Whats the most traumatic injury you have experienced?

cheylink

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To most I am extremely lucky! I'm 37 years old and never broken one bone (Knock on wood!)! I have dislocated fingers, reset and splint............. first and only time had stitches, 38 in my hand..........This was definitely bad, I am an artist and it was glass that sliced open my left pointer finger to fist, including tendon. But still know that I am lucky compared to some!
What where your worst injuries?
By the way, mine was washing a glass, it broke with my hand turning inside it!
 

rubsluts'mommy

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lessee...

back injury (two slipped discs, at 17)
minor concussions
badly sprained ankle
popped kneecap (still pops out occasionally, but goes right back)...

and the scars I could show you... one was from a baby food jar of nails... I was 2!! and then once my sister was telling a bad joke at the dinner table and I was drinking my milk right as she told the punchline, making me bite down in laughter... I broke the glass, it sliced my lip, and i had blood, milk and broken glass in my mouth... I freaked!

I still have a faint scar from that too...

A.
 

luvmy2cats

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Well when DH and I still lived with our parents I was over there one day and we were horsing around in his room. I was sitting on the bed, him standing up on the floor. He jumped up onto the bed and hit his head on one of those thick, glass ceiling light fixture covers. It broke into like three huge pieces and one piece caught me where the wrist and palm meet toward the left side. Another piece caught me on the left forearm and left a small gash. I had to have like ten stitches in both. I've broken my thumb and pinkie finger also. That's about it.
 

valanhb

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Actually, the only real injury I've had was a severely sprained ankle. Happened the day before my birthday too, which sucked. It was a full year before I could walk comfortably without external support.

The only broken bone I've had (I'm 35, so lucky too!), is from the surgery I just had in February where they sliced part of the bone out to shorten the ulna.
 

MoochNNoodles

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Well I guess the most traumatic was my eye injury last year where I had blurry vision for about a month. That was almost more mentally traumatic with all the tests and seeing specialists for it and all to figure out what was going on.

I pulled a muscle in my back in college and I slightly tore one knee in junior high. Oh and I caught falling glass at work in college and ended up with 4 stitches. Would have been 5 but it wouldn't stay in so they just left the one end. I think I fractured one little toe once before...but I never went to the Dr to confirm that because they said there wasn't much to do besides give me a 'special' shoe.
 

lunasmom

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Hmmm...I broke my arm when I was a kid by playing indoor frisbee as a kid

Sprained my ankle by hopping on one rollar skate...slipped and fell.

Got some stones caught in the wheels of my rollar blade in my early 20s and scrapped up my knees and face (the cuts came really close to the eye).

Sprained my thumb when I wasn't looking while biking and ran into a cable box...

Yes, I'm accident prone.
 

strange_wings

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Originally Posted by valanhb

Actually, the only real injury I've had was a severely sprained ankle. Happened the day before my birthday too, which sucked. It was a full year before I could walk comfortably without external support.
I twisted my right ankle several years ago - far enough around that there was a loud snap that sounded like a stick snapping. (I suppose that counts as traumatic since since I still remember that sound
) I see now I was lucky, mine took 4-5 months to heal so that I didn't feel pain with every step. Wasn't allowed medical treatment for it...

I'm not sure what was "most traumatic".
At age six I was scratched in the eye by my cat. I had to wear an eye patch to school for nearly three weeks...luckily showing the other kids the scratch grossed them out enough that they didn't tease me.


Three months of nearly constant pain from my gallbladder when I was 17. Technically not an injury but that was some of the worst pain I've had to endure.

During December 2006 I woke up in a lot of pain and was unable to put weight on my right leg due to arthritis in the right SI joint... for 18-19 days. This sort of thing makes a person learns how much they take just being able to go to the bathroom by themselves for granted.

The cat bite a few years ago left a lasting impression too, which is why I tell so many people to get their bites properly treated.
 

natalie_ca

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Injury? I'll go with my fractured right ankle from 1990. I slipped and fell on ice. I didn't know my ankle was broken. I had that sensation you get when you bang your knee really hard... that painful zinging feeling. I stood up and took a step because I was in the middle of a busy street, and fell again because my ankle was broken. I needed surgery to insert a titanium plate, 6 screws and a pin into the ankle and was in the hospital 1 week and a cast for 2 months, followed by 1 year of physiotherapy. To this day my ankle gives me grief.

My most serious illness was 3 1/2 years ago when I was admitted to the hospital or 2 weeks with left lower lobe pneumonia, a collapsed lung (left), fluid around the lung (left) and a possible blood clot in my left lung (though they weren't able to see it on a CT scan so it might have resolved itself). I'm still off work from it and have had one complication after another.f
 

marianjela

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Hmmm... this one made me think. But the few that stand out... a few years back I slipped on ice and fell going down our stairs, I fractured the bones in my foot.

And once I almost fell when hubby and I were horse-playing, I caught myself on my desk - with my hand... and sprained it pretty bad - had x-rays cuz it was so swollen and so sore for a long time.

But my most lasting and still plaguing injury came from one of my c-sections. During the birth of my 5th child the anesthesiologist hit a nerve and now I have permanent nerve damage on the back of my right thigh. Sometimes I get a stabbing sharp pain that shoots down to my toes, and if I sit too long in one position it tingles real bad, but most frustrating is the burning feeling I get whenever it is touched.

Other than that... I think I've been pretty lucky (knock on wood)
 

marianjela

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Originally Posted by Natalie_ca

My most serious illness was...
If we're talking illness/hospitalization... I spent 3 days in the ICU for accidental acetaminophen overdose. When I first went to the hospital I remember waking up to my husband in tears as the doctor asked if I was an organ donor. They were going to life-flight me to Pittsburgh, but the doctors in Erie ended up just referring to them. It was frustrating being in the ICU when I felt fine (despite what my liver told them). I remember in particular fighting with one of the nurses cuz I needed to go to the bathroom and she tried making me use a bedpan.

I dont think so.

Being in the ICU, the rooms didnt have bathrooms and they had to bring in a porta-potty chair for me


In the words of Popeye, "How in-bare-ass-king"
 

paulena

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As far as illnesses goes, I've had my fair share, let me tell you, I had a heart attack at the age of 36 and quadruple heart bypass at the age of 39. Complete hysterectomy, gallbladder, and most recently 4 back surgeries w/permanent nerve damage on the left side. Needless to say, I am now disabled and unable to work!!
 

bnwalker2

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When I worked at the animal shelter, the guy I worked with was building an RC car track at his house. The shelter was on county property and that's where the highway department stored their salt for the roads as well as large piles of junk that they tore up from sidewalks, roads, etc. One day there was a giant round steel something. To this day I couldn't tell you what it was exactly. Well, the guy I worked with saw it and wanted to take it home and add it to his track. He asked me to help him lift it into the back of his pickup truck. It was really heavy... several hundred pounds... and we just couldn't lift it. He leaned it against the bed of his truck and he thought that if he pulled the truck forward, the thing would just slide right into the bed.
He told me "if you feel it start to fall, just let it go, don't get hurt." So I held it steady and he started to pull the truck forward, I felt it start to slide so I just let go... bad idea. It came down right onto my leg. Nothing was broken, luckily, but it damaged the muscle and tissue inside the leg. That was 4 years ago and it still hurts off and on to this day.

The only other one was the time I stepped on a nail and it went through my foot.
 

krazy kat2

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I got kicked in the mouth by a size 13 steel toed boot by by ex. He was trying to kill me because I woke him up. If it had not been for my now SO, a wonderful man, and another friend, I have no doubt I would be dead right now. My jaw was broken, and I had 22 stitches down the side of my mouth, with a scar to this day. I am going to try to have my name changed because I still have his last name. I have also had my collarbone broken several times due to a birth defect in it.
 

taterbug

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When I was 12, my horse and I had a wreck. She got spooked by a dog and took off running on a gravel road and slid when she tried to jump a creek. Her feet flew out from under her and she rolled over my head. I wound up laying in the creek with a concussion and 3 gashes in my head that required 30 some odd stitches. It was funny tho. She got up uninjured, and walked down the road a little way and waited on me to limp back to her!


Then, about 6 yr ago, I was in an accident, not wearing my seatbelt
, and smacked the windsheild with my head. I had double vision for about a month and now I can't read without reading glasses. I don't know which head bang was the worse!!
Thank goodness for hard heads!!
 

yam102284

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Luckily, I haven't had any injuries that happened, but just serious pain. I've never really injured myself (broken bones, etc.), even with playing soccer my whole life, I've never seriously injured any part of my body.

When I was 10, during a soccer game, I went up to kick the ball in the air, and landed directly on my back. Knocked the wind out of me for a good couple minutes and scared the you know what out of me.

A few years later, we were scrimmaging at a practice, and a girl kicked me directly in the knee cap with her cleats. I couldn't walk at all, and I really thought something was wrong. But luckily it wasn't serious. I just iced it and sat out of practice for the rest of the day. I have never felt pain like that before and I never want to feel it again. Maybe that's why my knee is so messed up now.


Originally Posted by Bella713

worst thing is kidney stones, not necessarily an injury but traumatic nonetheless
My boyfriend had kidney stones over a year ago, and he told me the pain was unbearable and he had never felt anything like that before. Seeing him on the ground in some much pain, I definitely don't want to encounter that.
 

carolpetunia

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I've had a few whoppers, but I think my most traumatic injury involved the least drama:

My mom used to have a habit of putting a teaspoon in the top of a teakettle to keep it from whistling, so she could let it keep boiling and get superheated -- more sanitary that way, she felt. Well, one Sunday morning when I was about 30, I was over at the folks's house for breakfast, and Mom had me hold out my cup for more hot water.

The superhot water spilled over my left hand, but I couldn't just drop the cup, because it was an heirloom... and I couldn't just carry it to the sink, because Mom was still pouring and it would have splashed on our feet... so I had to say Mom stop, Mom stop, Mom stop until she did. Then I put the cup down on the counter and ran to the sink, turned on the cold water, and stuck my hand under it. Mom's instinct was to come over and grasp my hand under the water -- which kept the water from getting to it, of course -- so I had to say Mom let go, Mom let go, Mom let go, until she did.


Well, by then the melted skin between my fingers had webbed together, and I had to forcibly spread my fingers to rip them apart again, which made me black out for a moment as I leaned on the sink. I sat for the next six hours with my hand in a bowl of icewater and still had so much pain that I just leaked tears constantly.

I knew I should go to the hospital, but I was embarrassed to ask my parents to take me there... I figured they would think I was a big baby, since they had already expressed the opinion that there was nothing the hospital could do for this.

Eventually, I needed to go home, so we soaked a towel in icewater, wrapped it around my hand, and covered it with a plastic bag. My apartment was only ten minutes away, but I couldn't do it -- two minutes into the drive, I had to pull over and just sit and sob. My father had followed me to make sure I got there okay, and I finally just asked him to drive me home. We left my car, and he and Mom got it later.

It was three days before the pain got down to a level that allowed me to do anything but sit still and hurt. Such a simple little injury, but it was darn near unendurable! I have the greatest sympathy for real burn victims... I can't even imagine what they go through.

Mom no longer owns a teakettle.
 

pookie-poo

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I was a passenger in a car that was hit head-on by a drunk driver. I had a fractured jaw and a dislocated shoulder. I don't remember it being too painful, but that was way back in 1976, so it could be that I just don't remember. I've passed 4 kidney stones, and those were excruciating. I misjudged the basement stairs last summer, and fell down the last two, breaking two ribs on the bottom step...that was painful! Especially when I rolled over onto that side in my sleep! The back pain that I've been experiencing for the past year has to be about the worst, because this has been unrelenting. I'm getting a series of facet blocks done, starting next week. I'm really hoping to get some relief from the pain (and a full night's sleep...the first since last July!!!)
 

swampwitch

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Originally Posted by CarolPetunia

...The superhot water spilled over my left hand, but I couldn't just drop the cup, because it was an heirloom...
Heirloom, shmerloom, drop the cup!


I had a horrible injury when I was about three. Without getting into details, it involved me perched on top of the closed tailgate of our pick-up truck, my five-year-old brother urging me to jump saying he'd catch me, and the trailer hitch below.


I have a few more, but most of my traumatic injuries are on the inside, given to me by my abusive parents.
 

ldg

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Everybody keeps saying "not much happened to me, but...." and then these stories that make me cringe thinking about the pain!


I've sprained my ankle so many times I can't count. Always the left one. Thankfully not recently.

The most painful injury I had was being late for class in Jr. high. It was a large school and I was running along a hallway that slopes downwards then back up, and I was on the down part. Some kids had obviously had a water fight at the fountain, and the floor was REALLY slick - and I slipped - went flying - and I went up, the hall went down, and I landed badly. I broke my coccyx (my tailbone). I could barely stand up for a couple of days, and I could NOT sit down for weeks. I had to stand in the back of my classes (talk about embarassing) because even sitting on a cushion didn't help. I still can't sit still for extended periods of time.

The one that was most traumatic, however, was a couple years before that. Some boys on bikes were chasing me, so I hopped a neighbor's hedge to get away.
Turns out there used to be a fence there - the kind with the metal posts that you string wire through? Anyway, I heard my pants rip and thought "Shoot!" I looked down to see what happened - and there was this huge hole in my leg! I was obviously in shock because I felt nothing. I was across the street from my house, but my parents weren't home. I saw other neighbor kids playing and ran over there - but I couldn't scream or speak. I just pointed to my leg - and I guess I passed out, because I woke up to the neighbor's dad in an ambulance with me. I told him my mom was at the library, and I guess they called and had her paged once we got to the hospital. He stayed with me until she showed up, which was really nice.

I have a scar on my right thigh that is about 6" long and then about 5" from the middle of my thigh going to the left starting from the top of the other one. When I look at it, it looks like an upside down backwards "L". It was kind of "hollow" for a while, and that area is still very sensitive (in an unpleasant way) to the touch. Doc said I was really lucky, because I missed the femoral artery by "less than a millimeter."


Funny looking back - because what I was most bummed about at the time was that was my favorite pair of pants!


Laurie
 
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