Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Time I Stabbed Myself

The last 24 hours have proven how careless and klutzy I really am. I can’t believe I haven’t already dismembered or impaled myself.

Last night my mom and dad had us over for Thanksgiving dinner. No, my mom does not have Alzheimer's, and, yes,  it was déjà vu from a few months ago. My mom is a practical type and since turkeys are so cheap in November she always stores one away for later. We stuffed our pie holes with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and spinach salad (my lame contribution). After dinner I was carving some more turkey to bring home when it happened. I somehow stabbed myself in the stomach with the two-pronged meat fork. Honestly I still don’t know how I did it. It took some real skill to one moment be carving at the turkey’s breast and the next moment be pulling the meat fork out of my abdomen (TWSS?). 

It could have been worse, like I could have impaled myself on the fork. I showed Ken the marks and he asked if I had gotten bitten by some kind of bug. Yeah, the dumb-as-shit-careless-bug maybe.

Here is an up close view of my scaly stomach. It may not look so bad, but keep in mind the fork went through 2 layers of clothes. It hurt like a mother. It wasn’t so much the level of injury, but the fact that it happened at all.

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If that wasn’t enough: this morning I went for a ten mile trail run at Picture Rock with Lisa, Leigh, Sarah, Ken. Perfect day, warm temps, great company and scenery. On the way down I was so caught up talking to Leigh (I’m sure I was telling her some epic fart story) when it happened. I fell flat on my face. It was one of those slow motion moments when you feel yourself falling, you know it will be bad and you do your best to minimize the damage. I slammed my left shoulder onto the trail then hit my chin on a rock. I sprawled myself out on the trail hoping someone had brought a portable stretcher or neck brace. Ken helped me up, dusted me off and didn’t even laugh. At least not to my face. I know they all huddled behind me and snickered. Ken did say he was glad I did not hit my teeth again because we are not spending any more money on fixing my front teeth.

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What I’ve learned about falls on the trail is that you tend to feel them much more about 24 hours later. I’m guessing my shoulder will be screaming at my tomorrow and there will be a fine bruise and goose egg on my chin.  I will have the sweetest double chin west of the Mississippi.

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Try not to focus on the nose hairs

I can just add these things to my long list random injuries I have sustained like the time I cut my ear while shaving my legs (make perfect sense that I held the razor in my hand while rinsing shampoo out of my hair and caught my ear lobe). Or the time I jumped out of a moving car because I knew if we stopped the car it would stall. Or the time the vacuum cleaner fell on me while I was cleaning the stairs and almost knocked me out.

These will be good stories to tell my grandchildren. By that time the tales will have morphed into, “I remember the time I stabbed myself with a pitchfork and severed my spleen. I was in the hospital for 39 days. Right after that I fell while trail running and had to be airlifted out by the National Guard. Brad Pitt was the pilot.”

I know I am not the only careless and clumsy one out there.

What’s an injury you got because you weren’t playing close enough attention or are just a plain klutz?

SUAR

53 comments:

  1. This one:

    http://megstrueadventures.blogspot.com/2010/01/war-woundagain.html (Pictures)

    The story: I was doing step-ups holding a 25 pound weight. The step slipped, I fell, dropped the weight, and landed on my ass as the disc weight ricocheted off my left ankle. I'm very lucky nothing was broken, but oy, what a hell of a bruise!

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  2. You are not alone! My friends and family laugh at my events. There was this time that I was taking a bath, and I leaned back and scooted down to relax. I felt this horrible cutting/scraping. Yes, I had left a razor on the ridge at the back of the tub. Took a big chunk of skin off. Yes, I am a well-educated goof. :)

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  3. You are not alone! My friends and family laugh at my events. There was this time that I was taking a bath, and I leaned back and scooted down to relax. I felt this horrible cutting/scraping. Yes, I had left a razor on the ridge at the back of the tub. Took a big chunk of skin off. Yes, I am a well-educated goof. :)

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  4. Last summer I fell and landed on top of a chainsaw which was, thankfully, not running. I had just come back from a run and was still wearing my running shoes. I saw the chainsaw sitting there and went to step over it, but the loop of my shoestring caught in the bar of the chainsaw and down I went...HARD. Because I am such a bad a** I decided to just clean it out with rubbing alcohol and slap a HUGE band aid on it. Ended up with a blood infection. Not my finest moment.

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  5. I was also doing step ups with 10# weights after a run, a dumbass move on my part, but I was almost done and I was coming down off the step and twisted my ankle and launched the 10# weight narrowly missing my head! I couldn't get up and my 6 year old son came running in trying to help me up, I really thought I broke my ankle, luckily it was a deep sprain! No more step ups with 10# weights!

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  6. Oh, you make me laugh!!

    I've got a lot but...my fav was last year when I was at the climbing gym. I had topped out the route and then decided not to pay attention while I was getting belayed down. I swung out, smashed into the wall, and cracked my knee on one of the holds. I had a freaking swollen and bruised leg for weeks, but the shameful part was that I hit the wall so loudly that EVERYONE in the gym turned to look at me. Sad.

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  7. I was running late for one of my first classes in college and went through a set of doors and started running once I was outside. I didn't see the 3 foot tall stone outdoor ashtray and ran right in to it. The next thing I remember, I was on the ground surrounded by people laughing at me. Not only was I terribly embarrassed (and in pain) but I was late to class and had to explain the whole story in front of the class. Worst first impression ever!

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  8. OH my LORD. Glad you're ok. Might want to stay home the rest of the day, that's for sure.

    Once, I let my dumbass bf [at the time] talk me into rollerblading around his neighborhood. I obliged, since I hadn't done so since I was a KID, and figured I wouldn't forget the basics. Well, good news is that I didn't, but we went down this INSANE hill that came to a cross street. Luckily, there weren't cars coming, because I was NOT stopping, but the only way of stopping was hitting the curb, skidding across the 2 feet of sidewalk and halfway into someone's yard. This resulted in a broken wrist, a bruised ego, and an EX boyfriend.

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  9. I was a severely accident prone child and usually led with my head. But I have gotten some pretty nasty bumps and bruises just tripping over shit in my own house too.

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  10. I do stupid...I mean checked out things all the time. Who could forget my DIY nose job? http://didyougetanyofthat.blogspot.com/2011/05/double-whammy-wounding-weekend.html

    I hope you are okay. Thank GOD you didn't puncture any organs...because you COULD HAVE, you know.

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  11. This morning, I was running on the snow covered path at our local retention pond when I hit a patch of ice. I flew forward and did everything in my power not to fall. I caught myself, but pulled my left hamstring in the process. Hurts like hell right now. I was being extra cautious too, because there were other icy spots I hit earlier. Last summer, I caught an unseen sprinkler head with my toe while running thru my neighborhood. I flew down the sidewalk on my face and had a bruise much like the one you have on your chin. And then there was the time I tripped over the curb at Target and flew into the bike rack with my face (I'll never live that one down!). That one bought me a ride to the ER , 5 stitches in my eyelid, and a lovely black eye, which I turn brought me a lot of attention....

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  12. Very glad you're OK...

    Have been hit in the head (mild concussion) with the vacuum cleaner when doing the stairs once. That was amusing.

    Hit a car on my bike once when the brakes turned out not to work. The drivers expression was amusing, as I flew across the hood, bike and all.

    Fell down some concrete stairs while sober, then got drunk after as a pain management thing. The expression on my friends face as she sobered up as she watched me fall was less than amusing.

    Then there was the time I actually stabbed myself. Accidentally ran a fish filleting knife (very very pointy) through the palm of my hand. The surgery to fix the damage I did was way not amusing. The drugs were OK though.

    Mine seem to be fairly solitary accidents which is both good and bad. Good: nobody laughs. Bad: nobody cleans up the blood for me.

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  13. When i was a kid I ran my bro's bike into my neighbor's parked truck. Flew off my bike and landed on the street. My chin looked like hamburger and needed 7 stiches.

    Then when i was a teen, dropped a 45 lb weight on my big toe at the gym while trying to re rack the weights off the leg press machine. A well-meaning lil ole lady laughed and casually commented that "boy that had to smart". I walked around in berkenstock-type sandals with socks for a week bc my toe swelled to 2x normal size.

    And i open cabinet doors into my head on a regular basis. My son is a klutz as well, and always involves head injuries. Runs in the fam I guess

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  14. I was chopping vegetables for soup one day and sliced open my thumb. I went to the bathroom to wash it, but started getting a little woozy at the sight of all the blood. I wrapped it up and was leaving the bathroom to sit down when my cat ran between my feet, as he is wont to do. I stumbled and passed out, hitting my face on the door frame on my way down. I ended up with a big black eye. It was awkward telling people what happened, because every abused woman on Lifetime uses the excuse that she ran into a doorway. People gave my husband some nasty looks when we were out together.

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  15. I'm always bruised. When I mash myself I think "Oh, I'll remember how I got THAT one!!" Couple days later I see the bruise and have NO idea what I did.... DUH!!

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  16. How timely. I just fell on my face while running on Monday. I was talking to my running buddy and caught my toe on an uneven part of the sidewalk and went down, hard. Smacked the heels of both hands, scraped up my knee,and had a little red mark on my chin, too. The worst part? I did the exact same thing on the exact same piece of sidewalk a couple months ago.

    I also once ran into a sign while running (now that is klutzy. I literally ran into a sign) and gave myself such a deep bruise that it gave me a hematoma in my leg. Half a mile later, I accidentally stepped off the side of the sidewalk and fell down. All while my running buddy and I were having a deep, serious conversation. Unintentional comic relief?

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  17. I always fall in the most embarrassing places. Not the double black powder run, but entering the lift line. Not crossing the Continental Divide on a run, but in front of the car in the full parking lot. Sigh.

    Timely story that will make you feel better-- yesterday we took the boys to the big hockey/skating facility near the house because they enjoy skating although they are terrible at it. Husband was skating backwards ahead of the 5yo, helping him. 5yo started to fall. Husband tried to switch to forward skating in order to *save* child but somehow managed to land flat on his face on the ice, no hands out to catch himself. Landed directly on his nose. Knocked himself out for a second. Bit a couple of holes on the inside of his mouth, split the skin on the bridge of his nose. Nose swelled up, blood dripped from everywhere onto the ice, he had to go to the first aid room. He was mortified that this was a non-hockey incident that happened for pretty much no reason, while he was going slowly in a crowded ice rink filled with families. He looks bad-ass today, though, what with the swollen, bruised, cut up nose, partially covered with butterfly bandages. :)

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  18. All my life, I've always managed to hook my baby toe on chair legs and even table legs while walking by them. I do it so often, my dad has asked me if I've grown hooks for toes now.

    I wish I could say that things are improved etc etc....I still do it. ALL. THE. TIME. Waiting for my baby toes to fall off one day, b/c you know it's going to happen at this rate....

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  19. i was hiking and fell flat on my face and broke my nose. ibuprofen is my friend and will probably be yours too if you ask

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  20. You know I didn't even notice the nose hairs until I read the photo's caption.

    My running squad came up with a full calendars worth of injuries last year. And that's what I gave the coach - a calendar with an injury per month. He loved seeing the pain he'd created.

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  21. I have a list so long I could totally use up all the space blogger allows - but I'll spare you and just give you the most epic. My husband travels for a living and I'm often left alone to raise my kids alone for days at a time. One night, after tucking them in, I was tidying up around the house. I picked up an ink pen, but didn't have any place to put it right then, so I decided to tuck it behind my ear. At that split second, something on the TV caught my eye as I was walking through the living room. I turned my head ever so slightly and at that exact moment, instead of putting the pen behind my ear, I jammed it into my eyeball. I swear the thing went so deep it touched my brain. Of course husband was gone. I ended up writhing on the floor convinced I had blinded myself while my babies slept peacefully in the other room.
    Everything turned out to be ok and my eyesight is fine. Just shows that you shouldn't walk, watch tv and try to tuck a pen behind your ear all at the same time.....

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  22. Does drunkeness count? Because I tore the miniscus (sp?) in my elbow during a particularly harrowing journey down a thirty foot long tarp soaked with Joy dishwashing liquid. I'd sworn I wasn't going to do it, but after a couple of extra large hurricanes, I'd convinced myself that anything was possible. Not cool. Have you ever tried wiping with your lnon-dominant hand? Eeeek! ;)

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  23. Does drunkeness count? Because I tore the miniscus (sp?) in my elbow during a particularly harrowing journey down a thirty foot long tarp soaked with Joy dishwashing liquid. I'd sworn I wasn't going to do it, but after a couple of extra large hurricanes, I'd convinced myself that anything was possible. Not cool. Have you ever tried wiping with your lnon-dominant hand? Eeeek! ;)

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  24. Glad you survived the turkey and the run. Never a dull moment.

    Since you've demonstrated your great skill at calling out TWSS moments, I have to point out that you missed one of the all-time TWSS in that post ... "pulling the meat fork out of my abdomen".

    Hope tomorrow is injury-free.

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  25. I was vacationing in Telluride last summer and was so excited to do my first 18 miler after a year of injuries. It was a gorgeous morning before the town was awake. I was running down the main street on my way out to some trails. I totally bit it as my foot caught on an huge crack in the sidewalk. I face planted and tore a hole in the elbow of my brand new Athleta running jacket. Bruised my elbow, hip and knee. I was dazed and bleeding but then sucked it up to finish the last 14 miles of my run!

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  26. EVT: I have to add the TWSS to the post. That one should not be missed!

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  27. I can run for miles on the trails and make it home without a scratch.....but the minute I place my feet on the asphalt, its a different story. The last time was a couple months ago, I came off the trail and had to run a couple miles on the road to get back to my car. By the time I made it to the car I had 2 bloody hands, bloody elbow, bloody knees (still haven't healed) and (wtf) the BACK of my shoulder was scraped and bleeding. Told the family I was trying to outrun a mountain lion and tripped over a coyote

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  28. Ha! My vacuum fell on me while vacuuming the stairs once! Yesterday I banged my head on the corner of the metal toilet paper holder while helping my daughter in the bathroom. I have a ton of other silly stories, I'm clumsy as heck!

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  29. A few months ago, I fell wearing ballet flats walking to the lounge in front of a bunch of teenage school kids. Embarrassing!

    I also seemed to always bump the back of my head against the wall when I am on the phone. And yes, the back of my head is flat. Really. Flat.

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  30. I am NOT NOT NOT going to let my wife read this blog. She would respond. At length. None of you would ever look at me the same again.

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  31. OK. I am a complete moron and hurt myself all the time.

    I think the worst one...was. When I was making a smoothie with an immersion blender, and it was all frozen, so I unplugged the TOASTER (not the blender, but I thought I had unplugged the blender) and stuck my finger in it to clean all that blueberry goodness out of the sharp end. Yup, cut my finger to shreds, it was pretty bad. The worst was explaining to the ER nurse what I did.

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  32. I do this a lot so have lots of stories. But I guess my best one is being in a supermarket. Bending over a bin with buns in it. Lifting up the plastic cover/door right into my right eye....thought my eyeball had fallen out...it was a cut cornea. Worst pain I ever felt (and I had a baby). It was horrible. When I went to the ER and they put the die in, the u shape corner of the bun bin cover was cut right into my cornea!

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  33. I do stuff like that all.the.time. I'm apparently a violent sneezer and one time I sneezed and when I came forward I hit my face (corner of my eyebrow) on my water glass on the table. I had a huge swollen bump for days but thankfully I didn't break the glass.
    Hope you're not too sore tomorrow!

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  34. TWICE I have hyper extended my knee trying to shimmy out of appearantly too tight jeans so I could go to the bathroom. My family loves to to remind me to be careful before going to the bathroom.

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  35. I can relate - I'm the queen of dumb injuries. I hope you don't feel it too bad in the morning and that you recoup quickly!

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  36. It must be an epidemic. I was running sideways (because I just was) and tripped on a tree root. I broke my ribs. Hurt like H-E-double hockey sticks.....

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  37. I fell on my run today too. Total wipe out, except I don't have the super cool, badass bruise on my chin. Honey Badger, you!

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  38. While reading your blog I almost choked on Baked Ruffles! Seriously, you think I would've stopped shoving my face with chips. I should know better....you usually get me giggling! I’ve been dealing with PF for 5 months and my foot was hurting pretty bad today. Thanks for the giggle! You poor thing! You already got a nice bruise on your chin! Oh and thank goodness you weren’t wearing a half shirt (like from the 80’s) while slicing a few more pieces of turkey! I bet that hurt! Tomorrow is a new day….wishing you no new bumps and bruises!

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  39. That looks like it hurts!! :-(

    I am totally accident prone. I have so many injury stories.. when I was nine a glass door broke on my hand and sliced my wrist open resulting in 17 stitches. When I was in college someone hit me with their car and then drove away. Recently my sister smashed my head into the car door and the same sister rolled the window up while my finger was still outside the window. :-(

    One of the worst ones was one time when I fell out of a moving car. One late and rainy night I was in the passenger seat of a Trans Am on a beer run. I was 14, drunk, and smoking a cigar (I was a naughty child). It started to get really smoky in the car and we couldn't figure out how to roll down the window (since the car was not ours). I guess in Trans Ams the window levers are in the middle panel between the driver and passenger seats (below the clutch).

    Anyway, I got the bright idea to open the door a crack to let out some of the smoke right when my friend Ron turned left going 50mph. The door swung open and I flew out, skidding across the pavement into a major intersection. Luckily I was not hit by the oncoming traffic. It was a bad scene. I ended up with pretty bad road rash on most of my body. Ron came back around to pick me up and we ended up in Walgreens. Niether of us knew first aid and we ended up stymying all the bloody areas with balls of cotton. It was awful. I was picking cotton out of my road rashed body for months.

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  40. Ow, your poor chin. :( And the rest of you, too.

    As a kid, I jumped out of a loft, hit my chin on my knee, and knocked out a permanent tooth. On my first trail ride, I fell on the flattest part of the trail and dislocated my thumb. And last year, I neglected to take the food processor blade out before pouring the sauce I'd made...and then tried to catch the blade with my hand when it fell out mid-pour. Just a small sampling.

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  41. I also fell while running this weekend. And I was on the sidewalks in New England. The pisser is I really thought when I first started to stumble that I had it and I wasn't going to do a face plant into the side walk but I was wrong. Got a little road burn on my right leg and knee and a nice bruise on my bum. But I didn't see anyone witness my gracefulness. That's a plus right. No one to laugh at me.

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  42. I may have fallen down some stairs at a bar and really jacked up my leg. Massive bruising. Though if you ask me in person I will tell ya I fell off the bucking bull!

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  43. I broke my right ankle stopping to look at some sheep along the road and turned to continue on and didnt' realize I was on uneven ground- down I went- thought it was a bad sprain- waited 3 weeks and finally got an Xray to confirm a fx..

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  44. Don't focus on the nose hairs...like saying "Don't think of an elephant"...classic !

    Sorry you got some boo-boos to deal with. I'd say be more careful, but with the fall you didn't even do anything wrong, and you wouldn't really "be more careful" anyway. :-)

    Love your blog and the heart you write it with !

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  45. That is one hell of a bruise....damn.

    Yankee Stadium. Pole. Stitches. F&cking Yankees!

    Story told.

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  46. Glad you're only mildly wounded after all that! I am an utter klutz at times. I have fallen going down the stairs more than once (my ankle swelled to about three times the normal size on the worst one). I've also fallen going UP stairs, too; no, I was not drunk, just very talented that way.

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  47. Two years ago I tripped while running in high heels and sprained not one, but both of my ankles severly. I'm not admiting that there was a little wine involved with this accident, but I'm not saying there wasn't. :)

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  48. Ouch! The chin looks painful already. Hope you were/are not too sore 24h later.

    Wrap yourself in some bubble wrap, sister!

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  49. I ran my first 50k trail run this weekend. Over the 31 mile course, I fell flat on my face 5 times. FIVE! I never even saw anyone else fall.

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  50. Beth, I've really enjoyed reading your blog. Don't you know never to pull something out of your abdomen if you stab yourself? I once put a pair of scissors all the way to the hilt in my stomach and spent two days in the hospital for it. I was trying to open a box and missed. Another time I put a drywall screw in my thigh. I can relate to the stories of people being impaled with things. I'm no longer allowed to play with sharp objects. Thanks for sharing your stories!

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  51. I rolled my ankle on the same trail.. at the same place 3 times. I dont go to that trail anymore LOL

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