Accidents, accidents, and more accidents

[Psinter]

What accidents have you been through?

While a baby and still crawling, I was told I took the house door key and inserted it into a 120V outlet. My mom told me she was doing the dishes and suddenly, the house lights dimmed like in a brownout. When she looked at me I was on the floor, all red, and I wasn't breathing. She hit me on the back and I began crying (therefore, breathing again). If the baby cries, it is breathing... I guess... The key was charred (black in color), some sides melted, and my fingers were red. I can't remember it, but if I were to assume what happened, I think electric arcs can melt metal.

Nope, I still don't have super powers . I wonder how many babies have done the same.

So, got any accidents?

 

[jerromyjon]

Too many to list! The most memorable one was when I had stripped the powertrain and wheels, struts, etc. out of the front of an old front wheel drive car. I had a floor jack under the middle of the body while my father winched it up on the flatbed. I was guiding the jack as it rolled across the bumpy cement floor and it got stuck. The car started to slide off of the jack so I yanked my hand out from under the jack handle as the car started to fall and the bumper smashed the handle into the tip of my index finger into the cement floor. A split second slower my whole hand would have been smashed, faster and I wouldn't have gotten a scratch.

 

[Psinter]

Ouch, ouch, and re-ouch! Fingertips are so sensitive! I had recently read about why they appear to have such high sensitivity to pain.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25688-fingertips-and-forehead-are-most-sensitive-to-pain/
Link at the bottom of the page to the study is:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24816757

I hope they were really volunteers and not taken against their will for that experiment, or blackmailed. Because the fingertips... ouch.

 

[wolram]

I have been through many on motor bikes, I have been through hedges, flown across a stream knocking of a branch 10 ft above it, the most memorable one was dropping my BSA on a bend and watching the glorious sparks fly as it went up the road and eventually through a hedge, I eventually found myself in the hedge
15 ft away.
I was walking on a wall with spear shaped prongs on the railings when i slipped one prong went straight into my arm pit and I could not pull myself off for 10 minutes That hurt.
These are just the most memorable ones I have had many more including a car accident that broke my pelvis.

 

[Psinter]

I was walking on a wall with spear shaped prongs on the railings when i slipped one prong went straight into my arm pit and I could not pull myself off for 10 minutes That hurt.

Oh the hell, I can feel it just by reading.

These are just the most memorable ones I have had many more including a car accident that broke my pelvis.

Does that regenerates?

 

[wolram]

I was in hospital for 3 months with my broken pelvis, in traction, a few years later I had to have my hip replaced , I was 1/4 inch away from loosing my arm when I speared it on a railing, I was only 8 years then.

 

[Psinter]

I'm confused, it was the hip or the pelvis? I have trouble understanding anatomy.

I was 1/4 inch away from loosing my arm when I speared it on a railing, I was only 8 years then.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

@Evo hasn't been in here yet?

 

[Drakkith]

I'm confused, it was the hip or the pelvis? I have trouble understanding anatomy.

The hip is the left or right region of the waist that consists of several bones from the the pelvis, the femurs, their joints, and all of the associated soft tissue. I'm betting Wolram meant that his hip joint was replaced, which is a relatively common procedure.

 

[Evo]

@Evo hasn't been in here yet?

I have had too many accidents to list! Falling down concrete stairs and sustaining permanent nerve damage to my legs. In a car wreck as a child and thrown under the dashboard with injuries to my back (pre seat belts), falling down the stairs from the second story in my house bouncing on my hip first and into the wall, flipping upside down and falling the rest of the way airborne upside down and landing on my head. Saw stars after a second of blacking out. Many falls. Impaling my wrist on a jagged piece of wood on a fence in the backyard, nice scar, looks like a suicide attempt. Falling on a glass that I knocked off of the dresser trying to break my fall, hit it with my knee as it hit the floor, knocked my knee cap off, cut through the bursa and just stopped on top of the tendon. With every heartbeat, blood would squirt out in a pencil like stream, got taken to the ER. Nurse said, this isn't serious, but you bled all over the ER. Surgeon said , this is serious, nurse apologized. Surgeon said, "you'll need to have this knee replaced". I could go on and on. Oh, broke my arm 4 times, broke my toes 5 times. Broke 3 fingers, that the doctor said weren't broken, after I kept going back for 3 months, and he kept insisting there was nothing wrong, he finally referred me to an orthopedic surgeon to shut me up. The surgeon put the xrays up and pointed to the multiple breaks and asked "your doctor couldn't see these?" I said "No". He said you have spiral fractures, you have pieces of bones broken off, you have at least 7 fractures in three fingers! Two of the fingers are now deformed and will need to be re-broken and have surgery to hopefully be made functional again. I am not doing it with my history of bad luck. It's not that bad.

 

[wolram]

I'm confused, it was the hip or the pelvis? I have trouble understanding anatomy.

It was the pelvis, the hip joint had to be replaced due to a malformed socket.

 

[wolram]

Evo is ace at accidents ,at least all mine have not had a lasting effect just some scars, I have considered getting her a balloon that one can walk in but she would find a way to bust it

 

[gmax137]

The only bone I ever broke was my brother's clavicle.

I was a real pro at cuts and burns. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, even so, the ER doctors knew my parents by first names.

 

[anorlunda]

Yikes @Evo, it seems that gravity is not your friend. You might enjoy Larry Niven's book Integral Trees.

 

[Psinter]

falling down the stairs from the second story in my house bouncing on my hip first and into the wall, flipping upside down and falling the rest of the way airborne upside down and landing on my head.

It was the pelvis, the hip joint had to be replaced due to a malformed socket.

Oh. If I had some part replaced, I'd tell people... "I'm a cyborg!" Though I'm not sure the definition would apply.

With every heartbeat, blood would squirt out in a pencil like stream, got taken to the ER.

I'd have probably fainted before reaching ER. Soft tissue + blood = good probability of Psinter out of order.

The only bone I ever broke was my brother's clavicle.

Oh no. Of everything that I would have no problem in getting broken, the clavicle is not in that list.

Evo is ace at accidents ,at least all mine have not had a lasting effect just some scars, I have considered getting her a balloon that one can walk in but she would find a way to bust it

Get her a Get Well Soon Balloon .

Not sure if the following can be considered an accident, but I fainted and hit my head with a wall once. Got reminded by the blood coming out like a stream comment. The story in a spoiler.

Spoiler

At sex ed class (how I hated that class, it was so nasty) the teacher showed us a picture of a... you guys know... it starts with "v". And it was on it's period. I became nauseous, and started sweating cold. Got up my seat and asked the teacher if I could go out for a moment. She said yes. No questions asked. Went out and got dizzy. My vision got all white. My goal, the cafeteria. While blinded and trying to walk straight I eventually fainted and hit my head with a wall. The impact woke me up. Still dizzy, but with my vision back (and with pain on the area of the head where I got hit) I somewhat crawled to the cafeteria. The workers asked me if I was ok, that I looked pale. I told them I was fine, that I just needed some water. They got me water and the feeling of the cold water going down through my dry esophagus brought me back to normal. What kept me so long awake and conscious before finally collapsing was the shame of being taken to the nursery in front of everyone. I could not allow that to happen. My thoughts were: "Resist... resist... too many people nearby... What will they think? What will I tell them? That I fainted because I saw a v... resist." But I still fainted in the end. Good thing I recovered quickly.

That happens to other people with certain characteristics, so you must be wondering. But no, I don't have PTSD, I have never had depression, I have never been diagnosed with anxiety or stress disorder, and finally, it doesn't happen always. Sometimes I cannot stand soft tissue with blood, but it's not always. I can also see blood, no problem. As long as it is not accompanied by soft tissue... That class was just nasty. Glad it's over.

 

[Mondayman]

Was in the passenger seat of a Blazer when the driver lost control and we slammed into a light pole, hitting right about where the mirror is. The door/fender caved into about the center console. Through some minor miraculous miracle the metal wrapped around my leg perfectly without touching me - I may have thrown my legs up at the last second, really can't remember. Leg was pinned and had to get the jaws of life to pry the vehicle away so I could get out; was mere inches from death, yet not a scratch on me.

 

[Asymptotic]

No broken bones (well, except for my nose), and most of my accidents were near misses, but of those that stand out :

• While helping to tear down a house to salvage the original logs (it had started out as a log cabin) the kitchen floor gave way, and I ended up in the basement with a board full of nails stuck in my calf.
  
• Testing a 460V motor circuit when one of the meter probes slipped resulting in a line-to-line short. The arc flash caused (mostly) 2nd degree burns on my forearms, but once the doctor picked out small balls of melted test probe all that was required was apply Neosporin and change the bandages daily for a couple of weeks.
  
• While mountain-biking down a familiar trail at dusk suddenly found myself about 10 feet in mid-air instead of emerging onto the expected roadway. I didn't know about a crew that had used this particular piece of ground as pot hole fill earlier that week. Blew the front inner tube, and ended up replacing the rim later (it couldn't be trued), but I'd sat down hard on landing, and the ride home was mostly done standing on the pedals with the bike doing a wicked shimmy ...

 

[Psinter]

Leg was pinned and had to get the jaws of life to pry the vehicle away so I could get out; was mere inches from death, yet not a scratch on me.

Did you not freak out? I'd freak out if I get pinned and try to brute force myself out. Immobilization is scary.

While helping to tear down a house to salvage the original logs (it had started out as a log cabin) the kitchen floor gave way, and I ended up in the basement with a board full of nails stuck in my calf.

The first thought that came to my mind when you said nails was Tetanus. It can happen with rusty ones. That stuff is no joke. I think I'm soon to get the reinforcements of that vaccine.

Testing a 460V motor circuit when one of the meter probes slipped resulting in a line-to-line short. The arc flash caused (mostly) 2nd degree burns on my forearms, but once the doctor picked out small balls of melted test probe all that was required was apply Neosporin and change the bandages daily for a couple of weeks.

Wicked. Electricity accidents happen so fast .