Stupidest way you've hurt yourself...

Heh - yeah, I can see myself doing a lot of those.

A couple years ago I cut my finger pretty good with a kitchen knife. I was trying to stop the bleeding and my wife asked me what happened. I showed her, and ended up cutting my finger again. D'oh!
 
My brother wins this hands down.

When we were kids he (at age 7 or so) decided to see how much pressure he could put on his finger in our dads vise. So he put his finger in the vise and started cranking down on it. More and more pressure until he just couldn't stand it anymore.

Well, his finger ended up turning purple and swelling up to double the size. The nail got black and fell off. It ended up returning to normal but he still takes crap about it at every family gathering.

Oh, and I lost my two front teeth jumping off a toy box thinking of Superman and believing in my soul I could fly. I still remember that from age 5.
 
I remember as a young man working on a model airplane.
I was being smart and doing as I was taught in shop class:
"Always cut away from yourself"

Well I was cutting away from my body but holding the piece of wood at the far end.

X-Acto knife right through the webbing between my thumb and index finger.
 
Two stories here, both as a dumb teenager.

1. I had a really high powered BB gun thst used CO2 for propulsion. I shot my friend in the ass while he was sleeping and the bb got lodged. Later that night, we were both really drunk and he grabbed the gun and started threatening to pay me back so I charged him and a fight over the gun ensued. I put my hand over the barrel right as he fired and blew a hole in my my hand from the CO2 pressure. Needed stitches but was unable to get anesthesia since I was drunk.

2. New years eve, drunk as a skunk. Friend and I start wrestling in the living room and I back drop him through a glass coffe table, breaking it in half. I passed out on the couch and when I woke up the next day, getting off the couch, I swung my leg out and caught the edge of the broken glass and sliced my toe open. Didn't bother getting stitches and still have a gnarly scar to this day.
 
Hit myself in the head with a t-post (fence) driver. Thing weighed 20+lbs and my gloves slipped on the handles while I had it at forehead-level. Put a pretty good knot on my head, but I was more angry than hurt, especially with my mom and dad standing near me who couldn't stop laughing. smh
 
I jumped on the edge of a shovel for some reason. SMH. Also decided it would be fun to hit a basketball with a metal bat. My face thought otherwise.
 
Got smacked in the mouth as a kid with a baseball bat. We were using them to hit lightning bugs at night. Tooth is still crooked to this day.
 
Not caused by me, but when I was around 6 the dude who lives next door was in his back yard with a golf club and a ball. Being a little kid always wondering what is going on and interested in everything, I go stand behind him thinking he is only going to putt around for we are in a neighborhood full of homes. Nope he pulls back with a full swing and slams the ball. On the swing through he caught me in the adam's apple. I could not eat for a week, I thought I would die from not being able to breath. No one took me to the doctor or hospital. I lived with it.

Then when I was 19 I was cutting steel with a cutting torch. I had been working for about 12 hrs and it was around 1am. I am cutting along and all of a sudden I see the grease get blown off my hand. I pull the goggles off to see I cut right over the top of my hand. Blew all the skin off the tops of my fingers.

In a local park someone hung a rope way up in this tree. It hung over this deep gorge lined with rocks and rocks about 75' at the bottom. We would swing on that rope. Only one person fell and lived. The other one died. I walked away without a scratch. My friends talk about this still today, someone the other day posted the story on my facebook page. I forgot all about it.

Dropped my bike at 130 mph no helmet slide 400' down the pavement, cops right behind me.

Those are but a few.

Tony
 
I was 13 and went all Rambo on a can of Campbells Vegetable Beef soup. We had just moved and I couldn't find the can opener, but I knew where my bad-ass knife with the hollow handle and the compass in the end was.

Holding the can with my left hand I plunged the knife into that poor defenseless can and started cutting. It actually worked. But about 1/2 way around the knife came out. I stuck it back in to keep going but it deflected slightly and I pinned my hand to kitchen counter between my thumb and fore finger. Pause. Pull knife out, look at 'meat' on knife and go find Dad. Pour some peroxide on it and get some lunch.

Luckily I missed any tendons and such. Now I carry a P38 on my key ring. :D
 
Pruning a tree in the backyard. Pulled down a limb and a small branch went straight into my ear channel and badly bruised my eardrum. It resulted in a new family expression for doing something careless, "you'll put an ear out".
 
Old Geek said:
Pruning a tree in the backyard. Pulled down a limb and a small branch went straight into my ear channel and badly bruised my eardrum. It resulted in a new family expression for doing something careless, "you'll put an ear out".
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:rollercoaster:
 
Captain said:
Oh, and I lost my two front teeth jumping off a toy box thinking of Superman and believing in my soul I could fly. I still remember that from age 5.
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If you can believe it, you can achieve it! You obviously didn't believe enough.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Old Geek said:
Pruning a tree in the backyard. Pulled down a limb and a small branch went straight into my ear channel and badly bruised my eardrum. It resulted in a new family expression for doing something careless, "you'll put an ear out".
Click to expand...

I did something similar when drunk.. Stuck a glow bracelet in each ear, Ruptured my left eardrum.. WORST 8 weeks of my life waiting for it to heal.
 
Gucci Pilot said:
Friend broke his leg playing golf...
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Mine did the same thing....granted, I contributed by flipping the golf cart. But, I maintain that he should NOT have put his leg out to try and "stop" it from tipping....:rofl: :nono:
 
It's amazing what people will admit to having done without posting anonymously.

I don't think I've ever injured myself in a stupid way, but I did scare the bejeebers out of myself once. I mentioned this once a few years ago and someone posted a link to something online where apparently it's an old wives tale. I swear I was absolutely stupid enough to do this.

I was working on the back side of my roof that has a 12/12 pitch so I fastened a rope around my waist and tied the other end to the bumper of my wife's truck. Several minutes later it occurred to me that if she was going anywhere she'd probably just jump in the truck and take off w/o looking. (you have to know my wife to know how true that would be) I've never scrambled so fast to get off a roof.
 
Also model airplane related. Have a .25 sized Corsair that's converted to electric (Power 25/3S/12x8). Pulled a 48 hour shift at the airport, buddies told me "come flying, you're not THAT tired" Plane is a belly lander so you have to toss it. Had transmitter in one hand, plane in other - realized I couldn't throw left handed. Thought I'd outsmart the arming sequence for the speed controller, switched it on - OUCH
 

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Oh - another stupid moment, this one happened a few months ago:

My race car wouldn't start, so I figured it had run out of gas. I was trying to remove the fuel cap which has safety wire on it to keep it from disappearing should it happen to come lose on the track. It was under a great deal of pressure from what I assumed was vapor locking, so I couldn't pull it off by the cap itself, so I tried to pull the cap by the safety wire instead. It worked, but when it came lose, my hand slid down the wire and I felt an immense pain, like I had just filleted my thumb open.

It was covered in blood, so when I cleaned it up, I was surprised to see only a small wound on one side. I put a small amount of pressure on the wound and blood squirted from the other side of my thumb. Turns out I punctured the wire all the way through my thumb. What pain.

When I looked in the tank, it was half full. Turns out, I had neglected to flip the fuel pump switch on when I tried to engage the starter. All that pain and blood was for naught.
 
Ok so I am not a gun guy but I went to the range years ago with a friend that had a gun and we rented a bay or whatever you call it.

I didn't even know how to hold the thing but I had seen it on TV so I was cool.
I was a total poser but my friend was a real gangster. Or maybe gangstah

I have no idea what type of gun it was but it was badass.
I think it was like the Mega Blaster 9000 X (ok, it was a little davis 380 but still. I was a teenager)

He loaded it up with the metal thingys and showed me the safety and which part of the gun faces away from the shooter when pushing (or was it pulling) the trigger.

So I go to fire it at the target and I have it straight out with both hangs around it and my thumbs crossed on top of one another.

I pull the trigger and KABLOOM!
Blood goes everywhere.

That's an exaggeration but there was blood all over my hands and fore arms.

I had NO idea what happened. I was something like 73% sure I hadn't been shot but I panicked a little as though I had been shot (which was real cute).

The top of the cocky back thingy that slides back when firing came back as it tends to do. On the return trip removed the skin off the top of my left thumb.

I still have the scars. Well, they are emotional scars but they are there.
 
I had help with this one. I have two older brothers, one's about 18 months older, the other is about 5 years older.

So one day we're outside, it's me, my two brothers and one of their friends. Someone figures out a way to have fun. Two of us will ride our bikes up and down the street, while the other two will throw nerf footballs at them to try and hit them! What could possibly go wrong?

Of course me being the youngest there, I get to be one of the ones riding my bike. The first few times, no issues, I got hit a couple times, but it's a nerf football, nothing that can actually hurt you.... unless you're riding as fast as you can and said nerf football gets jammed in the spokes of your front wheel. The wheel kept turning... until the football hit the front fork on the bike and then it stopped. Completely. Meanwhile me and the bike tried to keep going. I literally flipped over the handlebars and landed flat on my back. Amazingly walked away with a few scrapes, but we weren't allowed to play that game anymore.
 
Several years ago, when I was racing sports cars, I was cleaning up the race car trailer and moved a tire onto a pile of other stuff. Unbeknownst to me, there was a small dry chemical fire extinguisher in that pile. Said fire extinguisher had a _plastic_ safety pin, so when the tire landed on it, the pin sheared and WHOOOF the extinguisher discharged.

Ever seem a fire extinguisher go off? It's a big mess - huge clouds of white very fine dust – more like smoke - everywhere. Damn. Fortunately, this was outside. Very inconvenient but no injuries or serious damage.

In addition to being messy as hell, dry chemical extinguisher powder iscorrosive, so it had to be cleaned up. I grabbed the leaf blower and, of course, donned safety glasses, hearing protection, a hat, nitrile gloves and a painting respirator - breathing that powder isn't good.

My leaf blower has some serious power. I was nearly done when I dropped the fearsome, shrieking leaf blower. I reached for it reflexively and as it bounced off the concrete, the plastic blade guard snapped off, allowing my left hand too close to the 9,000 rpm fan blades.

Yes, it made an audible chunking noise. Even with earplugs in, I could hear it. And it hurt a lot, right away.

I hoped it was a small amount of blood from just nicking my finger, but there was too much blood for that. Despite the glove filling with blood and starting to drip and spatter, I knew I had to finish the cleaning. Which I did.

Then, I ran into the utility sink and started rinsing the wound. It was not at all pretty. And, oh, boy, did that hurt. I was getting weak in the knees from the pain and shock, although it did help to remove the respirator so I could breathe.

Rinsed everything for 5-10 minutes. Nasty stuff, indeed. Really gross. You could see well into the finger - that nasty hamburger-looking mixture that is human flesh.

Got it cleaned, well-bandaged, and got the bleeding stopped. I removed nearly 1/2" of my left middle fingertip, though no fingernail damage. Five years later, that fingertip is occasionally numb and the fingernail grows much faster than the others. I got lucky.
 
A former boss of mine told me a story of when he was a kid and was mowing the lawn on a slope. He was taking his time, going across the slope and his dad had to "show him how it's done", then promptly chopped his big toe off. They looked for it, he wasn't sure exactly why. They couldn't find it so his dad headed to the hospital without it and he went back to mowing the lawn. He did find the toe a few minutes after his dad left. He scratched his head for a minute, not sure what to do, then he tossed it in the barrel with the rest of the trash they were burning and got back to work.
 
2 gun stories, when most people would have stopped after the first gun story.

1) bunch of years ago back in jersey, hanging out with a bud, drinking beers (SHOCKER, I know), shooting squirrels and beer cans with a bb gun. well after ">1 beers" I told my friend "you gotta shoot me, I have to know if it hurts" so I walk about 10 feet away and turn around, tell my bud to shoot me in the back on the count of 3, so sure enough on the count of 2 he shoots me. well, it hurts.

2) bunch of years ago back in jersey, hanging out with a bud, drinking beers (SHOCKER, I know), hhmm, sounds familiar.....roaring campfire, ">1 beers", I tell my friend who's sitting next to his paintball gun "you gotta shoot me, I have to know if it hurts" so I walk about 10 feet away and turn around, tell my bud to shoot me in the back on the count of 3, so sure enough on the count of 2 he shoots me.

there will be no 3rd gun story.
 
A little oblique to this thread, but I'll tell a story about my Dad.

We lived on acreage in the woods and had a garden in a clearing about 100 yards from the house and outbuildings. Dad used to "motor" his rototiller down to the garden when it was time to till. At the time of the story, most new lawn and garden equipment had been "upgraded" with kill switches and other safety devices like deflectors on the exit chute of lawnmower decks. Part of the softening of America, my Dad thought.

So he tied off the kill switch on his tiller, just like the ones on our lawnmowers and the other motorized stuff.

Anyway, one day he's motoring the tiller to the garden and runs over a nest of yellow jackets. They swarm out and begin making Dad's life miserable. He bails out from behind the tiller and takes off through the woods, followed by a cloud of stinging insects.

Meanwhile, the tiller continues onward, chugging through the woods, oblivious to the yellow jackets which are attempting to sting it. It continues until it hits a tree and turns over on its side, still running.

Which was when it caught on fire from the fuel spilling from the overturned gas tank.

I can picture in my mind my Dad running around like a madman, oblivious to the tiller mindlessly chugging along until bump, then WHOOSH!

Makes me chuckle every time I think about it.

PS. The tiller only suffered a melted gas tank, and Dad recovered from the multiple stings. He may have learned an important lesson about safety devices...
 
:eek::yikes::hairraise:

I just realize that I live a boring life...
 
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eman1200 said:
2 gun stories, when most people would have stopped after the first gun story.

1) bunch of years ago back in jersey, hanging out with a bud, drinking beers (SHOCKER, I know), shooting squirrels and beer cans with a bb gun. well after ">1 beers" I told my friend "you gotta shoot me, I have to know if it hurts" so I walk about 10 feet away and turn around, tell my bud to shoot me in the back on the count of 3, so sure enough on the count of 2 he shoots me. well, it hurts.

2) bunch of years ago back in jersey, hanging out with a bud, drinking beers (SHOCKER, I know), hhmm, sounds familiar.....roaring campfire, ">1 beers", I tell my friend who's sitting next to his paintball gun "you gotta shoot me, I have to know if it hurts" so I walk about 10 feet away and turn around, tell my bud to shoot me in the back on the count of 3, so sure enough on the count of 2 he shoots me.

there will be no 3rd gun story.
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There are three kinds of people in the world--those who can count, and those who can't. Now that you have developed some judgement, you need friends who can count.
 
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eman1200 said:
2 gun stories, when most people would have stopped after the first gun story.

1) bunch of years ago back in jersey, hanging out with a bud, drinking beers (SHOCKER, I know), shooting squirrels and beer cans with a bb gun. well after ">1 beers" I told my friend "you gotta shoot me, I have to know if it hurts" so I walk about 10 feet away and turn around, tell my bud to shoot me in the back on the count of 3, so sure enough on the count of 2 he shoots me. well, it hurts.

2) bunch of years ago back in jersey, hanging out with a bud, drinking beers (SHOCKER, I know), hhmm, sounds familiar.....roaring campfire, ">1 beers", I tell my friend who's sitting next to his paintball gun "you gotta shoot me, I have to know if it hurts" so I walk about 10 feet away and turn around, tell my bud to shoot me in the back on the count of 3, so sure enough on the count of 2 he shoots me.

there will be no 3rd gun story.
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Reminds me of being 9 years old, living on Post. One year for Halloween, the guy that ran the PX offered to give me the coolest costume ever, if I'd man the paintball booth and let people shoot me in costume. It was a spaceman costume, with helmet and some minor padding.

Turns out, standing 12 feet from people shooting 10 pain balls for hours at a time was not ok with such minor pads. I hurt for weeks with bruises all over my body.
 
Captain said:
My brother wins this hands down.

When we were kids he (at age 7 or so) decided to see how much pressure he could put on his finger in our dads vise. So he put his finger in the vise and started cranking down on it. More and more pressure until he just couldn't stand it anymore.

Well, his finger ended up turning purple and swelling up to double the size. The nail got black and fell off. It ended up returning to normal but he still takes crap about it at every family gathering.

Oh, and I lost my two front teeth jumping off a toy box thinking of Superman and believing in my soul I could fly. I still remember that from age 5.
Click to expand...

We used to pretend to play the finger in the vise game on the ship when I was in the Navy. We did it in front of the Nubs (new guys) until one of them would try it. We could always get one one of the to put both thumbs in there...We would crank it down just enough to lock them in place...and then walk away...:rofl:
 
I was about mid teen, when super balls were invented and hit the market. I thought How neat, great amo for my home made cannon. I loaded about 60 grains of black powder in the cannon stuffed a 1" super ball in the muzzle, and aimed it at the side of the garage, and set it off.
It missed the garage wall but did hit the window over my dad's work bench. fortunately my dad was not at his work bench but still in the garage, the super ball hit every thing in the garage about twice including my dad. the wounds were not self inflicted but it was painful to set down for about 2 weeks.
 
My dad told me about a man who just put a tire on a split rim back togther. he was leaning over the tire and airing it up when the ring came off. It took the guys head off and slammed it against the ceiling. He said it was a mess.

Then he told me when working on semi's he had one come in he had to clean up. A man decided to kill himself and stepped out in front of this truck. Dad said that man was all over the engine. He said, you know they don't take all the pieces when you do something like this, they just take the big pieces. The rest is left for others to clean up. He said he power washed that truck a dozen times and was still picking that guy off the engine.
 
I was sitting on the toilet and my phone rang. I quickly got up to get it and apparently my leg had gone to sleep. My first good step on the numb limb and I rolled it over and fell over. I actually broke my foot in the process.

Sometimes the stories we make up were better. My wife had her left hand in a brace due to tendonitis. I was drilling for a new drain pipe with one of these monster drill bits when it grabbed and torqued my left hand around so I was in a brace. We were in a planning meeting at the museum and people see us both in braces and want to know what happened...we mimic sparring with each other.
 
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Years ago my neighbor had his arm in one those casts where it's attached at the waist to keep the arm elevated at shoulder height. I asked what happened and he said he'd been in a fight at a bar the previous weekend and a couple guys messed him up. After he walked away, my other neighbor said he liked that story better then the real one about tripping and falling while mowing the lawn.
 
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