How many accidents have you had?

[sundial]

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?

[Tuckervill]

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

[Flybye]

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?!

[bmccasland]

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. 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.

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

[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

[sundial]

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

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

[margo49]

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.)

[OakLeaf]

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

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?"

..........

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.

[lph]

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

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.

[LBTC]

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~

[smilingcat]

I guess I can't feel too bad

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

smilingcat

[sundial]

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

I'm sorry........I can't stop laughing!!

Flybye--HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Your stories are the best medicine!

[Trek420]

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.

[Tuckervill]

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

Karen

[singletrackmind]

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.