I just accidentally hit myself in the face with my iphone....

[Ian_Davies]

....not quite sure how I did it - and I'm alright (sorry to disappoint) - but it got me to wondering what freak injuries forumites might have sustained over the years.

Anyone got a tale to tell?

 

[Desert Orchid]

Jeezo... so many!

1. As a youngster (age 6/7-ish?), in fear of missing the ice cream van - it was quite a big one, more of a converted mobile shop with sliding doors at the rear (I'll resist jokes about...) and a platform for customers - I chased after it seeing that the doors were still open. Just as got within jumping-on distance I reached out to grab the edge of one of the doors only for the van to take the sharp bend opposite our house and the other door slammed shut on my fingers.

I awoke some time later on the couch in our living room. I have no idea how I got there or who got me there.

2. I was in Ireland with my boys' club (so I reckon I was maybe 13?) staying in Wicklow and we were playing a team glorying in the name of Rathnew Celtic. I was (and still am) a sturdy little bastart but very fair and never deliberately fouled anyone in my life but there was a 50/50 ball I reckoned I could win against their winger. Unfortunately for me he had a touch more pace than me and I came out the worse in a strong challenge having gone about 20ft in the air and, in stretching out my hand to cushion my fall, came down right on the index finger on my left hand. I'd have to say it was one of the sorest injuries I ever got in all my years playing football.

I went to the doctor when I got home and he told me bluntly I was too late to do anything about it, that the break had already started to fuse and that there was nothing to be done. That finger remains to this day as bent as Ryan Price.

And, as Jimmy Cricket was wont to say, there's more...

 

[Desert Orchid]

I have a chip out of one of my front lower teeth.

The missing chip is my young sister's chin

To explain...

As was normal in the days of innocence in the mid-1960s, all the weans in our short street - so about 500 of us - were playing a street game we called 'ra-leeze', to give it its phonetic pronunciation. The game was played until we were called in once it got dark.

It was a version of hide and seek. Some poor sod was 'het' (ie 'it') and their unenviable task was to find the others who were hiding locally. The idea was to 'release' the ones 'het' had managed to find. The lamp-post opposite the house in which Kevin Bridges grew up - his grandparents' house which his mother inherited - was the 'den'.

When 'het' spotted one of us they called out the name and ran to touch the den before the person who'd been found could do likewise. That made the found person a prisoner in the [imaginary] den.

On this occasion my wee sis was 'het' and she had a few in the den and I took it upon myself to try and release them. When I notice sis far enough away from the den I made a bolt for it. Not the locking type of bolt - more the Usain type.

She saw me make my move and we both ran full pelt towards the den. This was nothing unusual and usually the people involved in a close-run event went either side of the lamp-post in order to avoid a collision. On this occasion, both sis and I misread the other's run and we both touched the lamp-post at about the same time but ran straight into each other.

My mouth hit her chin. I have the chipped tooth and she still bears the small scar of where my gnashers smashed into her chin.

Fortunately we can still laugh about it.

 

[Ian_Davies]

Maurice, you're accident prone.

Whereas I can proudly say I haven't superficially injured myself with a smart phone in days!

 

[Desert Orchid]

Another - totally my own stupid fault...

At primary school, maybe P5 or P6, we were larking about in the playground near the bike shed (too young for anything adult) which was a brick structure with pebbledash rendering. Someone had moved the crate of school milk bottles to near the shed so naturally we were experimenting with ways of throwing them against he wall to smash them.

I picked up a broken bottle and decided it would be a smart idea to turn my back to the wall and throw the bottle through my legs. I misjudged the trajectory of my arm and the broken bottle contacted the inside of my knee (short trousers de rigueur - where I was obviously learning French - at PS), taking with it a chunk of flesh about the size of a human eye. I felt the contact and thought, "Stupid me," since I didn't start swearing until I was about 18, and looked down to find the innards of the resultant gouge hanging out. Calm as you like I trotted off to the janny to ask him to bandage it for me but by now I was more fearful of the hiding I was going to get when I explained how said injury occurred to my parents.

Obviously the janny said this was more than a Dettol'n'sawdust kind of wound so a messenger was sent home (no phone back then) for my mother to come and take me to the doc who shook his head, called me a stupid little so-and-so, stuck a couple of butterfly tapes on it to close it and re-dressed it.

None of your rushing off to A&E in them days.

 

[Desert Orchid]

I have a chip out of one of my front lower teeth.

The missing chip is my young sister's chin

Just off the phone to sis about this. She says the chip worked its way to the surface of her chin when she was about 18 and she just pulled it clear. No bleeding.