How many accidents have you had?

I was thinking about some of the TE'ers who have had some pretty bad accidents lately. I've also thought about the mishaps I've encountered. Let's see, when I was in grade school, my bedroom got blown to smithereens by lightning. In high school I played basketball and came down wrong on a jump shot and blew the ACL. I also backed into a cool 70's camaro that belonged to a police officer, and rear-ended a lawyer whose car almost ended up in a fountain in front of a university. Then of course my latest--a dumb endo on the pavement.

I was wondering.....how many accidents have you had?

All my worst car accidents have been in red Beetles.

When I was 7 my mom was driving me to school in our '67 red Beetle, and she clipped someone's fender at a stop sign while making a left. I cracked the windshield with my head because I wasn't sitting back like she always told me. I'm glad it was the side of my head, because if I had been sitting back it could have been my face. :O

When I was 20 I was driving my '72 red Beetle and I spun around on a curved bridge on black ice. Both bumpers of the car hit time and again as I banked down the bridge. Nothing was damaged except the bumpers and the tail pipe.

When I was 44 (last year :) ), a street sweeper ran a red light going down hill, and totaled my 2001 red New Beetle, and gave me whiplash.

I don't drive a red Beetle anymore. :)

Bike accidents: When I was 9, I rode my Schwinn Flying Star down a side trail which I took to avoid going down a steep hill. I let my front wheel go off into a washout while looking back over my shoulder, and I endo'd after I hit a large boulder head-on. My nose struck the bolt holding the handlebars on. My nose broke. I passed out and had a concussion.

I was rushed to the hospital in a red Beetle. :O

Karen

It all happened when I decided to play fireman as a kid.

My father was a fireman and so as a child, we of course, had a dalmation.

I had the brilliant idea to take the metal ladder from the swingset and put my arms through it and slide it around my waist. I then hooked the dalmation dog (Sissy) up to a red metal wagon by her collar with a jump rope and sat in the wagon.

Well, Sissy was a runner. You couldn't let her out of the gate in the yard without her taking off, which, I of course was counting on to get me to the imaginary fire. Off we went at lightning speed down the street. Here we come to save the day!

Enter squirrel -

She saw the squirrel in someones yard, and like any dog would do, took off after it, me in tow. This might have all gone over without mishap if there wasn't the curb. Not the nice, rolling curb that you can ride a bike up and down, but the kind of curb that is STRAIGHT up and down. The 90 degree kind.

The front wheel of the wagon hit the curb, I flew out of the wagon and landed face down, ladder implanted in the grass, hovering above the lawn with only my feet touching the grass.

Don't recall ever putting the fire out that day!

Never did that again!!!

Oh, and now that I think about it, there was a red Beetle that was always parked a few houses away. I wonder if it was there that day?!

I haven't had much major -

• as a child I fell out of a tree and broke my nose on the way down
  
• hit a bump or something in the road and flew through the handlebars of a friend's banana bike, needed stitches in my chin
  
• in college stumbled and fell while hiking, split open my forehead. When they rolled me over I remember someone asking if anyone knew first aid. I said "I do"
  Concussion, stitches in my forehead, and some lost feeling in my forehead to this day.
  
• more fun in college - hit in head with an elbow while playing volleyball. Concussion, skull fracture, some hearing loss, and vertigo. Still have issues with the vertigo
  
• learning to use clipless pedals - fell over at a complete stop, and did a face plant on concrete steps at the office. Broke nose, again.
  
• And most recently, that did actually get me an ambulance ride to the hospital - found out the hard way I have a food allergy. :eek: Full blown anaphalytic shock in a restaurant. Fortunately I had an epi-pen, and figured I'd better use it, before I passed out. The suspect food was squid, but when my blood was tested (at the Mayo Clinic), I didn't show an allergy. So my doc is confused and is trying to figure out what to test me for, or see if there's a skin test available. We do know I had a severe reaction to something. and the only new food I ate was the squid. :confused:

(all required trips to the ER in one way or another except nose break #2)

Oh, geez, we're listing ALL our accidents, cycling, other sports, car, motorcycle, kitchen, slip and fall, everything?

Y'all don't have enough room for mine :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

I was rushed to the hospital in a red Beetle. :O Karen

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I'm sorry........I can't stop laughing!! :D :p

Flybye--HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Your stories are the best medicine!

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

Oh, geez, we're listing ALL our accidents, cycling, other sports, car, motorcycle, kitchen, slip and fall, everything?

Y'all don't have enough room for mine :rolleyes:

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Ya gotta share at least ONE memorable moment in the natural world. ;) C'mon, pretty please?

Last time there was a thread on this topic I got a PM "you always seem to win these" so I'll sit this one out !
(Actually I am in my Terrible Tractor Nearly Squished to Deff Accident Anniversary period with accompanying post-traumatix. No sudden noises or movements, please.)

So this is bike, car, squirrel meets ladder meets dog? Everything counts? :)

about 4, fell on a chicken feeder. 7 stitches across the nose.

took up whittling. Cut my thumb.

car crash, VW rolled on I5, compression fracture of vertebrae.

At aikido a guy falls on my knee, torn ACL and all the stuff around it.

In the kitchen; cooking at Cafe Valerian someone puts the mats upside down, hot soup stock all up the front of my body. Emergency first aid, quick thinking and EMTs at Kaiser you can't see the scars now.

In kitchen at home carrying block of cheddar cheese, slip and broke my ankle.

3 bike crashes to date, no damage to Trek;

rode about 15 feet off a creek bed, tucked and perfect forward roll with the bike, I'm ok. (wheels taco'd though). I meant to do that, been meaning to upgrade the wheels.

hit bay car on Broadway near College Ave, again took a roll and I'm ok. Bike totaled, scavenged the parts onto the next bike.

near miss also on College. Emergency right hand turn and saved the crash.

Don't know if I could do any of that again so hope that' s all folks.

Gosh, Flybye! I can really picture that ladder wreck! lol.

Karen

Right now I'm sporting a broken toe from a chair that stepped into my path.

let's see...
Broken hand, various broken toes at various times

80 stitches and minus one peach-sized chunk of me from bike wreck.

Spading fork through hand and nicked two fingers besides when digging for worms with sister to go fishing.

Broken collarbone from commuting bike wreck

Broken same collarbone in two more places from bike wreck during mountain bike race a couple of years later, also knocked out and had concussion

Rebroke same collarbone a week later in another mountain bike race.

Broken rib during fun ride

5 stitches in arm and 1 in artery when large mirror broke over my back during house cleaning.

Cut pinky tendon working with exacto knife, to this day I look prissy drinking with the darn thing sticking up (it doesn't bend on the end anymore)

Broken said pinky finger a number of times because it does stick straight out and gets jammed into stuff

That's about the worst of it, nothing too bad really. Been lucky in being healthy for the most part. :)

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Originally Posted by bmccasland

We do know I had a severe reaction to something. and the only new food I ate was the squid. :confused:

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Hey Beth, maybe you reacted to the spices or oil or something it was cooked in - I know peanuts are one of the things people get really nasty allergic reactions too, and I think you can cook in peanut oil. Just a thought.

Beth, I agree with lph, the squid could have been cooked in something you react to. At least until you find out what, I hope you always have that epi pen with you!

I'll play the injury game a bit later - when I'm at work, they actually want me to work!

H&B
~T~

I guess I can't feel too bad :D :D :D

So soo many Yeoores around. :p Well I shouldn't talk cause I'm one too.

smilingcat

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Originally Posted by sundial

I was wondering.....how many accidents have you had?

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Of note: 3 bike and 2 car.
For the car....Nothing novel or entertaining...just stupid accidents. I rear-ended a car once, and in a spat of karma, got rear-ended myself. But...those were about 15 years apart. The rear-endee resulted in my herniated disc issues.

For the bike...
1. Playing "chicken" with my neighbor, Scott, on the bikes when I was very young (10ish??). Old bolt-on front wheels. Neither of us chickened out. Head on crash. Bolt from his front wheel sliced into my knee. I still have the scar.
2. Chasing an ex-BF ("A$$-hole" to my family) down a bike trail on my mtb. Launched myself off a waterbar and into a tree. No idea how. Torn LCL and medial meniscus. Got a nice scar for that one. :rolleyes:
3. Doing the sunday ride with the LBS...Beach Drive...a pack of about 8 of us, cruising along at about 20 mph. Dumb guy in front of me grabs a fist full of brakes and zigs around a pothole, rather than bunnyhopping it and calling out. He takes out 2 of us. One falls to the right and into the dirt. I fall to the left and onto the pavement. Major road rash on my hip and I tore my favorite pair of shorts. No scars for that one, but it was a painful flight home (was living in MA at the time).

Oh...and I suppose I can add skiing.
Was skiing down a bunny slope at Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire when I caught an edge in a slush puddle and went flying. Pulled muscles. Major ego bruise. I hate spring skiing. I love the weather....hate the snow.

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Originally Posted by smilingcat

I guess I can't feel too bad :D :D :D

So soo many Yeoores around. :p Well I shouldn't talk cause I'm one too.

smilingcat

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Ok, ya got me, what in the heck is a Yeoore???

Eeyore?

By the way, that was no accident. I meant to do that. Yeah.

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Originally Posted by zencentury

By the way, that was no accident. I meant to do that. Yeah.

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I meant to punch out the wall. I didn't mean to break my hand. But that was a long time ago.... :cool:

Reading through this thread, I feel very, very lucky. And I'm scared to say that I've never had any serious accidents, because I'm sure that will jinx me (knock on wood). I mean, I've had a few spills here and there while hiking, biking, etc. but no broken bones, only needed stitches once (see below) and am generally pretty healthy.

Wait, I guess there was the time that I chopped the tip of my thumb off with a hatchet when I was 9. But, besides that! :p

ETA: Ah, just had a flashback after reading boy_in_a_kilt's mention of train tracks. Crossed a set of tracks at about a 15 degree angle and the front wheel snagged and I flipped over. I have a nice road rash tattoo in my elbow thanks to that. I did a pretty good recreation of this sign commonly seen around Portland:
http://trimet.org/images/howtoride/b...lling_sign.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sundial

Ya gotta share at least ONE memorable moment in the natural world. ;) C'mon, pretty please?

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Oh.....

Bicycle wrecks, two stand out.

First one, I was 14 years old, riding down the hill. This kid from my high school (on foot) wanted to play chicken. He got out of the way. His fishing line didn't, and it caught my handlebar. Badly sprained shoulder that will never be right (no such thing as reconstructing ligaments in those days). I think it was three weeks that I had to pick my right hand up with my left hand and put it on my school desk so I could write.

Fast forward 15 years. I'm riding a touring bike, but this friend of mine has decided he's going to get me into racing. Well, okay. We drive out to the state park, do some downhill intervals, and then we're doing a simulated crit in the parking lot. Only nobody's told me that the inside pedal is supposed to be up in the corners, especially on a long-wheelbase, low bottom bracket touring bike. So I stick a pedal in a corner at 21 mph and that's the last thing I remember. The way he tells it, all my forward momentum got translated into straight up. I'm launched five feet into the air, jackknife front to back, then turn upside down and land head first, with sparks coming out of the strap rivet on my helmet. Next thing I remember is 25 minutes later - this is the days before cell phones - he's spent the first 15 minutes completely freaked as I vocalized unintelligibly, then once I became responsive, checked me as best he could for spinal cord injury (none, thank goodness) and decided the best thing to do was to go ahead and get his truck and take me to the ER. The guy who owns my LBS still has the helmet I was wearing that day, and shows people the inch-deep depression in the EPS liner so they can see just what it is that a helmet is for.

Latest injury I'm dealing with is not cycling related.

We were painting our living room. I picked up a ladder.

Didn't drop it, didn't twist it, just picked it up. And the edge of the rung caught me wrong in the meat of my thumb, and bruised a tendon and a nerve. Which might've been okay except for the ortho's advice to immobilize the hand, and so, more than two years later, I have lingering tendinitis in both elbows.

Okay, okay, one more. I cut my thumb peeling an acorn squash, midway between the MCP and IP joints. It was pretty deep and bled profusely, but it wasn't into the tendon or anything, so I just bandaged it and wound up with a scar contracture that took a year to loosen up. A few months later I'm at my doctor's for something unrelated, and I show it to her, and she says...

"Why would you peel a squash?" :rolleyes:

..........

But anyway, Beth, I had allergic reactions three times after eating at one particular restaurant in my town. It's the only times I've ever had an anaphylactoid reaction to food (I have the other type of slow-burn reaction to lots of foods, and once had an anaphylactoid reaction to a wasp sting). No idea what it is the restaurant used, but it's obviously not any common allergen or it would've been more than those three times. The first time it happened, I'd actually taken some aspirin after lunch and thought that that's what I was reacting to - my medical charts still flag an aspirin allergy, and honestly I haven't tested it to be sure I'm *not* allergic to aspirin. But after the next two times, I'm pretty sure it was the lunch, not the pills. So it might not've been your squid or my aspirin, but who the heck knows, maybe some kind of mold that grows in that restaurant. Weird.

Cycling-related accidents;

I was 8 years old and my friend and I were riding our Huffy's under the cable where a tennis net used to be. Didn't put my head down far enough so I tore my face open. Rode my bike home and walked in the front door with blood dripping down my face and shirt. Those scars have been completely covered by others.

I'm 17 years old, riding my mountain bike home from my new girlfriend's house. Pull a wheelie as a dog runs out. I put my left foot down just a little wrong. Damage: compound spiral fracture of left tibia. a plate and 11 screws to put my leg back together, plus a godawful amount of staples to close the whole thing up.

Few years later, I'm riding my bike from NOB Norfolk toward downtown. Pull up my front wheel to go over train tracks. The front QR isn't properly secured so I come down on the fork blades and go *** over tea kettle. 6 or 8 stitches in my chin

Last year, I was riding my bike to the store for beer and groceries. It'd been raining so I went a little wide as I pulled into the parking lot to make sure my front wheel wouldn't catch on the little lip between the driveway and the street. Made that ok, but went a little too wide. I grazed the curb with my front wheel and went down hard on my left side, re-breaking the ribs that had just finished healing from a few months before.

My favorite scar is on the inside of my right arm. I worked on small boats when I was in the Navy. One day I was climbing a jacobs ladder getting out of one and a broken piece of wire went through my coat and shirt. It tore a hole about an inch long in my skin. It took 4 or 5 stitches and now looks like a little spider. This one was done less than 48 hours after the face planting incident two paragraphs up.

I'm recalling another bike accident on the Schwinn Flying Star. You know how the grips will get scooted in some and the end comes off? Both of mine were like that after a couple of summers. It was a warm spring day and I, the early riser, was out on my bike all by myself in the morning. I decided to try to jump up the curb like my brothers always did. Of course I was going to slow and didn't make it, and the impact tore the bars out of my hands. I slide forward off the seat as the end of the bar spun towards my chest, making a perfect circular cut around my pre-pubescent right nipple.

I was so hurt I needed to tell my mom, but she was having coffee and a cigarette at the kitchen table with a neighbor lady, and I was too embarrassed to show her.

Silly. It is one of those memories where you can still feel the sunshine and smell the air, these 35 years later.

Karen

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Originally Posted by zencentury

Eeyore?

By the way, that was no accident. I meant to do that. Yeah.

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Thank you Zen,

Not much into children's stories as I have 0 kids.

smilingcat

But weren't you a kid once? You don't remember Winnie-the-Pooh and Eeyore?

:)

Karen

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Originally Posted by Tuckervill

But weren't you a kid once? You don't remember Winnie-the-Pooh and Eeyore?
:)
Karen

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Tis true, But my Winnie was in Japanese :p sadly, the hard bound book disappeared when we moved here. :( I do remember Winnie, piglet, Eeyore just the spelling gets to me at times. Not to mention my odd grammar.

hai, sumimamsen :o
smilingcat

Wow, I feel downright boring.

I've broken a few bones, mostly in Taekwon-Do, but my most outlandish accident was when I tore my meniscus putting beer in the fridge.

I had a bunch of groceries, including a box of beer on the counter. I was squatted down, knees out, butt on heels, putting it into the bottom part of the fridge. by accident I bumped the glass cutting board that was propped up against the fridge on the counter and it shot down the crack like a tiny guillotine and whacked my knee. My Dr. figures the meniscus tear probably happened when I fell backward, twisting the knee. Ouch!

I've had a lot of skiing accidents too, fortunately nothing injured except my ego. Once, I was teaching a now-ex but then cute-single-guy to ski. (Same name as yours, Regina :)) He was doing pretty well, so I said he should just continue down the hill, I was going to play in the trees a bit. Just downhill from him I shot out of a clearing, over a jump below a tree and as I landed the jump I wedged my ski under a looped-up root of another tree. Total yard sale.

The best accident I know of, though, was an aunt of mine that was on a first date with a guy she really liked, taking a romantic walk through the park, holding hands, moonlight, looking into his eyes. She fell into an uncovered manhole.

Anne

Pscyclepath always says there are two kinds of cyclists- those that have had wrecks and those who haven't yet. This is his argument for helmets.

I had my wreck back in college- borrowed my roommate's bike -it was way too small for me- I got my knees tangled in the handlebars and flipped over said handlebars. Took the Lord's name in vain- right there in front of the Baptist Student Union. Ended up having a few stitches in my head.

Even though I've had my mandatory wreck - I do always wear my helmet- I promised Momma & that is now enought to make me behave.

Wow, I am also among those feeling grateful after reading all this.

My worst injury was when I was 10, and I managed to tear all the ligaments in one ankle just playing jump rope on the playground with some other girls.

Other than that, pretty much nada.

My blood went to Mayo Clinic and they tested for almost every item that was in the Spanish Paella that I ate. It did taste good too. Just because my tongue swelled... When the Chef gave the list of ingredients, I have eaten all of them without trouble - the only new thing was the squid and mussels (but I can eat clams). The ER doc suggested that it could be not what I ate, but what my food ate, so we may never know. I'm calling my allergist tomorrow to see if she's come up with anything. Was supposed to call today, but I was out all day on a business trip.

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Originally Posted by onimity

my most outlandish accident was when I tore my meniscus putting beer in the fridge.

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See there?
Beer is bad for you!

That manhole is priceless. Reminds me of this model

Zen, love the video. :)

Conflicted between 'beer is bad for me' and 'glass cutting boards are the devil's work' I chose the latter. :)

Anne

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Originally Posted by bmccasland

The ER doc suggested that it could be not what I ate, but what my food ate, so we may never know.

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Hmmm, good point, although in my case the food was lacto-vegetarian and I'm not aware of anything of that nature being in milk. But there sure have been a lot of red tide outbreaks lately, and if there was someone less than scrupulous along the seafood chain of custody, that definitely could be your culprit.

Love the mental picture of that manhole! (smack myself for laughing at someone else's misfortune :D)