The 'What's the dumbest self-inflicted injury you ever had' thread

[Markoneswift]

Hey all,

There may be a thread like this already but I just thought it would be fun to put together a kind of 'AK Fail Army' sort of thing

I'll start off with - lifting a box of childrens toys and nearly blinding myself ! I was moving house and had piled a heap of kids toys into a box. Assuming it would be heavy, I got a buddy to help me pick up the box. Turns out, it was a very light box and I looked down as we both lifted it - one of the neatly vertically stacked toy swords plunged itself into my eye socket and I swear I have never felt pain like that either before or since ! I couldn't see properly for about four days after.

I also once fired a pencil with a catapult, only to have the pencil embed itself into the webbing between my thumb and finger - I still have chunks of lead stuck in there to this day.

 

[Descartridge]

After a hurricane, my neighbor's wooden fence fell all over her yard.
Organizing the mess, I stepped on a rusty nail which punctured my foot. I spent 2 hours in an "emergency" room.

 

[vonclod]

Cut most of my thumbnail off with a hot exacto knife..cutting plastic in my model building day's..dumb dumb dumb. Good thing the knife was hot as it self cauterised

 

[4-2-7]

I hate the ones where your poking and prying with something sharp towards your other hand. As your thinking this is not a good idea, you stab yourself.....to late

One time I did it with a 1/4" chisel and stabbed my palm really bad and deep, there was so much blood I almost pueked.

 

[SuperjazzyJa]

When the younger of my 2 sons was 2, he was sick and throwing up all over the floor. I picked him up to carry him to the toilet, but I picked him up the wrong way and hurt my back. I was off my feet that whole day and another day a couple of months later. It hasn't put me out of commission again in the 24 years since, but every once in a while, I get warning pains telling me to take it easy.

 

[SolderIron]

My first marriage.

 

[whoaru99]

Winning a game of mumblety-peg.

 

[bobsvinyl]

Cleaning my gutters one Memorial Day and stepped out with one foot from the top of a picnic table to the deck railing to get the end of the gutter. All was fine until I stepped back to the wet table, lost my footing and landed between the bench seat and the deck railing.

Damage: Broken bone in right hand, sprained ankle, concussion and badly bruised back. I was home from work for 6 weeks. I never thought I could cause that much damage with such a short fall.

 

[savatage1973]

Self inflicted injuries, eh? First hang-over in my teens (well below drinking age), and it was a rough one. Completing a 5-year degree program in 4 years while working and participating in a fraternity--total time from HS to PhD--8 years--working the whole way. Breaking 4 bones in my foot by rolling a stock car over it while tuning the engine--not even my car--I ran drag cars. Leaning into the engine compartment doing some tuning, high RPMs and no chock block on the wheel--drifted over my left foot and broke 4 bones. I didn't even know until hours later--walked it off (lots of profanity involved), went home and took a nap--woke up with a purple foot the size of a basketball going "thud, thud, thud". Then my last "big one", in my own drag car--and I ran nitromethane rails--axle sheared and I had just passed a trap at 189 mph--car flipped 9 tiimes--my cousin beat the emergency crew there on the track and held up two fingers and asked me how many, and I asked where--4 days later I went home from the hospital with a concussion.

I'll guess that I have gotten a little more "responsible" over the decades, but I still "play it loud", drive too fast and do other "idiot" things. But I am still living, not just dying.

 

[91r100gs]

The four weeks of my life recovering from trying to chop my foot off with the lawn mower. 4 hours in the ER, 256 stitches in 3 layers and the only ambulance ride of my life. This happened in 1986. Want to know how bad today's medical industry is ripping us off. My total bill for everything $466. Today I would hate to guess how much that would cost.

 

[KLH9]

I was shaving one morning, something I have done successfully for the past half a century, when while finishing up the right side with my left hand I nicked the bottom of my ear and "flinched".

I ended up with a 6" gash from my ear to the center of my throat.....

The sad thing other then bleeding all over the sink was that I did not even end up with a cool scar to discuss at parties (you should have seen the other guy kind of conversations)..... First thing I did was to wrap my neck in a towel then clean up my custom made razor so that it would not get any pitting or staining.....

 

[meggy]

There's "dumbest" and then there's "worst".

 

[Condorsat]

When I was going though my "Yan Can Cook" fast knife skills phase ... damn near cut my thumb off according to the
ER room staff. I still enjoy using knives to prep food but I've slowed down.

 

[highvoltage_]

Was trimming down a small stump with an axe. Was called into the house, so went to seat the axe in the remainder of the stump. The axe ricocheted off the stump and into my ankle. A trip to the emergency room and stitches.

 

[sfox52]

I did a similar stunt as 91r100gs, I whacked my left big toe with a lawn mower blade. It broke the bone and required stitches, but I was back to work soon after. This was in the mid eighties, I was renting a room from a friend & used to help with the yard work. He still lives in that house, and the scene of the incident is still known as Toe Chop Hill.

 

[mfrench]

What do this blue bucket, these rocks, and this 90º corner of the tailgate of a pickup have in common?


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Are you sure that you want to know?


OK,....
I received permission from a job site superintendent to gather as many of these granite boulders as I needed/wanted for a drainage project that I needed to do on the rear corner of my property. The job site had what was nearly an acre of them, and probably 15' deep over that acre, the result of blasting giant house size boulders.
So, I decided to try to gather them all in the same day (yeah, right).
The rocks were really large, bigger than I can lift. I did this routine all day lng, and I was tired; tired enough to make stupid decisions.
Decision:
I needed to get into the bed of the truck to remove a couple of rocks that were forward and centered in the bed. So, what do I do?
I grabbed the Lowes bucket, and decided to use it as a step into the bed.

Now, for some back story...
I'm always on Sarge, the Spousal Unit, to make sure that she doesn't grab some random itme around the house to reach for something on that top shelf. I implore to her that that is a sure way to fall, and injure ones self.

So, I grab the Lowes bucket, and use it to step into the bed; It worked all day, and, worked well the day before as well. So here goes.
I step onto the bucket, step up onto the bed, with one foot. While I was balanced on one foot on the bucket, stepping off of it, it exploded, and I started to fall, straight down, vertically. The tailgate came up right between my legs, and it caught me with its full unmoving, uncaring, self. It caught me right in the junk.
So, I'm dangling by my boys on the corner of the tailgate, with all of my 350lbs, for what seemed like hours (merely a split fraction of a second), and I can feel the stucco-like bed liner, the sharp corner, etc. The tailgate is quite high, about mid-abdoment to me (6'6" me)
Finally, the corner of the tailgate decided to let go of my junk, which was a relief, believe me. But, the tailgate wasn't exactly through with me just yet, no.
The tailgate released its hold on my junk, and, I fell vertically another couple of inches, when the corner of the tailgate grabbed ahold of my belly, just below the belly button, and I painfully dangled in that position for the next coiuple of hours (mere split second, in reality), before the tailgate released me from that second grasp. At that point, I proned out to a horizontal attitude, still haveing not fallen, or touched the ground. When I went prone, I finally was able to fall that 3'+ to the ground, landing squarely on my back, and feeling that breath being forced from my lungs.
There was a ring of dust that rose up, and, began to settle out. I was laying there, hoping that when I tried for a breath, that I would actually be able to get a breath. I was shocked when I realized that I could still breath.
What is the first thing that I hear?
Sarge: Would you like a ladder or stepstool to get into your truck bed, so that you don't fall? She had seen the fall from the very instant that it started.
OK,.... now I wish that I couldn't get my breath back, and that there would be a merciful quick end to follow.

My first words...
I think I nutted myself.

In the fall, I had completely torn away a pair of nylon shorts. The only thing holding them on was the waistband.
The tailgate had gotten ahold of my junk, and had torn a line straight up and down, leaving a deep, but not a complete tear. It was a deep laceration, but, not an open gaping hole. Somehow righty went right, and lefty, went left, and they avoided the can opener of the tailgate. But, their warm fuzzy little home didn't fair as well. THere was blood, and a fair amount of it.
So, what do you do when the tailgate can opener tears you junk open? Why, you go to the bathroom, and you pull out the Isopropyl Alcohol, and you liberally poutr it on, to sterilize the area, of course.
Let me tell you, that was probably not the wisest thing to do. Pain? I'm tellin' you what. That alcohol was intense.
Then I went to the dresser, grabbed some tighty whities to act as a bandaid, grabbed another pair of shorts, and I went and got another load of rocks.... But not before I cleaned the blood, skin, and hairs, off of the corner of the tailgate.

Suggestion: Don't use Lowes buckets as stepstools.

 

[El Pee]

Not a horrible injury, but a good story:
My wife was 8 months pregnant with our first kid, and I was cooking dinner.
Managed to slice my finger pretty good with a knife.... so off to the ER we go.

We get to the ER and everyone rushes to help her! They sit her down in a wheelchair and take us right in... then she has to tell them that she's not in labor, that it was her dumb-assed husband who cut his finger.

If you ever want to be treated like a king in an emergency room, bring a pregnant lady with you!

 

[MKF83]

Caught my pinky in the closing bolt of an AR-15 - Popped like a cherry tomato.
Had to finish the match with a busted finger.

 

[mfrench]

I hate the ones where your poking and prying with something sharp towards your other hand. As your thinking this is not a good idea, you stab yourself.....to late

One time I did it with a 1/4" chisel and stabbed my palm really bad and deep, there was so much blood I almost pueked.

Yep.
Ready for another tale of the stupid?
I have a screwdriver that is smaller than your typical #2 Phillips head (a #1?) It is a very sharp point on this screwdriver.
Well, I was trying to loosen (or tighten, I don't recall) a screw. I decided that my left hand made the best clamping device for this. So, I'm shoving this sharp screwdriver into the object held in my left hand. I slipped, and the screwdriver entered my flesh on the mid-joint of my thumb, on the outside of my thumb, it went behind the flexion tendon of the thumb, and went through the webbing between the thumb and forefinger,, finally hitting the bone at the base of my pointer finger, where it came to a stop. So, I managed to stab myself multiple inches from my thumb to my forefinger. This also damaged the nerve to my thumb, and I wasn't able to feel anything on the outside of my thumb for a few years. It has since returned to normal. I still have a perfect X scar from the tip of the screwdriver, at the entry point.

I'm just getting started here, folks.

 

[1ontop=]

Apropos to the AK theme .. 10 days ago I dropped a speaker on my foot. Fortunately it was only 12-15 lbs vs. the other 50+ lb speakers in my collection. The corner of the cabinet struck the top of my foot .. damn near passed out! Instant humungous swelling and bruising. Saw two doctors and had x rays taken. No fractures, still recuperating, doing well.