Ouch I hate it when that happens

[Ivan Seeking]

Ouch! I hate it when that happens!

With the understanding that Evo will require several pages here, , what are your most interesting episodes of self inflicted pain?

Motivation for thread: Popped my little finger like a pimple last night. The very tip was caught between an irresistible force and an immovable object. It literally popped the fingertip like a pimple.

 

[Moonbear]

Owwwwwwww! Fingertips are so sensitive. My most recent self-inflicted injury is quite pain-free...I think I squashed one of the nerves in my thumb while sawing up the old fence rails into small enough pieces to put out for the trash, and now there's an annoying spot on the top of my thumb from the knuckle to the base of my fingernail that varies between numb and tingly (that feeling you get when you put your foot to sleep and it starts to wake up, but not quite so strong as that...it isn't painful, just odd feeling). I only notice when writing, because my pen rests there. But, I have hope that it's repairing itself since I do have feeling returned now between the first and second knuckle, which was also numb and tingly for a few days. This is all because the darn trigger was so hard to squeeze (which I suppose is meant to be a good thing so I didn't accidentally cut off a finger with too sensitive of a trigger) that I ended up pressing the base of my thumb really hard into the back of the handle grip to sort of make a fist to squeeze the trigger with my index finger. I guess men have a more developed grip for such things than women do.

I should sue...there's nothing in the instructions anywhere about causing nerve damage from holding it too tight!

 

[Pengwuino]

Hmm... I tend not to hurt myself...

 

[Moonbear]

Hmm... I tend not to hurt myself...

Others usually do it for you?

 

[brewnog]

Grabbing onto an uninsulated spark plug just before my friend turned the engine over was quite funny.

Falling off my bike and hitting my unprotected head on a brick would have been funny if the remaining 18 hours hadn't been spent in A&E, drifting in and out of consciousness. I always wore a bike helmet after that, and actually ended up splitting one in half when the top tube landed on the top of my head following a pear-shaped dirt jump. Walked away from that one (after a quick vomit) with a headache, but escaped any permanent damage.

Helping my dad with some copper pipes when I was 5 was fun until my pale little arm got in the way of the blowtorch flame. And wiping a soldering iron on a wet chamois cloth on my lap was a wonderful idea until one day when I forgot to put the cloth on my lap. I was also wearing shorts.

Oh, and there's the obligatory "just how powerful is a staple gun?", which most teenagers have to ask themselves at some time. Very powerful, very powerful indeed.

 

[Andy]

Ouch, when drunk i sprayed myself with aerosol and set myself on fire, that was probably the most painful self inflicted incident. Kinda funny when played bk on tape though.

 

[Evo]

With the understanding that Evo will require several pages here, , what are your most interesting episodes of self inflicted pain?

Motivation for thread: Popped my little finger like a pimple last night. The very tip was caught between an irresistible force and an immovable object. It literally popped the fingertip like a pimple.

Aaagh, ugh, Eeeeewww. You've been inflicting a lot of injuries lately, didn't you break your third foot earlier this year?

 

[hypermorphism]

So I was cutting through some frozen bacon a few nights ago with a nice dull serrated blade and managed to rip through a good part of my ring finger before I felt anything.

 

[Pengwuino]

Others usually do it for you?

Not necessarily people...

Doors... walls... parked cars... etc.

 

[whozum]

Not necessarily people...

Doors... walls... parked cars... etc.

Oh, so they walk into you...

 

[Evo]

From my journal - I was replacing a few fence boards and lost my footing, thanks to the JAWS OF DEATH (my dog) and fell forward. In my attempt to stop my fall I managed to partially impale my right wrist on a sharp piece of wood (it looks like a botched suicide attempt) and also got splinters up and down both hands and arms. I was trying not to hurt my knee that I had previously seriously injured (trip to the emergency room) when I fell on a glass, which by the force of my knee impacting it on the ground (I knocked the glass off the counter trying to break my fall) shattered and the razor sharp base of the glass went through my knee. The leg brace is off, the stitches have been removed.

Of course this was after I tripped and fell downstairs, actually I ended up bouncing into the air, then flipping over backwards and flew airborne face up, headfirst into the floor at the base of the stairs. Luckily I landed on my head, so no serious injuries, except to my right hip, which has bone splinters from the initial impact that flipped me backwards. It was a fun ambulance ride, although I didn't think it was necessary. Apparently, once they find out you have insurance, the ride is mandatory. After arguing with the paramedics for 30 minutes, I realized I was going, even if it meant that they had to injure me themselves.

Yesterday, I just sliced my thumb open wrestling with some 8 foot tall alien creatures growing in the back 40, sure, they LOOK like weeds, but I know better. Ok, I couldn't find my gloves, so I was doing all this barehanded.

Then I had to change the battery on the riding mower. Piece of cake, except I lost my grip on the wrench and it fell and made contact with the other pole and wow, metal melts fast! Of course I got a nice little burn on the back of my hand. I found a large piece of wood and was able to pry the wrench off of the battery without too much damage.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Aaagh, ugh, Eeeeewww. You've been inflicting a lot of injuries lately, didn't you break your third foot earlier this year?

Yes it has been a rough year. And trying to type without the pinkie is no small challenge. The bathroom is sooooooo close to being done but this cost me an entire evening! I had to lay down - trying to pass out from the pain - while trying to stop the bleeding.

I almost managed the entire remodel without an injury.

 

[Entropy]

Ripping off the tape used to cover the two incisions on my chest. Oh! All three of my manly chest hairs are gone! It took me 18 years to grow them! I had to change them daily. After a while your skin turns red and gets really iritated because each time you rip it off it takes a layer of skin with it. Not to mention the area is already sore from the incisions.

 

[Pengwuino]

Oh, so they walk into you...

yah yah! stupid doors, don't know how to go around me.

 

[Moonbear]

I had to lay down - trying to pass out from the pain - while trying to stop the bleeding.

Ugh. That sounds REALLY painful. The closest I ever came to passing out from pain wasn't really due to pain so much as thinking about the pain that was coming. I was wearing sandals and went out to the store with my mom and sister (I was a kid then). We went to Sears and my sister grabbed the door and yanked it open (I seem to recall the doors were lighter than at most stores, so opened surprisingly fast). My toe was quite in the way of the door and it took a nice chunk out of my toe. There was the moment of blinding pain (even if it hadn't taken a chunk out of it, it was still a good hard whack, and you know how you see stars when you stub a toe hard), and then a moment later that the blood started to pour out of my toe. Did you know Sears used to have a nurse on duty in the store? I got to visit her. The wooziness came when it was time to take off the tissue my mom stuck on it for the walk to the nurse's office and the peroxide was about to be poured over it. I knew how much the toe was already hurting and knew how much more it was going to hurt when anything was poured onto it! I thought I was going to throw up.

I almost managed the entire remodel without an injury.

Sure, if you don't count nearly killing yourself inhaling toxic black mold spores!

 

[MaxS]

Ouch, when drunk i sprayed myself with aerosol and set myself on fire, that was probably the most painful self inflicted incident. Kinda funny when played bk on tape though.

natural selection in progress, people.

 

[hypatia]

I hardly ever hurt myself. But now I'm guessing, because I said that, something ominous will be lurking in the shadows.

 

[Pengwuino]

I hardly ever hurt myself. But now I'm guessing, because I said that, something ominous will be lurking in the shadows.

Watch out for that tiger!

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I have hurt myself quite a few times but never really in an interesting fashion. Most of the time the incidents are so uninteresting that I don't even know I received an injury until I just happen to see blood or a bruise on me somewhere.
I was once bitten by a rabbit. People always seem to think that is odd for some reason.
I was hit by a truck once while crossing the street. It wasn't my fault though.

 

[Pengwuino]

A rabbit bit me before too! Those bastards...

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Those darn wabbits are dangerwous.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I think the next time I see the Easter Bunny in the mall I'm going to bite him. That way we'll both have an interesting story to tell.

 

[Moonbear]

I think the next time I see the Easter Bunny in the mall I'm going to bite him. That way we'll both have an interesting story to tell.

I suspect they're used to children biting, but I doubt they're expecting one of the grown-ups to bite.

My rabbits never bit me, my dog did, but I don't remember that. I have an eensy little scar on my cheek from it, but nothing noteworthy. Apparently, this was after our dog started going deaf, so didn't hear little toddlers creeping up on him, and he was sleeping when I decided to hug him, which scared the poor thing and he bit me. He was a Pekingese, so not that big of a dog anyway. I have been bitten by a rat too. She nailed me really well on the webbing between thumb and forefinger and then a second spot near the first knuckle of my forefinger. Then I still had to go chasing her to catch her and put her back into her cage (because of course I let go when she bit me and she went running across the room). That really hurt, especially since both bites were near bendy parts of my fingers, and on my right hand too.

 

[Kerrie]

oh joy, I can list off some good ones, especially as a kid...my mom had a regular account with the emergency room...

at age 7, showing off to my friends, I did a cartwheel with a pom pom stick in my mouth...the length of the stick was longer then the distance of my mouth to the ground when I had turned upside down during the cartwheel...the stick punctured my tonsil and i ate jello and pudding for two weeks...

at age 8 or 9, can't quite remember the age, i had a jagged edge of concrete slice my left leg open...had no idea i was hurt until my babysitter noticed a pool of blood near my foot...the injury again was due to me being acrobatic...

at age 10, i broke my wrist on my bicycle trying to balance the bike when it was not moving...again, being a show off got me hurt.

finally learned my lesson that i will NOT ever be a circus performer let alone an olympic gymnast

at age 24 i worked in a quality control area using a machine that had rubber rollers to pull long sheets of paper through the rollers...the paper got jammed, and my index finger got caught in the rollers-it ended up popping my fingernail off in one whole piece. turned out though that there should have been a safety guard where my finger was caught, and because i didn't pursue any sort of legal action, i was promoted to an office position soon after

oh yea, almost forgot, i nearly drowned between age 7 and 8 also...didn't learn to swim for years after.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Kerrie, if we ever get you down here for that PF BBQ, remind me to increase my homeowners liability insurance.

Oh yes, Moonbear, I almost forgot about the TBM blast to the face! That didn't click as an injury but your point is entirely fair.

 

[wolram]

At a very young age i fell down stairs and hit my head on an old fashioned
sewing machine treadle, the treadle broke.
About 8yrs old i was doing a balancing act on a half brick half iron railing
wall, i sliped and one of railings went into my arm pit, i managed to free my self
but did more harm than good, i think it was 6 months before i could use it.

 

[Kerrie]

Kerrie, if we ever get you down here for that PF BBQ, remind me to increase my homeowners liability insurance.

i was high energy as a youngster, now that i have young ones of my own, i have toned it down quite a bit...

i nearly forget about the time at age 5 when i swallowed a ball bearing that was about .5" in diameter...when my mom brought me to the emergency room then, the doc said there was nothing they could do except let is pass...

 

[BobG]

oh joy, I can list off some good ones, especially as a kid...my mom had a regular account with the emergency room...

at age 7, showing off to my friends, I did a cartwheel with a pom pom stick in my mouth...the length of the stick was longer then the distance of my mouth to the ground when I had turned upside down during the cartwheel...the stick punctured my tonsil and i ate jello and pudding for two weeks...

I've done nothing so interesting.

I stuck my finger just a tiny bit too far under the mower while clearing clogged grass, once. When I came running through the house to the bathroom, my mom asked if I was okay and I had to reply "I can't tell yet, wait until I wash off some of the blood!" That probably didn't sound too assuring. Fortunately, I just split my fingertip, all the way to the bone. I still have a faint line to remind me of that and it tends to feel numb if I move a lot of furniture or boxes around.

I also dropped a cement mixer on a fingertip at 6:30 in the morning. That stung! I'm not sure how long I was cussing before I noticed how many people had come out on their front porch. It was okay during the day when I was working, but it was agony at night. About the third day, I finally went to the emergency room and that was fun. The doctor brings out the old soldering iron, laughs when he sees the expression on my face, and assures me that "This is going to hurt you a lot more than me". He burnt a hole in my fingernail so the fluid could drain out at night.

I also hung from a fence by the skin between my fingers. If I balanced way up on the tips of my toes, I could make it not hurt so bad. Unfortunately, that still wasn't high enough to lift me off the fence. Fortunately, I wasn't there alone. One of my friends had to lift me up and off the fence.

Weirdest 'injury' I ever heard of happened to a neighbor girl. Big sister superglued little sister's lips to the screen door. They had to cut a hole in the screen and then took her to the emergency room with the screen still glued to her face.

 

[gurkhawarhorse]

A rabbit bit me before too! Those bastards...

anyone bitten by a dog? got 14 ingections in belly button. damn that rabies

 

[Entropy]

i nearly forget about the time at age 5 when i swallowed a ball bearing that was about .5" in diameter...when my mom brought me to the emergency room then, the doc said there was nothing they could do except let is pass...

Heh, I went with my parents to this house being built and I saw a coke can on the ground and being four I chugged it all down. Then replying "this coke taste funny!" Upon hearing it my mom ran over and smelled it. Turns out it was paint cleaner. We rushed to the hospital with my mom crying thinking it would turn me retarded. We got their and the doc said it didn't get into my blood stream and I'd be fine, physically. Don't know about the turning retarded part...

 

[loseyourname]

So I was cutting through some frozen bacon a few nights ago with a nice dull serrated blade and managed to rip through a good part of my ring finger before I felt anything.

I cut myself all the time when preparing food. Thankfully, I keep my knives very sharp and very clean, so little damage is done and even the deep cuts are nearly painless.

The worst I did recently was electrocute myself installing a wall outlet. The worst I ever inflicted on myself was probably when I was a kid and drove my ATV off a small cliff into a thorn-bush (great idea wearing shorts and a t-shirt that day). I had tears and cuts everywhere on my arms and legs. Thankfully, my helmet visor was down and protected my pretty face. The worst I ever inflicted on another was probably breaking my neighbor's jaw with an errant fastball. The funniest thing that ever happened to me was probably walking in the sandbox behind a swing set in fifth grade and having Kelby Berg's fat ass knock me unconscious for a minute or so.

 

[Evo]

I cut myself all the time when preparing food. Thankfully, I keep my knives very sharp and very clean, so little damage is done and even the deep cuts are nearly painless.

The worst I did recently was electrocute myself installing a wall outlet. The worst I ever inflicted on myself was probably when I was a kid and drove my ATV off a small cliff into a thorn-bush (great idea wearing shorts and a t-shirt that day). I had tears and cuts everywhere on my arms and legs. Thankfully, my helmet visor was down and protected my pretty face. The worst I ever inflicted on another was probably breaking my neighbor's jaw with an errant fastball. The funniest thing that ever happened to me was probably walking in the sandbox behind a swing set in fifth grade and having Kelby Berg's fat ass knock me unconscious for a minute or so.

Oh, wait! Didn't you have a long list of near catastrophes?

 

[Moonbear]

I also dropped a cement mixer on a fingertip at 6:30 in the morning. That stung! I'm not sure how long I was cussing before I noticed how many people had come out on their front porch. It was okay during the day when I was working, but it was agony at night. About the third day, I finally went to the emergency room and that was fun. The doctor brings out the old soldering iron, laughs when he sees the expression on my face, and assures me that "This is going to hurt you a lot more than me". He burnt a hole in my fingernail so the fluid could drain out at night.

I've managed to avoid needing to see a doctor for such finger squishes, mostly because I know about that soldering iron thing and I didn't want anything to do with it! Mine was smashing my finger in a barn door at around 2 AM, then with finger throbbing, had to spend the next half hour taking blood samples from a bunch of goats in the dark (not an easy task on a good night...because of the experiment we were doing, I couldn't turn on any lights, and of course it was one of the fingers I needed to use, repeatedly). But by two or three days later, the nail started to lift and it actually separated back by the cuticle...oh boy, did that make it feel better...I didn't even care that the nail was falling off I was so happy it relieved the pressure!

Surprisingly, when I dropped that pallet on my big toe back in December, the nail didn't come off. About two weeks ago, I just trimmed off the last discolored portion of that nail. So, it takes about 9 months to grow a toenail out, in case anyone else needs to know.

My mom did the lawnmower thing...well, not quite, but we didn't know what had happened for a short bit. She was in the backyard cleaning the grass off the mower after finishing mowing the lawn, and next thing I know, she's running for the house and hollering for me (I was always the official "patch up the parents after they do stupid things" person). It turns out, she had tipped the mower up to hose underneath and her grip slipped, and it fell and the body of the mower caught her arm and tore a big gash in it. She wanted me to help her clean it and just stick butterfly bandages on it. We got as far as cleaning it, and as some of the blood cleared out of the way, I could see the cut went clear through both skin and a layer of fat, spent about 15 minutes arguing with her that she needed stitches until my stepdad finally appeared and didn't give her a choice any more. It took two layers of stitches! Yeesh.

Then my stepdad managed to slice through all 4 fingers on one hand in one fell swoop. He had taped a knife to a stick to cut a rope he had tied to a tree branch for some reason I can't recall. When done, he couldn't get the end of the tape up to remove the tape, so tried pulling the knife out from under the tape and slid all his fingers along the length of the blade. He didn't even say anything, just walked away; I realized something was wrong when I saw the trail of blood left behind him. Fingers sure do bleed a lot!

Just wait, next month I'll be back working with sheep again. I'm sure I'll have plenty of good stories for this thread in no time at all!

 

[Janus]

Most painfull:

Back when I was in high school we heated mainly by wood, which meant that I had to go fetch wood from the wood shed. We had a wood box on the back porch that I used to fill by tossing the wood up into from the back side.(it saved on climbing up and down the porch steps) I had just tossed up a piece and was reaching back to the wheel barrow for an another when I noticed that the piece I had tossed hadn't cleared the lip of the box and was falling back down towards me. I reached up to catch it, mis-judged, and instead had the piece of wood hit the end of my thumb and drive a 1/4" x 1/2" chunk of bark up underneath my thumbnail all the way to the base of the thumbnail. Talk about the pain that keeps on giving.

Most unusual:
Back in 1980 when Mt St, Helens erupted I lived in an area which got a dusting of ash. Afterwards, we had to get the ash off the building where I worked. What we did was to put a crew on the roof (about 20 ft up) and have them lower 5 gal plastic pails down on a rope while the rest of us waited below with wheel barrows. I was standing at the base of the wall waiting for the first pail to come down, when the rope came undone. I turned and tried and get out of the way, but to no avail. I caught the bucket on the top of the head. Ten stitches.

Closest call:

Moving some furniture back into an office that had been remodeled, I was operating the business end of a hand truck as we were trying to move a fire-proof file cabinet. We got the file cabinet tipped back on the the truck, but it started to come too far back towards me. I shifted my weight under it to catch it, but couldn't; It was too heavy. The next thing I know, I'm sitting on the floor with the file cabinet in my lap, wondering why I didn't have two crushed legs. I looked beside me to find that the corner of the file cabinet had landed on two boxes of left-over floor tile from the re-model. I slipped out from under with just a slighty banged up knee. It took four of us to lift that file cabinet back upright.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

i nearly forget about the time at age 5 when i swallowed a ball bearing that was about .5" in diameter...when my mom brought me to the emergency room then, the doc said there was nothing they could do except let is pass...

Kerrie in the bathroom: *Clink*

 

[Argentum Vulpes]

Most painful non-construction

I'd have to say the most painful injury I gave my self is a toss up between the many metal slivers and cuts I get when I'm changing cutting heads and cleaning the turret milling machine I'm responsible for maintaining in the shop I work at and the time I electrocuted myself with a PAC. The electrocution story is great though. My friends and I were salvaging a bunch of junk cars from an old farmstead on of my friends fathers just bought, and we were cutting up some of the larger pieces back at the ranches shop that the field PAC and cutting torches couldn't handle. I was working on a main frame of an old 3 tonn truck (heavily rusted) got my two grounds installed on the opposite side of where I'd be for the cut, (after 15 min with a wire wheel and an angle grinder to clean up the ground spots) and light off the PAC. The next thing I know I'm on the ground five feet away from the frame and smell the slight smell of burnt popcorn. Some how to this day I still can't understand why I grounded myself with that daffy PAC, and also managed to pop bloth the GFC on the power supply and in the wall, that most likely saved my life. The only thing that was damaged, after the three weeks it took to regain all feeling in my arm, was my watch that was completely destroyed.

Most painful construction

This one is also the most annoying. I was laying down plywood for the roofs of a subdivision I was working on and managed to shoot my self in the foot with a nail gun. Now before you all wonder how stupid I was that day these houses are in vary snowy south western montana and building codes require steep roof grades to deal with snow loading. This sight also had a major OSA presence so where I'd of liked to have an extra step place on the roof to help me get up to staple the top of the sheet I couldn't per regulations. So to get to the top I had to streach into almost splits and boom when putting down a line got my self in the foot. Heres the kicker of it, had to go into the emegracy room, (2 hours away) for a bandage, and supposedly an X-ray of my foot until the doctor said not to worry since it was a graze, (any one who was not blind could see that).

 

[loseyourname]

Oh, wait! Didn't you have a long list of near catastrophes?

Yes I did, but I rarely sustained any injuries.

 

[devil-fire]

iv got a vary close call for you.

i was in a metal shop doing some welding on a long "box" to be used in the production of paper. i was seated a computer chair with the back and arm rests removed, so its a padded stool on wheels and i was TIG welding at about chest level. i had something like 200 inches to go and i was in cover alls and was generally quite hot. for those who don't know, TIG welding involves a 'torch' in one hand to melt metal with electricity jumping from the work to a tungsten electrode and one length of rod about a meter long of whatever metal you want to add (in this case the rod was 1/8 of an inch thick) in the other hand. in this case i was working with stainless steel so my tungsten electrode was close to razor sharpness. well it was getting hot as i was saying so i hung my 1/8 metal filler rod off the box and draped the torch over my thigh by the cable while i took a second to cool off. it seems the friction between my torch's power/gas line and my cover alls was low, because it sliped, almost falling off my thigh (not a big deal by itself) but the vary hot piece of tungsten stopped the fall by catching the crotch of my coveralls. i remember staring off into space and feeling a warm, wet sort of heat on my scrotum and thought "wow. i think iv just urinated myself... been a while since i did that" and then i smell smoke and look down to see a piece of metal that was just at the same temperature as liquid steel a moment ago piercing the groin area of my pants. i jumped up so fast i shot my stool on wheels back into the piece of work behind me. i thought i just seared the nerves to quick for the information to really process in my brain, like people who have suffered a horrific accident and say "i didn't feel the pain till i looked down". it took me a few moments to conclude i wouldn't need plastic surgery to remove any scar tissue. when i checked the damage in the bathroom later, the sharp hot metal went through the coveralls, the genes i was wearing and was close enough to my loose fitting boxers to scorch them

i happen to know for a fact that when metal that hot touches skin, it really is just like a hot knife through warm butter. its as if the heat makes your skin become a lubricant between bone and metal

 

[Kerrie]

Kerrie in the bathroom: *Clink*

i remember wanting to know when i would pass it...but my 5 year old attention span quickly forgot about it.