied around my ankle (presumably drunk me thought it would be a good bandage). 

Most stupid one recently was cooking something that involved putting a frying pan in the oven.  I carefully told everyone in the kitchen that they must not under any circumstances touch the metal handle of the frying pan as it would be red hot and then turned around and picked the fvcking thing up by the handle without thinking. 

New contender: I’ve just really knackered my back whilst running away from a wasp which flew in through the bathroom window. Let’s just say I was sitting down at the time. 

Dusty! I have a new one.
 

Rolled over in my bed this morning, heard a massive crack in my shoulder and I’ve been unable to turn my head since, without stabbing pain up my neck into the back of my head. It is as if my body is falling apart.

Torn ankle ligaments from stepping into a rabbit hole on the golf course. 2 weeks in a cast and 6 more weeks with crutches and taped ankle.

Broke a rib by cleaning behind the toilet.

Broke my tailbone by going down a flight of stone stairs on my arse. Was so drunk it didn't really register. Lots of confusion next day when I couldn't get up out of bed (and up out of a chair for another couple of weeks).

Another boat one. Tripped over a mooring rope walking along a pontoon. Legs stopped dead, body carried on. Broke my fall with my face. Scar along my left eyebrow.

Really excited about something and was literally bouncing round the house and bounced right up into the top of a doorframe and gave myself concussion.  That was pretty special.

At a martial arts grading, tried to touch gloves with my opponent at the start of the sparring and he took the opportunity to twot me in the face.  More injury to my pride than to my body, but I did have to go to work the next day with a black eye.

Training a recently retired racehorse who was only 4 to canter and not gallop. Ended up in A&E with Chucky helping me out of my boots so that they wouldn't cut them off.  Soft tissue damage & trapped nerve following a summersault landing.  I got away lightly.

 

Er, I stood up out of an irrigation canal (to have a look) and some effing Taliban khunt shot at me. I dived to cover back into the filthy canal and cut myself on the vegetation. This second time I ducked back into the AFV (not always the best idea) and banged my head. 

I've had two bad bike crashes, both aged around 10 or 12.

Once, I realised the knobbly bits on the side of the tyres made a cool noise/vibration when riding at high speed and turning sharply.  I finished that day in hospital with no front teeth.

Then there was the time when I was riding with the dog, again fast.  She was galloping alongside me.  Being a responsible dog owner, she was on her leash, which I was holding.  When I looked up from the bitumen, I could see that she had pulled me off the bike to answer an urgent call of nature.  Talk about a shit day...

To be fair, the dog had form on that front.  We were living on a military base when, right at stand down, she stopped for a leisurely number 2 in the middle of the main road off the base and refused to move, banking up traffic in both directions.  My sister said she could feel the drivers thinking "gosh, there's the OC's daughter.  And there's the OC's dog having a poo in the middle of the road..."    

There are several.

In have a scar on my hand from my early 20s when I thought it was a good idea to put out an on fire beer bottle top by smothering it with the palm of my hand. The flame wasn't that hot but the bottle top itself was and stuck to my hand.

Also in my 20s broke multiple bones in my wrist snowboarding on a dry slope. My mate took a tumble and I laughed so hard I piled in. He didn't have a scratch, I had to have my wrist reconstructed. There is something karmic about this.

In my 40s I managed what a friend described as the most middle class injury he had ever heard of. I managed to cut my heel on some coral while surfing (badly) in Sri Lanka which then became infected and required surgery.

When at a theme park in Germany, aged 7, I saw a man take the world record for jumping over the most cars on a motorbike.  While running to get his autograph, I tripped over a curb and twotted my forehead on a railing.  8 stitches in my forehead.  Was fun having the blue lights ambulance to the hospital though.

I once worked in a pub (the grapes in oxford).  On a particularly busy night I had to run to the cellar to fill the ice bucket.  Unfortunately, unseen by me, ice stalagtites had formed at the top of the ice maker and in my haste I pierced my hand between the 2nd and 3rd knuckle.  All the way thru.  

My dour norn Irish landlord stuck two of those blue hospitality plasters on each side and told me to get on with it.

Lot of pink hued Guinness that night