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I was hiking while traveling in Israel when I slipped on some gravel and ended up with several pieces of sharp rock impaled in my left knee and a sprained right ankle. Luckily, I was traveling with someone who was a medic who ended up pulling the rocks out of my knee ("This looks like shrapnel!") and was able to bandage me up, but it was the longest two hour hike out. I didn't realize how bad it was until at the end of the day (after touring another city), I got to the hotel and looked.
Ended up in an Israeli ER in one of the few hospitals where no one spoke English. My friend translated and it was like a movie - the doctor would talk for 30 seconds and my friend would look at me and say, "We need to go to the X-ray room now."
Was told I should have had stitches, but by the time I got to the hospital it was too late. This was on day 2 of a 10 day trip, so I was pretty miserable on all of the walks and hikes the rest of the time. My ankle got back to normal fairly quickly, but I still had an open wound when I boarded the plane 8 days later. My friends kept telling me that if I was on Game of Thrones, I would be dead by now. :P I have pretty gnarly scars almost a year later.
I was hiking while traveling in Israel when I slipped on some gravel and ended up with several pieces of sharp rock impaled in my left knee and a sprained right ankle. Luckily, I was traveling with someone who was a medic who ended up pulling the rocks out of my knee ("This looks like shrapnel!") and was able to bandage me up, but it was the longest two hour hike out. I didn't realize how bad it was until at the end of the day (after touring another city), I got to the hotel and looked.
Ended up in an Israeli ER in one of the few hospitals where no one spoke English. My friend translated and it was like a movie - the doctor would talk for 30 seconds and my friend would look at me and say, "We need to go to the X-ray room now."
Was told I should have had stitches, but by the time I got to the hospital it was too late. This was on day 2 of a 10 day trip, so I was pretty miserable on all of the walks and hikes the rest of the time. My ankle got back to normal fairly quickly, but I still had an open wound when I boarded the plane 8 days later. My friends kept telling me that if I was on Game of Thrones, I would be dead by now. :P I have pretty gnarly scars almost a year later.
I know those rocks hurt..........I slid down a cave in
When I was 10 on the last day of our out-of-state vacation, my family decided to stop by my uncle's house for a visit since he lived in that state. Unfortunately, he wasn't home, so we decided to wait in the backyard until he returned. I have always been an animal lover, and gave a lot of attention to my uncle's collie that was in the yard. That dog ended up attacking me and ripping the bottom half of my mouth nearly off.
I can still remember the frantic car ride searching for a hospital in the strange city and my father telling the orderly in the ER to be quiet when he kept talking about how bad the scars would be. Thankfully, we were in a major city with access to superior medical care and the plastic surgeon did a very good job on what could have been a disfiguring disaster, but I spent weeks in the hospital and had over a hundred stitches.
The sad thing was my aunt was in the house all the time, napping with the A/C running and never heard us arrive or me screaming when the dog attacked.
I've got a few contenders for "worst injury" (shot in the throat, ruptured discs, broken ribs), but the most intense PAIN I've ever felt didn't even have much of an injury associated with it.
I grew up in the northern states (Wisconsin at the time of this particular story), and played hockey. We had practice on parking lot that got flooded in the winter, but would accumulate snow as well that needed to be shoveled before we could play. Since I was younger and more interested in getting the most done with the least effort, I simply skated and pushed the shovel forward with my body (rather than holding the shovel), and had the tip (no handle) of the shovel planted firmly in my breadbasket.
Skating about 10mph.....THUNK. Hit a rock that was frozen in the ice. So...call it 130-ish pounds of weight focused on about 1 square inch at 10mph.....oh, the pain. I immediately vomited, and couldn't breathe for probably close to a minute. After that, I couldn't unclench from a fetal position for probably an hour.
I fell off a roof when I was 14. It was only a one story roof, but it may as well have been three. Thanks? to modern medicine and a very good surgeon, I am alive today. I have a lot of residual health problems. I don't even know if I have an appendix. I'm missing a spleen.
I've broken a few bones over the years, but they were always small bones: fingers, toes, nose, elbows, ankles. Those things hurt, but they're not likely to kill you. Did I happen to mention that I'm clumsy?
I was in an ATV accident at age 5. My brother, about nine years older than I, was starting the ATV which was like a cross between a dune buggy and a 4-wheeler. It had a pullout-cord starter and sometimes he'd have me sit on the ATV, holding the gas throttle, with the parking brake on while he'd pull the cord as it would help it start more easily. Well, on this particular summer evening, he forgot to put the parking brake on, so when the ATV started, it immediately sped through our backyard. Being five, I had no idea how to drive the thing or to stop it. The ATV continued speeding along, going into our family's apple orchard, and hitting an apple tree head on. My entire body was hurled out of the ATV, directly impacting the tree, with my forehead receiving the greatest pressure from the force. I immediately lost consciousness and never retained memory of this incident. The entire account comes from my brother and a sister who was also present.
I ended up having a TBI (traumatic brain injury), remaining in a 20-day coma and also broke my arm, cracked four teeth, and lost two other teeth. Apparently, I had been very close to dying as well. The doctors and my parents weren't sure I'd make it through that night and the first few days. I seem to have had a near-death experience also, as I described my late grandmother and things she told me while in my coma even though she had passed away nearly two decades earlier, long before I was born.
While I'm fortunate to have survived, the TBI was an unpleasant thing to have to endure as it had some lasting effects, including short-term memory problems, frequent headaches, sleep issues, organizational problems, and some cognitive challenges. With these injuries having occurred at a young age, I was able to find ways to adapt to the effects for the most part, but I do have some ongoing challenges. I also can't help but wonder, from time to time, how different I might be today had I never had these injuries, because I have no doubt they've changed who I really am.
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