But that doesn't mean the same doesn't happen to adults.
Curious to hear about wild injury stories, Redditor CivilizedPsycho asked:
"What is the dumbest thing you've ever done that resulted in you injuring yourself?"
The first time was bad enough.
The Poor Demonstration
"I pulled a muscle in my back by twisting suddenly."
"A few weeks later, a friend commented on me seeming better, and another friend asked how I hurt my back in the first place."
"I said 'Well, I did this...' and proceeded to injure it again."
Once More With Feeling
"One time I sprained my ring finger."
"Once it was essentially healed, I tried to do a flip onto my bed and sprained it again."
Taking a leap of faith takes guts, but it takes smarts to know when you're in for a bad landing.
Chairs Are Meant For Sitting, Not This
"I tried to stage dive at a youth club once and landed in the stacks of chairs between the front of the stage and the dance floor. Broke my arm in 3 places......."
"I was young though!"
Macho Man Fail
"True story."
"When I was five, my cousin and I were playing wrestling and I loved the Macho Man Randy Savage."
"So I get the brilliant idea to climb the fireplace and then on top of my Dad's 65-70 inch big box projection screen TVs (the ones that were like two feet deep; this is like 20 yrs before flat screens) and get ready to do the Macho Man's signature move, the flying elbow drop."
"As I go for it, my foot gets caught on the cable box cable wire and I fall, thumb first into the ground."
"To this day, I'm 35, I still can't bend my left thumb all the way."
Miscalculations are ideal setups for painful accidents.
The Wrong Direction
"i was opening something with a knife and i cut towards myself instead of away VERY dumb."
Why Staple Guns Need To Be Away From Children
"When I was a kid, there was a staple gun on the table for some reason. I knew that it shot out staples, but didn't understand it very well. I thought that they came out the end."
"So for a bit of fun, I rested it in my leg, aimed it at the clock on the wall and pushed down on the trigger."
"Drove one of those massive staple gun staples right into my kneecap."
Bad Aim
"Jumped out the school bus door, hit head on top of door, landed on @ss."
"Broke tailbone."
– Knute5
Catch Me
"At my childhood home we had a trampoline right beside the stone-tile terrace. My babysitter was walking out with a basket in her arms and for some reason my pigeon brain thought it'd be a brilliant idea to launch myself up and jump into her arms. She got a fright and stumbled backwards instead of trying to catch me (fair enough) and I made some impressive airtime before landing on my forearms on the rock, hard."
"Fractured both arms, huge scrapes and contusions on my hipbones and knees, and nearly cracked my forehead like an egg thanks to the recoil. Good times."
These were simply too hot to handle.
Avoiding A Mess
"I was cooking dinner, roommate had just cleaned the stove. One of the pots boiled over a bit and made a mess. I didn't want to leave it like that and ruin all my roommate's hard work so I moved the pot, got a paper towel and lifted up the metal burner grate. I got it about shoulder height when the pain in my fingers reminded me that it would have been a lot better to have waited for it to cool down first."
Scared Teacher
"I thought, 'Hmm, maybe walking into a school science lab when there doing experiments using Bunsen burners is an amazing idea.' I walked in and the teacher got a fright, dropped a boiling tube full of boiling water onto my foot as it smashed. I'm so smart."
The following scenarios resulted in blood. Lots and lots of blood.
The Pedal Jab
"Mountain Biking, I enjoy doing it but it is dumb and I occasionally get hurt. Worst accident was getting the bicycle pedal stuck in my Achilles Tendon. Pulled it out, bleeding everywhere, wrapped my socks around it and continued on with my ride then ran into a tree. I never said I was good at it."
Catch The Knife
"I was about 3 months pregnant and working in a bakery, I was pretty clumsy adjusting to my new body."
"I was doing dishes and I accidentally knocked a brand new, very sharp serrated knife off of the magnet strip... and tried to f'king catch it. Being sleep-deprived, nauseated and clearly not thinking straight... I really tried to catch that b*tch and it nearly cut my last two fingers off of my right hand. I didn't really even feel it for a good 10 or so minutes."
"Side note: when you're pregnant your blood volume doubles. I didn't know this. This was a pretty gory scene that required a good amount hazmat clean-up. My awesome coworkers seriously pulled through in the next department to help out after I got rushed to the doctor's office."
I was ten when I had my bad injury trying to "impress a girl." I told her I was agile and fast and could run across these bleachers at a schoolyard.
There were three sets of bleachers with gaps I had to jump over that were maybe six feet apart. As this girl was anticipating a display of superhuman coordination, I successfully booked it across the first two set of bleachers.
That last gap, though, was a doozy. I leapt, but not far enough.
Without going into detail, my front teeth caught the edge of the last set of bleachers on behalf of my entire body.
Yeah, I didn't impress that little girl. I made her scream, instead.
It's amazing how quickly someone's life can change. If you mess up big enough, you might see your life flash before your eyes. You may not be dead, but your reputation sure is. This is why you need to keep your wits about you--you truly never know when everything can come crashing down.
Here are some of the most extreme examples of people ruining their lives in an instant. Try not to cringe too hard.
Givemesomeluck asked: Have you ever seen someone ruin their life in just a few seconds? How did they do it?
Some people like to f*ck around a little too much, leaving them with some serious, life-altering injuries.
The dangers of doing musical theatre.
I had a friend in university, a student of jazz vocalist, who had an incredibly bright future ahead of her. Mid-way into her first year / freshman year, she was out with some friends in a theatre on stage and for fun, they were swinging her or just fooling around.
I believe they somehow dropped her or lost grip. She hit her head hard. Got a bad concussion. Had to drop-out of school.
She now has chronic head pain, and is living back at home. She tried to return back to school, but could barely last through two classes, if even, before her pain would get too bad.
I've lost touch with her so I'm not entirely sure what she's doing now. But, my gosh, just her life entirely derailed because of that one silly accident.
EDIT: she was sitting on a stage and go pulled from her ankles by her friends which led to her head hitting the edge of the stage and hyperextending her neck.
Should have known better.
Indie Film Falling GIF by Arrow Video
Giphy
One of my high school classmates (a kicker on the football team) was at a party at a friend's house on the very last day of school in his senior year. The house was on a lake, and he decided to run off the end of the pier and jump head-first into the lake.
The water was a foot deep.
He never walked again.
Ouch!
Kid in his teens tried jumping off a Leading Light at high tide to impress his mates and girlfriend, hit a concrete wave breaker back first. Shattered part of his spine and is now in a permanent vegetive state.
This is heartbreaking.
Camping trip with friends when we were around 17 y/o. One kid hammered in his tent pegs, then just tossed the hammer at someone else's tent for no apparent reason. A girl was in the tent and caught full power of the hammer toss to her mouth. Shattered several teeth in her mouth, which she then choked on. She died choking on her own shattered teeth while alone and bleeding out of her face in a tent, with no idea of what caused her injury.
Campsite in the middle of nowhere. It took over an hour for help to come. Kid got arrested and got suspended sentence for involuntary manslaughter.
People can be really stupid sometimes. Like.....REALLY stupid.
People should know by now to not be dumb on Zoom.
Nbc GIF by New Amsterdam
Giphy
Un-muted zoom call. Trash talking a manager. HR posted a "thank you X for your years of service" email pretty much the next day.
This past fall, an attorney I know attended a Zoom meeting with video. You could see someone not entirely out of frame crawl under her desk and spend the duration of the meeting there. It was very obvious by her facial expressions and movements what was going on under the desk.
She lost her job, and from what I understand, the guy was not her husband, so her marriage may be lost as well.
This is called digging yourself into a hole.
A woman failed her drug test at a courthouse and I watched her run across a parking lot with 2 drug court employees on her heels. She hopped in someone's SUV and shoved the driver out of the vehicle.
The drug court employees stood in front of the SUV with their hands on the hood to stop her, and she revved the engine and then knocked them with the car before reversing and driving away over a sidewalk.
This was easily preventable.
Had a friend that thought he could jump over a bonfire, he almost made it but fell back into the fire, his arm going into the embers. Ended up with 3rd degree burns on over a fourth of his body. I think he's doing pretty okay now but that one dumb decision will affect the rest of his life.
It’s insane how quick everything can go wrong. Spoiler alert- it’s really freakin’ fast.
Yikessss.
Mike D Bike GIF by Beastie Boys
Giphy
Tweeted that they had hit a cyclist when driving to work. By the time she had got to work the company had sacked her for bringing the company into disrepute.
That’s just plain dumb.
Waiting outside a club one rainy night. Some young lady decided to take one of the cop cars out front for a spin after getting tossed out. She ended up crashing into one of those concrete barricade things blocking the side door.
There's a crazy NSFL video going around Twitter where two teen girls ruin their lives. They try to carjack an Uber driver and he holds onto the door and they speed off and end up flipping the car and killing him. It was in DC, they got charged with murder.
PLEASE don’t do this.
I knew a guy, he and his friends were into that trend of going to really high places and taking pictures of them hanging from them. The guy I knew got to the top of one of those massive crane things and while taking the picture he fell. He died upon impact with the ground and now whenever I see pictures like that on social media I want to cry and beg these people to stop before they lose their lives.
Circumstances just plain suck sometimes.
Oof.
Monsters Inc Reaction GIF by filmeditor
Giphy
A friend of mine in college was sitting for campus placements, it's a rigorous step process and companies come in day in and out to select candidates for their role. This guy sat through all the rounds of X company and cleared them as he went on. The last round of interviews went on till 5 in the morning and he'd been sitting since 9 in the morning trying to get a job. After all the hardwork he got placed in the company and got a great offer letter.
He was on cloud nine and the happiest guy out there, after a while the HR casually asked him his plans after he joined the company and he went on to say that the job is just temporary and he wanted work ex before he went for his masters the next year as he'd already gotten accepted from a university of his liking. The HR immediately tore the offer letter in front of him and told him that the offer has been retracted. He sat in the hallway crying for messing up in the last moment.
This is really sad.
A few days ago.
A 15 year old kid from my town stole his mom's car at 4 in the morning. Picks up 2 of his friends (they were boyfriend and girlfriend), and goes joyriding. Decides to go 90 down a road with no streetlights and that has many sharp curves.
Runs off the road, slams into a tree at full speed. Front seat passenger (15 m) thrown from the car and crushed underneath it. Pronounced dead at the scene. Back seat passenger (15 f) Thrown through the windshield. Alive at the scene, taken to the hospital and placed in a medically induced coma. Pronounced dead 3 days later.
The driver walked away with a few scratches. His life is over, he hasn't been sentenced yet, but last I heard he's going to be tried as an adult for 2 counts of vehicular manslaughter while under the influence (the kid was drunk). One stupid decision that night ruined 3 young lives.
One bad night is all it takes.
Guy from work went to strip club, got drunk af, and spent like 14k. Managed to get some strippers in his car, which ended up in them stealing it. His wife found out, which led to a fight that got physical. He went to jail, got divorced, lost his job and his kids because of one drunk night out with some coworkers.
At least she had a fallback job.
Call Me By Your Name Dancing GIF by Vibe FM
Giphy
Less than a year ago I was a manager at a retail store. We hired a new manager, and she was one of the coolest people I'd met - around my age (early 20s), a pilot, married with a stepdaughter and three dogs, and a pole dancer.
I asked her why she was working at our little old retail store. We sell lots of band merchandise, gifts, and general pop culture items, so she said she wanted the employee discount to use in the upcoming holidays. Fair enough, not the first new hire who said that to me. She was a good manager too, so no reason to suspect.
Well, she got arrested in the middle of her shift less than a month into the job. Turned out she'd been going into the register, reprinting 1-2 week old customer receipts, and using them to generate fraudulent returns so she could pocket the cash. This is incredibly stupid because when I trained her, I explained how LP monitors all the registers throughout the day and how we organize our papers to prepare for monthly audits. This very system is what got her caught.
The craziest part? She only stole around $2,000. She was charged with a felony and most definitely can't be a pilot anymore. I haven't heard from her since her arrest, but it's likely she's in jail. I don't know how she'll get another job when she's out, but good thing she's an exceptional pole dancer.
A deadly mistake.
Third grade a friend of mine was chewing on a rubber ball you can get out of the machine for 25 cents. It popped into the back of his mouth. Startled, he gasped, which pulled it down into his esophagus. He suffocated on that little rubber ball. His mother was a substitute teacher at the school. The year he would have graduated, his parents did a full page memorial in our yearbook.
Stop doing dumb sh*t, people! Most of these things would've been easily preventable. It's so easy to get yourself hurt.
Be safe, friends. And think before you steal a cop car
Reddit user, XxFireflyxxX, wanted to hear about:
"ER doctors and nurses of reddit, what is the dumbest cause of injury you've ever seen?"
For Fashion And Protection
"I had a patient come in with lacerations to her fingers. Her blender got clogged and she stuck her hand inside to clear it. She cleared it and the blender resumed....um blending. Luckily, she had long acrylic nails. This helped lessen the impact."
Bornagainchola
GiphyI'd Rather Go To Sleep
"Guy came in after being concerned the bed sheet had stuck to his lower leg. Turns out hed been using a petrol mower the evening before and it had exploded. Full thickness burn to his calf. No pain. He wanted to go home to feed his cows instead of being transferred to burns and plastics. Man it looked like white leather."
DamaskRoses
Why Play Typical Catch?
"Guy was camping with his frat buddies and they were firing air rifles at each other with a baseball glove on."
"The pellet was lodged well into his hand. Like, how did you think this was going to end?"
Milesofstyle
Close Eyes Off From The World
"I was in the ER as a patient next to a guy who was brought in via ambulance because he super glued his eye lids shut."
"He was high as a kite, but so was I from the pain meds I'd been given for my own injury. Whatever meds I was given made me think everything was hilarious. I got yelled at by the nurses for laughing hysterically in the next room. He was being a pain in the a--, ER was on diversion already, and they were not amused."
brubarbal
This One Is Kind Of Sweet, But Use The Mailbox Next Time
"Not really injury, but I had a young man come in in the middle of the night to the ENT ER with a foreign object in his ear. It was a tinnie tiny letter from his girlfriend."
punkrawke
That's Why It's Called A "Dog" Toy
"A few stand out. Person somehow swallowed a spiked dog toy."
"Someone tried to reverse his circumcision by cutting more of his d-ck off with a pair of scissors."
"About every object known to man up the bum. 'if you like it then you shoulda put a string on it.'"
bsn2fnp1
The Science On This Checks Out
"Not a doctor or a nurse, but I work in the ER. We had a guy come in, a 70 yr old. He was disabled, unable to speak or hear. So the nurse had to write everything down for him, all he did was put his hands like horns above his head (devil like horns). Turns out this dude was higher than a kite. He had drank Fabuloso (similar to Pine Sol). Sniffed rat poison. High on meth and cocaine. All he wrote down was that the devil was telling him to do that."
theweirdox
Incarceration Doesn't Mean You Stop Self-Care?
"When I was nursing in prison, I was called to the cell of an inmate who had smuggled Veet into the wing and rubbed it on his balls. He was not a happy bunny. He absolutely refused to say why he had done it but his motivation must have been strong, I mean everyone else was smuggling heroin and mobiles into the prison, but Veet????"
killycarthief
Yeah, But, How?
"I've seen an internal vaginal laceration from someone climbing a fence while trying to see something happening down the street."
midturbinate
GiphyWhich Way Was It Pointing?
"I was once in the [emergency] unit with my then bf. There was a guy with a tiny hole in the middle of his forehead. Nailgun accident..."
Blabsie
Again With The Butt...
"ER Nurse here"
"-We had a girl come in and who knows what she was doing but she had one of the thin glow sticks in her bladder, maybe some fun finger/glow play during a concert? I don't know but pretty wild."
"-Also I had a Spanish speaking only gentleman explain why a shoe polish bottle was in his bum, we had to use a video interpreter due to the language barrier but it's was pretty wild to hear the interpreter say "I have a bottle of polish in my anus" after expecting him to just explain why he had belly pain. We also proceeded to print out multiple pictures of common types of shoe polish he used to ask him if it was "this one or that one". It was hilarious when he identified what one it was based on the picture, he had to go to the OR"
AirFryersRule
These Conspiracy Theories Are Easy to Debunk | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
There are some bizarre conspiracy theories out there. Like Australia isn't actually real... seriously? Any conspiracy theory that requires many people to kee...Sounds Like A College Guy Thing To Do
"Had a university student who ignited a firework in his anus while drunk for the amusement of his buddies. It exploded, causing full thickness burns of his rectum, resulting in him needing a colostomy"
ArcofRiolan
A Complete Lack Of Understanding Of How Sicknesses Work
"Not the dumbest ,but certainly the funniest....for me. So this young kid early 20's comes in triage all panic like and nervous. Chief complaint was Lung infection. We bring him back and before I can even ask him his name hes yappin a mile a min saying hes gana die and hes so stupid. I finally get him to slow down and ask what happen. He just keeps swearing hes got a lung disease."
"long story short his girlfriend had bronchitis and gave him oral sex. she told him after and he freaked out. He wanted us to check his penis for bronchitis. I am trying my hardest not to laugh in his face, bc he was first off dead ass serious and almost in tears. Secondly trying to be professional. So I do the only logical thing. I grab my buddy also a ER Nurse and ask the guy to tell him the story cause its always better to get a second opinion."
"Once he hears the story he starts crackin up, I loose it and this guy is crying saying we dont care if his dick gets bronchitis and falls off. we eventually pull it together and tell him he needs to see a doctor right away!. walked his dumb-ss back to fast track and he was discharged in 10 min. lol fun times. ER triage is sometimes the best free comedy you can get. Cant make this sh-t up."
Dingleberryfarmz
Bums And Chainsaws. You're Going To See A Lot Of Those In The E.R.
"Giant potato. Up the arse. Apparently they were peeling the spuds in the bath tub, naked, got up to answer the doorbell [apparently with the intention to remain naked], slipped on another potato, potato went up bum. Apparently there was 50kg of potatoes in tub, according to his recollection."
"Dude with chainsaw, for whatever reason, was upstairs in house when they decided to fire it up. Save time apparently."
"Tripped down stairs with chainsaw in operation. Lopped arm off. Not sure what the real story was, but the idea of a guy tumbling down a flight of stairs, in a house, with an operating chainsaw, a tad chortle worthy, in that galllows kinda way."
kiwi-potatoes
We're Never Going To Make It As A Species, Are We?
"In addition to the multitude of ass-related banality, there was the guy who tried to kick an obstruction away from the lawnmower while he was using it barefoot. He was lucky they managed to save a bit of his foot."
aquila-audax
Wow...
"Operating theatre - this woman came in with a frozen chicken stuck inside her lady parts. Apparently she had a habit of buying them, inserting them and then pulling them out, as she really had a thing for going through childbirth, but on this occasion, she hadn't allowed time for it to defrost properly /adequately."
Mike_OxonFaier
GiphyDoctors have definitely seen some stuff. Do they want to remember all of it? That's a question only they'll be able to answer, years and years after seeing so many things taken out of so many anuses.
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Broken
hit him where it hurts steve austin GIF by WWEGiphyIn March, a friend and I were bouldering and a bunch of rock broke. I fell 10-12ft onto rock, broke my leg & tore a ligament in my foot. My friend took a hilarious video of the whole thing. I walked 1/2 mile back to my car after making the assertion "I'd probably know if it was broken, right?"
Deaf
Not me but my dad. He had an ear infection so bad he couldn't hear out of one ear and was getting vertigo if he stood up. He's old school tho and figured he'd just lay in bed resting to let it heal.
Nah. Didn't really work.
That crap made him deaf in one ear and there's no fix. He's tried going to doctors and has gotten "the ear is complex, sometimes stuff happens we can't fix" and he's tried hearing aids but he's just deaf in that ear now forever.
Doctor said if he had gotten in within a few days they would have just given him steroids (I think) and it would have been a fairly successful fix.
So yea. If you go deaf in one ear, go see a doctor.
Wear Shorts
I broke my arm falling over my pants which were too long and landed with my arms straight out and fractured my elbow and radius in the left arm. Mom saw the swelling but didn't take me for 2 days. When doctors saw how bad it actually was they called CPS and we were both questioned separately because they thought I was being abused.
Up to the bunk
Season 2 Pain GIF by ABC NetworkGiphy2 broken wrists from running into a wall and using my hands to stop myself. My dad kept trying to get me to climb up onto a bunk bed. Only then did we realize my wrists weren't just bruised but both broken.
To Boulder or not to Boulder
I was bouldering in a gym. Couldn't get the last hold to top out the route. Fell from 15 feet 4 times that day. Last attempt I made the transition and touched the top of the wall before falling back to the mat. Hurt a bit but I was able to walk on so I headed out. Decided to take the offer of someone else driving me home. Got home and climbed the stairs like a toddler to crawl in to bed. Couldn't get comfortable so I called a friend to run me down to the doc that was half a mile away.
They strongly encouraged me to go to the hospital since they didn't have an x-ray. Turns out I shattered my L1 vertebrae. Few days in the hospital for surgery and recovery and I was back on my feet. I don't climb anymore due to fear of an impact injury. I still want one of those rock walls that hang over a pool though.
in the river....
I had a shocking ear infection after swimming in a filthy river. Over the course of a week or so it got progressively worse and more painful. Parents thought I was just being a sook. Finally one night I couldn't sleep from the pain and was just lying in bed bawling my eyes out, so my dad told my mum to take me to the hospital where I ended up staying for ten days.
The School Called
I can't have been much older when I was climbing a bookshelf to reach something, fell back and landed on my ankle. My mother told me I was me being dramatic about the pain and sent me in to school the next day as usual. School had her come and pick me up by 10am, one trip to the hospital later to find I'd badly sprained it, and told to keep off it for at least a few days.
No apology or sympathy from my mother at all, and over the rest of my childhood she made me go to school sick or badly hurt no less than 10 times. School eventually started calling my grandparents to pick me up because my mother said I was faking/exaggerating it.
No Biggie
stomach GIFGiphyOne time, when biking alone, I fell and got some road rash. No biggie, just let me get back on and- oh crap I cant bike. Apparently I had ripped up some thigh and abdomen muscles that were crucial for like... everything.
At Granny's
Crashed on my bike at my granny's house at maybe 10 years old. My brother laughed at me and my granny put a dish towel with ice on it for 5 minutes. But damn, it hurt.
Life went on, 2 or 3 months later playing backyard football I went down on the arm and... this time I made sure it clearly broke. So on the X-rays they could tell I had broken it earlier somehow and had a chat with my mom. Lol.
Helmet Always
bike GIFGiphyCrashed on my bicycle while riding to work. Lost consciousness so I do not remember the impact. Came to, got up, started walking bike toward work, thinking I just needed to walk a bit and would be OK.
Saw ripped area on jacket and gloves (and skin!) so I realized I needed cleaned up and could not make it to work that day. Realized I was concussed when I could not remember phone number to call in sick to work. Caught a ride to Emergency room, learned I also had a neck injury. Helmet saved my life. Spent 8 weeks in a neck brace. Doing much better now almost a year later. Overall would rate the experience 0/10 and would not recommend.
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