What's your worst injury story?

[Norman]

So, because misery loves company (even vicariously through the interwebz), what is your worst injury?

I just had surgery to repair a torn Achilles tendon. Painful and annoying since it is my right foot, so I cannot drive.

So what was/is your worst injury?

 

[turbo]

A severe sprain to my right ankle from a fall while ski-racing. My doctor told me that I would have been much better off breaking my leg. He was right. I was in pain for months and months and even years later, I was very prone to re-injury.

I was on the run-out just below the final gate of a very fast GS course on a public ski area and a kid somehow entered that area. I took an awkward fall rather than hit him (probably killing him or at least severely injuring him).

 

[Evo]

I'd have to think, I've had so many bad injuries.

Might be the time i fell down a flight of cement stairs and tore everything inside both of my legs, and have had permanent nerve damage since, that was over 20 years ago, on the plus side, I don't have to shave my legs, the nerve damage killed the hair follicles.

Could be the time I fell on a glass and it shattered when my knee hit it, knocked off my knee cap, the glass cut through the bursa and stopped right on top of a tendon, I need knee surgery.

Or the time I fell downstairs from the second floor, upside down, airborne, injured my hips, shoulder and landed on my head. They think this may be why I have injury to my lower spine now. Back surgery could help, do nothing, or paralyze me. I'm holding off on that.

Or all of the broken bones, the time I fell down cement steps to the garage and like turbo tore everything inside my right foot, the doctor also told me 'the bad news is you didn't break it. Fortunately no permanent nerve damage.

Plenty more, but luckily nothing really life threatening.

Hope you feel better soon Norman, sucks to be laid up and in pain, right at the beginning of summer too.

 

[lisab]

Sorry to hear it, Norman, hope you're up and at 'em soon.

My most painful injury was dislocating my shoulder. It was horrifying, too, to look down at where my shoulder should be and...it's not there. And my arm, it was about 6" lower than where it should have been. I think the shock of the disfigurement made the pain much, much worse.

But the injury that was worst in terms of healing time was plain old plantar fasciitis.

 

[jtbell]

Twelve years ago, a pickup truck sideswiped me from behind while I was bicycling. It broke my left collarbone, left ankle, and a bone in my pelvis. I was unconscious for 10-15 minutes, waking up as the EMS people were strapping me onto a stretcher. Thanks to my helmet, there was no significant damage to my head apart from the concussion. I donated the cracked helmet to the local police department to use as an exhibit in their bicycle-safety talks at schools.

For the next couple of months, I basically lived in a reclining chair in the living room. I couldn't sleep in bed because I couldn't get out of bed in the morning without painful complaints from the broken bones. When it was necessary to move, I used a sling on one arm for the collarbone, and crutches to keep weight off the ankle and pelvis.

The bones all eventually knitted together, but the ankle still bothers me sometimes, for example during the trip out West that I recently finished.

 

[brushman]

I'd have to think, I've had so many bad injuries.

What's with you and stairs?

 

[OmCheeto]

I was the passenger on the back seat of my best friends new motorcycle about 30 years ago. A drunk pulled out and we hit the front of the car at a 45 degree angle at roughly 50 mph. I lost my left big toenail.

My friend spent several months in the hospital.

My toenail grew back. Just kind of a little bit different for about 20 years. Now I can't tell my feet apart again.

 

[lisab]

I was the passenger on the back seat of my best friends new motorcycle about 30 years ago. A drunk pulled out and we hit the front of the car at a 45 degree angle at roughly 50 mph. I lost my left big toenail.

My friend spent several months in the hospital.

My toenail grew back. Just kind of a little bit different for about 20 years. Now I can't tell my feet apart again.

So now you have two left or two right feet?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

It happened in the six grade. It was a horrific incident involving a girl named Diane. She broke my heart. :tongue:

 

[estro]

It happened in the six grade. It was a horrific incident involving a girl named Diane. She broke my heart. :tongue:

:rofl:

I feel lucky here.
Broken arm. (played soccer [You should posses talent to do that])
Broken finger. (in the army, crazy arab hit my hand with stone)

Full recovery!

 

[Proton Soup]

got into a fist fight with my brother once and my hand swole up and got a bit purplish. don't know if it fractured, but it seemed to heal OK. worst ongoing thing is some kind of damage to my right ear. i do believe that driving with a bum ear is one of Dante's levels of hell.

 

[Jack21222]

I had a fractured left clavicle when I was 15. It was a complete fracture.. the part of the clavicle nearest to my neck was completely overlapping the other half, and it healed that way. Now I have a neat little "step" in my bone.

 

[haael]

I played a soccer game once and my friend kicked me instead of the ball. I participated in the match to the very end, despite pain. When I got home, I fell on the bed and couldn't move anymore, it turned out that my leg was broken.

We won that match.

 

[Math Is Hard]

I had 3 months of excruciating pain in my hip that kept me in bed most of last summer. I still went to work, but had to adjust myself into a position with my leg propped up so I could get through the day. Driving was agony, and as soon as I got home, I had to get into bed and lay flat. I think I must have had a fracture, but my doctor never x-rayed me.

 

[waht]

One time I was playing golf and cut my hand on something sharp sticking out of a golf bag. I think I used a band-aid.

 

[Chi Meson]

I took a bad fall while rock-climbing at Seneca Rocks, late 1980s. Injured my pride something awful.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I have a torn ACL (knee injury) from being hit by a truck while crossing the street. I had surgery but they can not completely fix it of course.

 

[rootX]

I got a paper cut

Other than that my toe nail corner grew into the skin and that continued for more than a year while I continued experimenting with it; I was very obsessed with it. I finally got over with that obsession after having a surgery, the doctor just removed half of my toe.

 

[Evo]

Wow, I had no idea that my fellow PFers were so klutzy! :tongue2:

 

[Kerrie]

I got a mild concussion from making an angel food cake 2 years ago.

I am a DIY kinda gal, and instead of splurging on shortcake for our summer dessert, I decided to make angel food cake from a mix. Being that I am barely 5'3", and I get sick and tired of dragging my step stool to the cabinet to reach my mixing bowls, I decided to stand on my toes to reach the heavy glass bowls about 18 inches above my head. There was a glass lid on top of the bowl, which came off the top of the bowls and knocked me on my left temple. My 13 year old watched in horror as a bump on the side of my head grew to the size of a small egg in a matter of seconds.

My napping husband was awakened by screams of my pubescent daughter, and he promptly took me to the emergency room where I began to feel very weird and disconnected. I was given some sort of Oxy-drug (I can't remember which it was of course), and suddenly felt just fine. It did leave a nasty black eye for a couple of weeks.


For several months after that, I began to smell very foul scents-burning rubber, feces, nothing pleasant of course. Shortly afterwards, I would experience horrific headaches lasting a day or longer. Thankfully, I don't have those anymore!

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I was in a car crash when I was 20 and suffered a subluxation (slight dislocation) of the neck. About 10 years ago I fell down the stairs and broke my shoulder blade.

 

[BobG]

Indoor soccer when someone slammed me into the boards. Worst was having his knee slam my right knee into the board. I tried going back into the game after a few minutes, but there was definitely something wrong, so I quit the game and went to the emergency room.

The doctor said it was just a contusion, so I played the rest of the week (it was a tournament). The knee still didn't do what it was supposed to do. I wound up committing about 4 fouls in the first period alone just because my knee just wouldn't move fast enough any more. I wrapped it with an ace bandage for the rest of the tournament and I made it through (in fact, I had a couple very good games), but then I had to stop playing for about three months. In spite of what the doctor said, there was just something wrong.

I did develop a very good left footed shot during that time, though.

 

[wolram]

Deaf in left ear due to falling down stairs and hitting my head on a old fashioned sewing machine treadle, i had an infection afterwards which ate away the anvil bone, i broke the treadle too.

Railing spike in my right armpit through fooling around on a half brick half railing wall, nearly lost the arm.

Right ankle, knee, pelvis due to car accident, 3 months in traction and another 3 months to walk properly.

plus a few odds and sods.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Not exactly an injury per se, but I had a spontaneous retinal detachment (at seventeen, seriously) a while ago. Took surgery to patch that up. And now I walk around with a rubber band around my right eye.

 

[EnumaElish]

Having the type of parents who didn't have my abdominal (peritoneal) hernia removed as a child.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Not exactly an injury per se, but I had a spontaneous retinal detachment (at seventeen, seriously) a while ago. Took surgery to patch that up. And now I walk around with a rubber band around my right eye.

For some reason I read that as "anal detachment", so that last part really had me confused.

 

[mcknia07]

I broke my arm when I was in Kindergarden. The bones were hanging out of my skin, one came out through the top, and the other through the bottom. Blood was everywhere, but I did not cry, I was one tough kid :)

Sad story as to how I did it... and it goes a little like this...
I saw my daddy walking on a roll of carpet, so I tried to be cool and do the same thing... bad idea, lol, I did it and fell, not to mention, that was also where a small step is to our living room, so that made the fall about 6"... and BOOM! down I went. Then... while I was in my cast, one Sunday morning, I was getting back into the van, I tripped and broke it again. The doctor could hardly believe it, guess that's not common, let alone for a little child.

 

[wolram]

Wow, I had no idea that my fellow PFers were so klutzy! :tongue2:

We still need an average of 1 accident more per year to catch up with you though :tongue2:

 

[Borg]

About the worst I've ever had was a bad sprain or tendonitis for a few months. I have never broken anything but it sure wasn't because of a lack of trying.

I once crashed a motorcycle into a car and did $2000 damage to the car. I didn't get a scratch.

When I was a kid, I jumped off the roof of my house all of the time. I thought that it was fun the way that I could roll from that height.

While shooting a small movie in high school, I purposely threw myself down a flight of uncarpeted, concrete stairs several times for one of the shots. I knew that I could do it without injuring myself.

I could go on...

 

[Insanity]

I've had a few;

3rd grade, broke my radius in my left arm in a bike accident vs. suburban truck.

some years later, split my scalp from a self-induced accident on the stairwell. Blood was coming down over my eyes. Still young, though can't recall exactly when this happened.

Gouged my right knee on a metal tent stake while crawling around on all fours looking for something.

Cut my right knee on the couch when younger due to me jumping onto it such that my knee pushed down the cushion along the back and when it rebound, my knee got "shaved" by the wood frame there. I think this was before the tent stake, which rescarred over the scar from this.

Deeply cut my left knee on stone when I slipped on a wet hillside after setting up a tent. By the time I gotten first aid and bandages, the blood had run down my leg into my shoe.

 

[DaveC426913]

Never sprained let alone broke anything.

When cleaning a tabletop as a teen I put a 3/4" penny nail through the tip of my finger. That's pretty much the worst.

 

[arildno]

My fight with an apple tree.

Some 5 years back, I was to help my Dad to cut an apple tree in my parents' garden.

He made the reasonable suggestion that we should tie a rope to the tree, one of us pulling in the direction we wanted it to fall (my mother wouldn't want her plants&bushes destroyed), the other using a motorsaw in a careful manner on the stem.

I however, all enthused, said that "Rope is not necessary, I'll push on the tree while you cut".

End result, due to me forgetting all I've ever learned about moments, the lower end of the cut-off tree smashed into my forearm on the inner side, the top neatly brushing my Dad's hair. The tree DID, however, land exactly where I wanted it, though.

As for my injury, no muscles, nerves or even major blood vessels were torn, but my skin split was wide open. (Funnily enough, it was not painful at all).

My doctor had a fine job sewing me together, and eager nurses came in during to the process to see how such a large split was handled.

 

[pallidin]

My worst injury, in the sense of sustained discomfort, has been recently.
I caught a bad cold, and in the middle of the night coughed so hard that it "pulled" one or more diaphragm muscles/connective tissue stuff.
Hurts like heck. Like I have been shot. Hard to sleep. Very painful to cough.
The doc told me it would be 6-8 weeks to heal.

 

[turbo]

In the sense of sustained pain, I vote for broken ribs. There was absolutely nothing that my doctor could do, so I "rode it out". You have no idea how many times in a day you have to take a breath and expel it until you feel like you're being stabbed in the chest every single time. Lying down to sleep was not an option - I had to sleep in a chair. I'd take broken legs over broken ribs any day.

 

[BobG]

In the sense of sustained pain, I vote for broken ribs. There was absolutely nothing that my doctor could do, so I "rode it out". You have no idea how many times in a day you have to take a breath and expel it until you feel like you're being stabbed in the chest every single time. Lying down to sleep was not an option - I had to sleep in a chair. I'd take broken legs over broken ribs any day.

Yeah, for pain, I'd go with rib injuries. Mine weren't broken, but it was still painful.

It wasn't that bad once you were loose and were hit once, but getting loose and the time before you got hit the first time were hard to deal with. Plus, it took just about nothing to knock the wind out of me for over a year.