That HURT (injury)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Yeah, those two. The Ulna is connected at the elbow to the humerous, right? Well, it was not so humerous when I fell!

If you were acting in Comedy Sportz, you would recieve a groaner penalty!

[Sphinx]

A few weeks ago I was wrestling with my boxcutter because it didnt want to open a box like I was asking it to, so it decided to fight me over it.

The boxcutter won. I lost.

And for losing I got a deep cut and 5 stitches

Of course this only adds to all my small nicks and cuts . . . . . so far





Sphinx- who doesnt need a boxcutter, much less at work . . . . . .

[Jester]

My worst injuries ever were not work-related, though they did affect my ability to work. At 16 I broke my jaw when I used my chin to break my fall off a bicycle. The motorists on that road were so kind that when they saw me laying in a crumpled heap on the side of the road they honked for me to get out of their way. And people wonder why I hate New Jersey. Easily the most painful thing I have ever been through, especially with getting my jaw wired shut and all. The good thing was that I worked at an ice cream parlor/restaurant, so had plenty of milkshakes to get me by.

A few years later, while drunkenly riding my bicycle home from an all-night party, I managed to ride right into a parked car, which caused me to land face first on the road and smash my face pretty good. No one around to honk at me then, though.

Also, due to my love of cooking, and my innate clumsiness, I am often slicing my fingers in various new and creative ways. Also, bartending, I managed to do the same thing, so I often am seen wearing bandages on one or more fingers...especially since, with even the smallest cuts, the juice from limes and lemons makes one go AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!! when it comes in contact with said minor injuries.

More work related injuries are not hard to come by in my history either. In addition to the many minor cuts and bruises as mentioned above in my serving and bartending duties, when I was a cook (first job), managed to get many burns from the oil in the deep fryer. Anyone who has dealt with that stuff knows that that leaves scars for a long time.

Then there are the more amusing injuries I have suffered. While working for a Phoenix hotel as a banquet server, I managed to slip on the wet kitchen floor and shatter my left wrist. I had to learn how to carry trays with dinners on them with my RIGHT hand, basically completely reversing the way I did things. Also, as I was DJing weddings at the time, this injury caused me problems, as I could no longer lift the two heavy speakers on to their tripods when I was setting up. This problem was alleviated by having a very kind girlfriend who would go along with me to my gigs and help me set up. Clients did not seem to mind the extra person when the situation was explained to them over the phone.

Fast forward to this year. As we have just opened the new restaurant in the hotel, and I my boss is looking to me and the other supervisor to make sure we have everything we need, I mentioned the current lack of rubber mats behind the bar, which we DID have in the old restuarant. Apparently those got tossed. Apparently new ones are real expensive. Apparently the company that manages the hotel is rather, shall we say, thrifty. My boss asked if we could just get by without them. My response was not nice, polite, friendly, or diplomatic. It went something like this: "I have already shattered one wrist because of a wet floor, and bar floors get wet. That is a fact of life. I am not going to break any more bones because this company is too cheap to buy basic safety equipment. Also, don't you think the Health Department might get a bit upset if they notice we don't have anything back there to prevent falls? Isn't that a complete f***ing safety hazard?" Boss is looking into getting mats again. Smart move.

Back to DJing for a moment...this was not an injury per se, but could have been a serious injury or even a fatality. One day, heading from Phoenix to Tucson to do a wedding, an 18-wheeler to my right on the two lane southbound freeway decided he needed to be in the left lane, and so he went into the left lane. Where I was. Where he apparently didn't see or didn't care where I was. This happened so quickly, I did not have time to break to get behind this blankety blank, and he basically ran me off the road onto the (barely existent) shoulder at 80 miles an hour. It was only by sheer luck and some amount of driving skill that I did not end up in a ditch. I was livid, to say the least, but could not catch up to the idiot to get his company name off the truck without risking a serious speeding ticket. He was hauling! I just hope HE got a ticket later on down the road.

Once when I was working at a chain restaurant, I had an amusing incident. Well, amusing to those who saw it, not to me. Right next to the line, we had a monitor which showed you how long each order was taking. When an order was going out, we would "bump" it off the screen. Decent enough system. Well, one day, I was doing something below said monitor, and came up quickly, forgetting where I was. CRACK! I slammed my head hard into the bottom bracket that held that monitor in place. According to the people who saw it, I went down like a sack of potatos. I don't remember that part. Just one minute working, the next being on the floor with a severe pain in the back of my skull. Not fun.

And then there was the Double Careless Maneuver. This one is just embarrassing. I was working at a chain restaurant in Orlando, FL, during my 18 month trek around the country. I was talking on the phone and also fidgeting with a lemon cutter--the kind where you lift the handle, put a lemon in, and bring the handle down to slice the lemon into nice neat wedges. So the blades inside it were, how shall we say, very sharp. Well, this is not a device one should be messing around with while distracted. Did I mention I was on the phone? Somehow, I got my hand in there and the contraption came down, SLICING my palm something badly. No hospital visit needed, just a good bandaging, and here the story should end. Should, but doesn't. A few days later, I was on a beach in Clearwater, FL, hanging out with some people I had just met. Trying to impress the girls in the group, I was showing off my bottle flipping skills. So I picked up a beer bottle from the ground that someone had discarded and flipped it into the air, behind my back, and caught it, in front of myself. Unfortunately for me and the show, it was not a complete beer bottle. So that sliced my OTHER hand something bad. I showed up the next day at my friend's house in a quiet little Florida town with two bandaged hands. She said I looked like a mummy movie reject. I spent three days in that quiet Florida town, basically just reading and recuperating.

You would think by now I would be more careful around sharp objects. You would think.

[Buglady]

If you don't mind my asking (I seem to be a little dense today), how did you manage to fall UP stairs?

It takes a special talent. We klutzes take great pride in our ability to perform unlikely feats of clumsiness.

Cheers,
Kim
(Currently sporting three mystery bruises on her left leg, and who has only NOT fallen up the stais recently by dint of avoiding stairs entirely)

[HYHYBT]

Unfortunately (well, fortunately, but not for storytelling!) I wasn't really hurt in either of these, but not too long ago I ran for the door because the window customer's money blew away... and ran smack into it because it wasn't unlocked yet. And once, while closing, I slipped on the floor I'd just mopped, catching myself on the floor with my hand. Which bent backwards almost to the point that my knuckles were touching my arm, which they are not supposed to do. It didn't hurt that much, but at first my fingers wouldn't work, then over the next few minutes they went from not moving at all, to a small range, to normal but weak, to perfectly fine. By which time it *did* hurt, but nothing more ever came of it. I can't even be sure which hand it was.

[janitordba]

ive cut myself many times with boxcutters. mostly left hand. only went to the er once,3 stitches. pinkie finger. now i got an awesome scar. actually 2 of them,cause i got myself again,right above the first. i have a small divit in my head from headbutting the bailer. didnt go to the ER that time,though i think i got a concussion. my boss was a lazy bitch. got a scar on my knee from more box cutter shenanigans. probably should have gotten stitches that time as well. boss yet again lazy. i crushed my hand between the walkie stacker and the steel in the backroom one night. that hurt like a sonofabitch. it swelled up for a few days.
ive cracked my head against various things over the years too. and my foot got crushed by a pallet one time as well. probably should have visited the ER on that occasion too. once again,ive got a lazy boss.

my fellow janitor V hit himself in the face with length of pipe while trying to unjam the garbage compacter. fucked himself up good too. looked like he got in a barfight.

another friend,A,done substantial damage to himself in the past. he got 5 staples in his head due to a bailer incident. he fell down in the floor stripper. stoic bastard,though. after falling into the stripper,back first,he got up and went and bought a new shirt and got back to work. last week he was working on one of the scrubbers and ended up cutting a chunk out of his wrist with a utility knife. nicked a nerve and got a stitch. i got to clean up his blood. and a while back he took a shelf to the forehead. hes also got various boxcutter scars from back in his stocking days.

i also almost stabbed myself in the eye with a floor scraper. missed the eye and nicked my forehead. i cant remember the circumstances behind that,aside from feeling really dumb. and one more,i was getting carts and smoking,and i was palming my cigarette cause of the wind. i ended up sticking the lit end on my lip and burning it. needless to say i felt like total moron that time.

also,ive got a scar on my back from crawling under the line while unloading a truck. that,too, was dumb.

[Becks]

I just HAVE to bring this one back...

Today I was walking through the grocery back room (because it's faster than walking the sales floor...less customers, too ). One of the guys was walking through pushing a cart. I THOUGHT I got my foot all the way out of the way. I was wrong. He ran over my foot. It hurt. A LOT. It's OK, though, I can still walk.

A few minutes later, I have to go upstairs for some supplies. I pulled down a box, and it just barely touched my foot on landing. Wow, that hurt almost as much as when it was first run over. I admit, when that box landed, I yelled out some improper words. Good thing I was in an employee only area.

You know, I probably should look at my foot and see if there's any bruising.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I just now noticed this thread existed, heh.

Have I ever been hurt at work? Hmmm. Do my wrestling matches count? If they do, I've got a finger that I'm pretty sure I broke...just sort of taped it back into one piece for a few weeks and now it (mostly) works fine. There's a theory that I once dislocated my neck taking a bad bump over the top rope to the floor but I pushed in back in during my roll through on the ground...something went CRACK CRACK and my neck has never been quite the same...also, I once dislocated my shoulder but didn't realize it until a few months later because it was so barely dislocated that it didn't like, hang off or anything, it just hurt a lot to use it. It seems to be fixed now.

At a regular job, though, I've never done anything more than wang my head on a counter or something, but to be honest, I don't even feel head injuries anymore...

[lily_white]

My neck and shoulders are getting all screwed up. Three-four pounds may not seem like a lot, but oh let me tell ya - add a few pounds to your head, move your neck all around whilst you animate and your body will notice the difference. Your neck is accustomed to whipping around for 24 hours the weight of just your head ; add a few pounds for an hour, and your neck will hate you. I absolutely love doing those shifts, but if I have to see the athletic trainer to loosen up my muscles every freaking time I do that shift, then it's a problem.

Also, my wrists are starting to hurt from straining it when I move my hand back. I think I'm going to have the trainer tape it up tomorrow morning...

[chrislb]

I haven't hurt myself at my current job yet. However, when I worked for St. Vinnies, I have hurt myself in many interesting ways.

For instance, I managed to lift a 6' barrel full of glass jars into the back of the truck I worked on. It weighed just a little less than I do.
Very bad for my back.

Me and my driver was hauling a oversized mattress out of a trailer for an old lady. It was raining outside. The upper left corner of the bed snagged on the low hanging roof. Which caused the bed to bend and push me back off the porch. I landed badly on my ankle, twisting it rather badly. I am a rather large man. I heard and felt my ankle pop.

The last injury I got there was when I helped remove an ancient xerox machine from a Lakewood church. We thought that it was going to be a relatively small machine. Riiiight. It was very largy and bulky. The doors outside were small. We tried to ease it out of the doors. There was at best 1/3 of an inch clearance on either side of the machine. I was backing out while my driver guided us out of the door. He turned to my right, the machine rebounded off the left side door. Which in turn caught my right pinky between door and machine. My pinky broke the long way. MY hand hurt for three weeks straight. I didn't know about that at the time. I didn't find out until I had a physical checkup.

[Becks]

I just now noticed this thread existed, heh.

Mysty, next time I start an injury thread, I'll PM the link to you.

[Misanthropical]

When I worked in a nursing home, I hurt my back by lifting an older lady who was a lot bigger than me. It was either that or have her fall on the floor and I couldn't find anyone to help me in time. I got yelled at, apperently I was just suppose to let her fall and break her hip or worse.

When I worked in a deli, I cut myself on the slicer more times than I care to remember. Luckily, none of the cuts required stitches.

I hurt my wrist in a job that required me to fold and tuck sandwich bags for 12 hours at a time. I saw their doctor and when I came back to work they put me on a faster machine. I quit. They had the nerve to get mad at me for quitting.

[Becks]

It's me again.

I was minding my own business, cutting honeydew melons when I stabbed my finger. Usually when I think I've cut myself, the knife didn't even cut the glove. Not this time. I stabbed myself a good one. (I don't know HOW...my left hand was nowhere NEAR the knife being wielded by my right...) Bled so much that I didn't even have the band-aid properly applied before it bled through.

[tollbaby]

The only two that immediately come to mind were both burns.

Working in the bakery at IGA (before Loeb took them over up here): part of my job was to bake the pies that we boxed and sold. The top oven's opening was 6' off the ground. I'm 5'6". The bakery manager had been on the shift before me, and had put a load of pies in the top oven (she was 5'10"). I normally only put bread or buns up in that top one, or didn't use it at all unless there was a rush. But for some reason, she got the brilliant idea to put pies (pies are HEAVY) in it. Came time to take them out, and I couldn't quite do it. I pulled the tray and it started falling towards me... so rather than drop six pies and have to pay for them, I stopped the sliding/tipping tray. With my chin. Hot tray. Ow. It actually STUCK to my chin.

Working in a gov't office (believe it or not). My supervisor used to bring her three year old brat (er son) in on frequent occasions (pissing our new boss off, since he doesn't really like having children in the office). This kid was SO rowdy... *sigh* Unfortunately, she let him do whatever the hell he wanted, and warned us that if we didn't do the same, there would be repercussions. Kid decides to play with the water cooler at the corner of my desk. I gave him a cup, told him not to fill it too much, and watched every few seconds to make sure he didn't flood the place while his mom was off chatting. Leave it to the three year old to figure out how to work the HOT water tap (it was one of those coolers that also provided boiling water) that none of the office staff could work. I saw him fiddling with it and said "Jack, don't touch" just as, in slow motion, I noticed the lock sliding home and the toggle beginning to fall.

Before I could even think, I had rolled over and stuck my hand between the hot water tap and him, just as a bunch of boiling water poured out over my hand. Fortunately, the kid didn't get burned, but the entire back of my hand was covered in second-degree burns. His mother LAUGHED. "Well, kids will be kids, right?" I was so stunned I couldn't even speak, and it wasn't until my boss came out of his office to see what was going on and said "Oh my god, your HAND!" that I even moved. ugh.

Other than that, I can't remember anything major. Ever had a paper cut with a file folder though? ow.

[Becks]

Ever had a paper cut with a file folder though? ow.

Of the many unworthy work related injuries that I've gotten, I have lost count of the number of times that I've given myself "paper" cuts from the plastic containers used for the salad bar (most recent time, last Friday...talk about an injury day ).