Most moronic ways you've ever injured yourself

[Shymer]

On holiday in the Pyranees mountains in Southern France I was clambering over some rocks barefoot. I tread on something I think is a stone and kick at it to send it into the mountain pool. Only when it stings me do I realise it's a brightly-coloured hornet as big as my thumb. My foot swells up over the next few minutes to the point where I have to be carried down the mountain.

I went shopping with my girlfriend. As we were heading home with some of the shopping in the backpack I was wearing, her hat was blown off her head by a gust of wind and my cobra-like goal-keeping reflexes took over. I leapt to the left and slightly behind me and caught it as it zipped by. I thought I pulled a muscle doing it as I was a bit sore after that. Unfortunately I had given myself a hernia and a few weeks later I was under the surgeon's knife. "Biggest one I've ever seen" was his comment afterwards. I think he probably says that to everyone.

Visiting a friend in a new house - we're staying overnight. I get out of bed in the middle of the night and decide to use the toilet downstairs to avoid waking people up. They has one more stair in their staircase than I do at home and, in the darkness, I stumble down the last stair and break my toe. The year after that we are in a hotel room in bed and they have tucked the blankets and sheets in too tight. I try and use my right toe to untuck the sheet at the bottom of the bed - and break my toe again with an audible 'crack'.

Twenty years later and I'm taking my son to show him how to play squash. I'm just warming the ball up by bashing it into the wall a few times and I get a bit over-enthusiastic, lunge-stride after the ball. Something pops in my right leg and I can't stand up any more. Ten seconds on the court. At least my son has now learned the benefits of warming up properly.

More to come.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

I have a remarkable capacity to avoid actually hurting myself, in spite of the fact that I can trip over literally nothing, lose my balance for no reason, drop stuff without warning, and generally be totally clumsy.

However, I did manage to stub the same toe 3 or 4 times on the same thing...
Once so hard I think I may have broken something...
It still hurts now...

And what is it I stubbed my toe on, you might ask?

The wall... >_<

Yes, I stubbed my little toe on the corner of a wall... XD

What is that even about... >_<

Don't feel too bad. My bathroom door is unusually narrow and I stub my toes on the door frame several times a day. Same with the closet door.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I have a remarkable capacity to avoid actually hurting myself, in spite of the fact that I can trip over literally nothing, lose my balance for no reason, drop stuff without warning, and generally be totally clumsy.

However, I did manage to stub the same toe 3 or 4 times on the same thing...
Once so hard I think I may have broken something...
It still hurts now...

And what is it I stubbed my toe on, you might ask?

The wall... >_<

Yes, I stubbed my little toe on the corner of a wall... XD

What is that even about... >_<

Don't feel too bad. My bathroom door is unusually narrow and I stub my toes on the door frame several times a day. Same with the closet door.

Oh well. It beats when I was younger and would manage to bump my head on the underside of kitchen counters.
And I don't mean when I was really small either.
I mean when I was already so tall a counter like that comes to my waist... XD

 

[Twintix]

Anyone else flinch and cringe at the stories where you get something in your eye? Sends shivers down my spine...

Anyway, I have sprained my ankle stupidly a few times.

When I was 8, my class used to have a "fun hour" every Friday, and during one of these hours, some of my classmates were having a "circus". One of the things we got to do was jump from a height down onto a thick mattress. I jumped down...and landed wrong, spraining my ankle. We called it the "circus of misfortune" afterwards, as on the same day, a boy fell off the rings he was supposed to do tricks on and landed on his face. So much nose blood...

Another time, when I was 10, we were outside playing a game that consisted of kicking a soccer ball onto a wooden fixture on the wall. the higher up on the fixture you hit, the more points you got, but the ball was only allowed to bounce once on the ground. So it was my turn. I hurried up to the ball, which had already bounced once...

...And proceeded to kick straight into the ground. Yeah, I don't know how I did that either.

In my second year of secondary school, I accidentally tripped over my sparring partner during taekwondo practice and sprained my ankle. This one took quite a while to heal - I had to wear a bandage for a little over two months. And no taekwondo practice.
Boo. >_<'

But none come close to the stupid that was my 8th grade PRAO-session.

PRAO basically means that students get to visit and work at a workplace for about to week, just to see how it is. My neighbour's sons work in a self-serve restaurant, so I got to work there. I was removing the bottoms of empty bean cans to flatten and recycle. Well, one bottom looked very loose, and my dumb 14-year old ass thought that I could pull the bottom off.

Here's the thing: My hands and the cans were soaked with the liquid that the beans came in. And very slippery. And the bottom had sharp edges after the can opener. Well, my hands slipped and I managed to cut my finger open. The cut was severe enough to require stitches. I was not allowed to open more cans after that, and I still have a small scar on my finger from that incident.

 

[chadachada123]

I once, for the hell of it, hit a pole with a baseball bat. The bat hit the pole and immediately ricocheted directly into my face. Loosened a couple of my teeth. I was 16 or 17.

Once jumped and grabbed the top of a wall behind a store. Turns out the entire top layer wasn't even cemented on, and a giant slab of concrete fell and crushed my foot, breaking several bones. Apparently, it should have landed on my freaking head, but I kicked off of the wall at the last moment and only got my foot caught. I was 18.

Those are probably my stupidest ones that caused legitimate damage.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I was 13 ... fresh into high school. There was a bully picking on another kid in my year. I thought if me and another kid I was with jumped the senior the bullied kid in my year would get the boot in to the stomach or groin. Teach him a lesson. Apparently I was the only one that had this thought in their head. I ended up snapping two teeth, and suffering a cracked rib :/

I know that's technically not hurting yourself. But it was moronic, and in most tactical appraisals of the situation my face and body just invited themselves to an all-round shitkicking.

 

[Harley Q]

You know those ringpull tops on tins? Well, I was opening a tin of soup, cream of chicken, by the way, Campbells, so you know it's the good stuff, my finger somehow got caught in and I sliced it right open. I cut myself opening soup. SOUP.

I also shaved of the tip of my finger, when I was trying to free a giant ladyrazor from it's reinforced plastic prison.

Back to soup, I burnt my hand because I was serving soup in a restaurant, was not paying any sort of attention to what I was doing, so people gawked in horror as I poured boiling hot soup onto my hand.

In conclusion, I am not very good to my hands.

 

[Shiftygiant]

When I was little I had one of the those blade scooters. I lied on a street with a hill, and I lived at the foot of the hill and my friend at the top. It wasn't too steep so their was a road and shit going up it. So my Dad told me I had to be home for 1, so I can have lunch. I realized It was one at my friends house and I rushed back down on my Scooter. Gathering speed, traveling fast, I hit a pothole and slammed my head into the ground. Didn't hit the grass, like I should have, overshot and slammed headfirst into asphalt. Fortunately I didn't get a cut or concussion, however I had a fist sized bruise on my head for about 6 months. (I was 6)

Another time I was on a camping trip with the scouts and we'd been throwing these wee rocks at each-other for the day. At night, we were gathered around the campfire and a wee rock hit me in the chest and fell on my lap. It didn't hurt because of how small it was, but it was annoying. I picked up this white rock and demanded to know who threw it. It had popped out the fire. I burned the tip of my fingers. It took a year for the skin and my finger prints to come back properly. (I was 10).

 

[Ravenbom]

Oh god. Well, when I was in the emergency room telling the doctor how I got there he said, "there's no smart way to injure yourself".
I laughed and then explained how I practically cut my thumb off.

My katana has needed a new saya for a long time, so it's a bit loose in it's scabbard. I was watching a Toshiro Mifune film, the first of the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy and decided to take my sword out of it's box and admire it, make sure it was oiled, etc. Then I set it leaning against the couch as I start the movie.
About 45 minutes in, I just see a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and snatch. I knew it was my sword tipping over from where it was leaning against the couch but it was a reflexive grab. I grabbed right under the tsuba and clamped down hard as I pulled up, freeing the blade.
It was my left hand, my off hand for most things, because I was leaning on my right side and couldn't reflexively grab at falling things with that hand.
What really sucked is that I used to be a musician and for a right handed person, you don't want to hurt your left hand when you play a string instrument.

Anyways, I pretty much Marty McFly'ed my fret hand. The damage was just my thumb. It all works fine now, because the sword wasn't some ebay crap, it was a surgical cut and nerves and stuff got re-attached. It was surreal not having feeling other than pressure in my thumb. Lost a bunch of weight because I couldn't work out or use that arm for months. If you sever a tendon in your hand it retracts way the hell up your arm, btw.

I really have shitty natural reflexes. My friend's dog used to always catch flies and other bugs in his mouth and I used to make a game of snatching at them first, so I think that reflex fired that night.


Anyways, when people asked me what happened, I just told them "ninjas".


There's no real story to this one: I was playing tag in 4th grade and the recess bell had already rung which meant whoever was it couldn't make a tag but it was my friend and we were so into it because he almost had me so we were still playing. And as I was laughing and backing up as he made to lunge at me, I spun around and slammed right into a tether ball post.
I was still laughing when I reached at what was going to be a fat lip and saw bits of bone and blood in my hand and my laughs turned to shrieks. Lost one of my adult front teeth to a tether ball post that never had tether balls attached. Years later they cut those fucking things down.

Got my first stitches from scope eye right over my eyebrow. I'm going to sound like a hillbilly instead of the LA hipster that I am when I mention I got hit in the same place years later with a beer bottle when I was best man at my brother's wedding and I didn't realize blood was pouring down my face until the bridesmaids took me to a bathroom to clean me up.

I thought I broke my finger once when I fully closed a door on my finger tip. I was making out with a girl in the front seat of her car and started to get a boner and couldn't really shift it to a comfy spot in my pants while being inconspicuous about it so as I got out of the car I was trying to quickly close the door so I could shift my boner in my tight hipster jeans with my one hand and completely closed the door of her Volkswagen Jetta on the tip of my middle finger so that it latched. Somehow didn't break my finger but fuck that hurt.
I told her about it all boner details and all later when I found out I didn't break my finger, I wasn't really trying to hide my boner so much as I was trying to play it cool and aloof and I had to share it with her how hilariously uncool and completely not smooth I am.

 

[MiskWisk]

I've got three.

First was with an air rifle. It had a nice fancy scope and me being a little smartass didn't listen to my Uncle's warnings of how to use the scope properly. I also thought, "Air rifle, won't have to worry about recoil then." I walked away with a nice bruise and lump in the centre of my forehead from that one.

The other two are tree related. The first one I was sitting on a branch. The branch started making cracking noises. Sensible thing would have been to move. I continued to sit on said branch till it snapped. I then sat down in front of the TV for half an hour before my chest started to ache. I then pulled up my shirt to find a pretty nasty cut across my chest that suddenly started burning. My six year old self was not pleased.

The final one I can only call myself a complete idiot for. I was climbing out of a tree and didn't feel the branch underneath my foot. I thought I was merely not tall enough to reach it so I just decided to drop down. Turns out I did not in fact have my foot anywhere near the branch and fell fifteen feet out of the tree landing on my head. Strangely enough, I was perfectly fine other than the shock of having fallen so far.

 

[sky14kemea]

1. I was in an arcade once and I saw a game that had a giant mallet thing and you had to hit a mark as hard as you can.

Naturally being an idiot, I didn't expect the hammer to bounce back up after I swung it down, and I ended up smacking myself in the face with the back end of the mallet at full force.

I had a migraine for the rest of the day. I'm lucky I didn't get a black eye.

2. I was trying to open a paint can with a pocket knife, and here in the UK they don't have locking mechanisms to stop the blade folding back in on itself. The blade slipped and folded back in onto me, so I ended up with it 'slightly' embedded in my finger.

I've also fallen down the stairs once, but I actually came out of it unscathed, so I don't think it counts.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I was leaving a car park that had one of those electric gates when it starting closing over. Usually this gate would stop closing and re-open if you walked up to it wiped something over the sensor. So it order to save time getting someone to re-open it I hopped out the car walked up to the gate as it was closing and stuck my bag over the sensor. However it didn't stop closing, so I tried leaning on it to get it to register that something was blocking it but it kept closing over. Realising this I jump back to get out the why but left a foot trailing and ended up getting it lodge against the gate post. Thankfully it stop short crushing my foot completely and a friend was able to help get me loose by wedging the gate with a plank of wood from a nearby skip. No damage beyond a slightly bruised foot and some very bruised pride.

 

[Abbyka]

Remembered a couple more from reading these stories.

While this one was completely not my fault, it was horrid timing. I reached up to catch a basketball when playing with my friends during recess. It bounced off the rim and directly at my fingers, which ended up jamming them badly. Docs made me wear a splint. Which happened to coincide with the guitar test in music class. My music teacher was a massive ***** and made me play anyways even though one of my fingers was in a splint. So in front of the class I went to play. 3 whole minutes of practically giving the one fingered salute to EVERYONE because the finger I jammed was my middle finger on the hand I needed to press the chords on the neck with. Thought I'd share this one because I'm sure it's amusing to anyone but me. lol

Now this one I can't believe I forgot because it truly was stupid and completely my fault. I was 8 or 9 years old and it was around the time the Olympics were going on. I adored the gymnastics stuff so my brother and I were playing Olympics in our bedroom. We had one of the loose boards from the bunk bed on the ground as a balancing beam(it was one of the boards from the side to keep you from rolling off). It was directly on the floor, so safe right? Yeah, unless you're a dumbass who thinks putting an American Flag on a stick IN your mouth is a good idea. I slipped and fell straight onto the tip of the flag. It dug a hole into the top palette in my mouth. I'm lucky it didn't stab me in the back of the throat or worse. Did this teach me a lesson? Nope. Ended up doing it again a couple of weeks later when I finally did learn my lesson.

Which reminds me of the first memory I have of getting hurt. LOL Same deal, much younger(I think 5). My brother and I were pretending to play fashion runway and I was the model. I'd put on my mom's dresses and I'd come out and my brother would look as snooty as possible(like the people on the TV show my mom watched) and do this sarcastic clap. My mom had a loose board in her closet she'd been meaning to fix but hadn't yet. On the end of it was a large nail. As I was coming out of the closet I tripped over the end of my mom's dress and fell. My wrist got completely impaled on the nail. For some reason I didn't cry much. I got up, sniffling a little, and went to the living room as my mom and dad were leaving for a date night. Well, let's just say they never went. I don't remember much about the doctor other than being in a room alone with my wrist under a bright light and a care bear band aid.

And recently I was crushing cans by hand to put into the recycling bag(saves space if you do that. My husband usually does it for me but he wasn't home so I was trying to do it myself. He always tells me to twist while crushing because I always have trouble doing it and he thinks I do it completely wrong. Well I tried his way and it was working well... until one of the cans somehow broke open. I sliced my thumb open on the can and didn't even realize it until I put the can into the bag. Felt like this enormous pressure on my thumb like I was still holding the can. Looked down and I was bleeding profusely. What sucks is after washing it and putting a band aid on it my toddler saw the band aid and decided the best course of action was to repeatedly JAB his thumb nails into the band aid. He caused the bleeding to start back up and I had to change the band aid. T_T

 

[Velociferocks]

Also anyone who builds computers fairly often might be able to back me up on this. Everything inside that case is waiting to cut your hands up, keep super glue and alcohol pads on hand to disinfect and seal up those wounds.

Definitely this. Also remember to pull out the power cord.
I was about 14 and was building my first computer and not have having a lot of money I went with a cheap PSU, the insulation on the wires must've degraded (I was opening it up to change to a better one). I grabbed all the wires to pull them out and got shocked pretty good, couldn't let go of the wires for like 4 or 5 seconds and ended up with some 1st degree burns.

 

[Denamic]

I once woke up in the middle of the night while I was still dreaming. The result is that I saw giant maggots crawling on the floor and walls, so naturally, I attacked the imaginary maggots crawling on the very solid stone tile floor with my feet. Had to use crutches for a week.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Also anyone who builds computers fairly often might be able to back me up on this. Everything inside that case is waiting to cut your hands up, keep super glue and alcohol pads on hand to disinfect and seal up those wounds.

Definitely this. Also remember to pull out the power cord.
I was about 14 and was building my first computer and not have having a lot of money I went with a cheap PSU, the insulation on the wires must've degraded (I was opening it up to change to a better one). I grabbed all the wires to pull them out and got shocked pretty good, couldn't let go of the wires for like 4 or 5 seconds and ended up with some 1st degree burns.

Superglue on wounds? That sounds painful and... weird?

 

[MajorTomServo]

Once when I was like 16, I pulled a water bottle out of the fridge once and found it was frozen. It was only frozen at the very top though. So, naturally, my dumbass teenage brain decides the solution is to pull out a knife and start stabbing the ice. It worked until I missed and stabbed myself and split my finger crotch. Then being thirsty was no longer my primary concern.

 

[FPLOON]

I remember getting a few paper cut in a row without picking up a single piece of paper...

Other than that, I still remember surviving a two-story drop in elementary school... One minute, I'm playing tag and the next I'm on the ground with a headache...

 

[DementedSheep]

I just remembered another one.

I have managed to cut myself removing the lid on one of those not once, not twice, but 3 times! If I ever become a super-villain plastic cups will be my mortal weakness.

 

[Valkrex]

When I was very young, like 3-4 years old, I saw that my mom was ironing some clothing in the other room. Me being the curious little idiot that I was went in to investigate. A few minutes later my mom turned off the iron and left the room to go answer the phone. I get the bright idea to help my mom while she's taking care of that, walk up to the ironing board and try to reach up and grab the iron and the clothing.

My right hand is on the ironing board, and a still VERY hot iron falls onto the back of my right hand, and I end up being rushed to the hospital for severe burns, but we were lucky enough to get there before skin grafts or anything else was needed.

I still have a scar from that nearly 20 years later.