Back in sixth grade, I was trying to impress my friends. Actually, they weren't my friends but classmates whom I wanted to like me.
We've all been there.
So I tried to make them laugh by performing a little stunt where I pretended to walk into the classroom with a door that had been shut.
I kicked the door and meant to mimic my face bouncing off from the impact. Excpet my estimation between the door and my face was way off.
Basically, I knocked two of my front teeth, causing them to dangle from my gums and swing like western saloon doors. I got the laugh I wanted, I guess.
Curious to hear something more dramatic from strangers on the internet, Redditor _elliot_frost_ asked:
"People of Reddit, what is the most serious injury you got for the dumbest reason?":
Over Confident
Usually, whenever someone says, "I've got this," they don't.
Screwed
"Drilled half an inch into my arm because I thought .... and I quote 'I got this, ain't no way its gonna slip.'"
Wasn't A One-Man-Job
"Tried to move one of those old, massive tv sets by myself and dropped it on my foot. Shattered all my toe bones and broke a few in my foot. Super stupid."
Touching Concrete
"My little brother and I were helping my mom move. There was some furniture that was easier to unload from the bedroom balcony then carry down the thin stairs with a turn, so my brother passed those to me while on the balcony and I on the ground. Once finished he decided to jump from the balcony rather than take the stairs because...I have no idea. He broke his foot on the concrete path under the balcony."
– dring157
This Is How Not To Ride A Bike
"I was teaching my now-husband to ride a bicycle, as he didn't know even as we were 22. We were practicing in an empty high school courtyard. He tried for a few meters and fell. I suddenly take the bike and speed around the yard, getting cocky and showing off, so I don't see the soccer goal post coming towards me. I hit my head, hands and knees and scraped a good chunk off my shoulder. I may have had a concussion too, as I was dizzy and disoriented for some hours after. I still have a 2 inch diameter circular scar on my shoulder. I was a dummy."
– elenifan
Overshooting
"When I was in 11th grade I was a teachers assistant for an 8th grade gym class. One day we were told to set up and run handball games and being the competitive older kid I was I decided to play. I talked to my team and came up with a plan to score a point in a flashy way (as we were already crushing the other team). I decided I would jump and grab the rim of the basketball hoop above the other teams net and have my teamate bank the ball off me and into the goal. Well turns out I didn't have great grip strength and my fingers slipped, ended up landing on my hand wrong and tore a ligament in my right ring finger. To this day, I cannot move that finger from the middle knuckle down."
– NotCzeko
Reddit Users Share Their Best 'It's A Small World After All' Experience
Play Time
You know what they say: "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt."
Getting A Mouthfull
"I cant really remember if I was actually legitamtely injured, but i remember my mom taking me to the hospital. When i was like 7 years old, my parents bought my brothers and I some toy lightsabers. They were the types that lit up when you pressed a button and could be extended a bit. It was summer and my mother took us to her sister's bbq where we played outside with our cousins and the adults could all go and chat together. My oldest brother and I took our lightsabers so we could show everyone and fight with them. Our parents had wanted to see us so they kept glancing back every few minutes to check that nobody got hurt. My older brother and I started to duel with our lightsabers, and then it got interesting. We both backed away and charged at eachother, ready to stab the other with our toy saber. For some weird f'king reason, I opened my mouth and let out a sort of battle cry. Then my brother's lightsaber went in my mouth and a little bit into my throat (I assume accidently.) My mom was mortified and rushed me to the hospital because she said she didnt want to take any chances. And that is the story of how I accidently deepthroated a lightsaber."
Sticking That Landing
"Steak knife through the ankle, while backflipping onto a couch."
"I was 14, or so. Aristocrats was on at the Everybody Wants to Be a Cat bit. It was my jam, so I was dancing. Halfway through the song, I flipped on the couch. I had forgotten about a steak knife I had left from lunch. Shock set in and I started screaming. Mom came in, and had to drive me to the ER."
Reminder To Tie Your Shoelaces
"When I was a kid I broke my arm in three places while playing hide & seek. I was running to the home base while being chased by my friend. I was looking back & full-on sprinting foward. I tripped on my shoelaces & landed on my arm with my wrist on the asphalt & my elbow on my chest."
The Tickling Incident
"I was tickling my boyfriend when we were together for like two weeks. He panicked and headbutted me. I had a concussion and a broken nose. He had nothing."
Got Paint?
"I was playing paintball And our teams plan was the charge when the whistle blew, So the whistle blows and we all start running and randomly this kid got scared from the paint ball fire And as we are all running he stops dead and gets into a fetal position, And me running full tilt had no way of stopping and ended up rolling my ankle when I tryd to stop, I ended up rolling over him kinda sideways, I made sure the kid was OK and kept playing but something felt off, the next day I could barely walk I went to see the doctor they told me it's was A level two sprained ankle so fast forward 4 years later after 2 rounds of physiotherapy I still have to rock an ankle brace every day Or else my ankle will start to hurt to the point where I can't walk I have come to hate that kid haha."
When The Ball Dropped
"I was riding my bike, then I suddenly hit something and I'm launched forward and fall down, I was bleeding a bit but it was ok."
"10 minutes later I noticed that my right testicle skin was sliced and it was bleeding, had to go to the hospital."
During A Task
These Redditors wound up hurting themselves while trying to achieve a goal.
Spoiler alert: they did not reach their intended goals, straightaway.
When Bracing Failed
"Was squatting down to grab something at work, stepped on an air hose which made my foot slip, and I fell a total of maybe five inches. I put my arm out to catch myself, ended up tearing my shoulder, and I strained a muscle in my lower back."
"I fell about as hard as the Life Alert grandma from the commercial, and was put out of the gym for 6 months."
Reach For Protection
"Jumped out of bed to grab a condom, my toe got stuck and snapped, I broke the toe and ligaments in my foot got damaged. I started walking crooked to compensate Even though my lower back started hurting. and that went on while i fell pregnant a month later. Continued to walk crooked whilst carrying a baby and now 7 years later my lower back right above the tailbone still hurts one 1 side."
Concerned Dad
"Took my daughter to a roller skate bday party."
"She was scared to skate, so I got a pair and skated around with her. I slowed down and got up on the carpet, stopped, and waited for her to catch up."
"Took one slide forward, skate got caught and I went down. Broke my elbow catching myself on the floor."
"Turns out I sustained a break that mostly only children get from falls. It was so unusual I kept getting questioned if it really was a skating injury and not something the guy I was dating at the time inflicted on me."
"Nope. I'm just that awesome to take one step on carpet, in roller skates, and end up in a cast for 6 weeks."
Bye Bye Fingernail
"I was carrying cinder blocks and slipped on the ice, didn't quite escape my hand and broke my index finger as well as popped the fingernail out from a couple cm past what is visible. It's perma f'ked."
Blood Fountain
"Chopped my foot open with an axe. Was trimming the tree in the front yard, the big branches that I cut off had to be made smaller, and the hand saw wasn't doing it too well, so I started using the axe, it worked great, then I misjudged a branch, thought it would be two swings, nope! Only one! Went straight through the branch and into my foot. I looked down and the blood started squirting moderately. Fun times!"
No, injuries are not fun, but we all have at one point put ourselves in harm's way for very foolish reasons.
Clearly some of the injuries mentioned above were far more serious than the "injury" I suffered as a result of my grade school shenanigans.
The upside to all of this is, we get to live long enough after the fact to talk about it.
We're not dumb. We is survivors!