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  • When I was a kid, I was playing with some friends who had managed to get a big plank of wood up into a tree, balanced on just two branches.

    I climbed up onto it and walked out onto the board between the two branches and it predictably collapsed. I fell, landed on my feet, and the board landed in front of me completely vertically. My nose went down onto it completely and hit hard.

    Had a nosebleed for several hours. Was not a good time, but I can look back and laugh now.

  • Cutting a loaf of banana bread, 6yo me decided to use a paring knife. When it wasn't cutting well, I used my index finger for more leverage. It wasn't cutting well because the blade side was up. Sliced my finger up pretty good.

  • I barely know where to start.

    One time I was jumping over a table at a summer camp. Just jumping, over and over, sort of spin-kicking over it. It's hard to describe but the important part is that it required a specific approach angle and my torso was more or less horizontal in the air. Then I heard someone say, "Hey, [counselor], watch this!" clearly referring to my jumps. I didn't have time to line up my jump but self-conscious about having an audience, I went any way. I slammed face-first into the far side of the table and crashed to the ground. I was more or less just stunned but being a teenager I bounced straight back up. It was only after I'd left the room in shame that I began to notice the pain in my foot. I'd hit my foot against the floor and broken a bone. Then of course the story circulated that I'd been the one who said, "Watch this!", got everyone's attention, then immediately ate shit.

    When I was a teenager I twice broke knuckles punching inanimate objects.

    As kids we were playing a game of train on a playground. It's not a well-known game, we made it up on the spot and only played it once, possibly due to how little game there even was and also to how poorly it went. Basically one kid is the front of the train and they have to do a loop of the playground with the other kids in tow, then you change spots. I was in front and my brother got in front of me, which was against the rules. I decided to get back in front of him by sliding across the top of a round-topped tunnel bridge thingy. I slid off the edge and landed on my elbow, breaking my ulna, humerus and dislocating my shoulder. My aunt was a nurse who gave me a shoulder sling with styrofoam cups to keep it protected while we got on the plane. Oh yeah, my aunt was there because she was driving us to the airport to fly across the Pacific Ocean and continenal US that day. I got a temporary cast in LA and finally an X-ray in New Jersey. Thankfully it was the 80s so DVT hadn't been invented yet or else I wouldn't have been allowed to fly due to the risk of embolism.

    Also one time playing a friendly game of soccer my foot slipped on a slippy bit of grass, then gripped on a grippy bit of grass and just... rotated. It rotated to a position feet shouldn't be in.

    I have since found out that I have a sleep disorder that can result in impaired judgment depending on how poorly my sleep has gone.

  • Somebody filled a trash bag full of sharp objects they were planning on throwing out, then decided "I can't just throw a bag of loose sharp objects in the dumpster. Oh, I know the perfect place for this! Dead center of the living room floor." I stepped on it in the pitch black of the night. Luckily I only hit the edge so I only injured a single toe, but I straight up ripped the flesh nearly from the bone of it. Even stupider, I didn't go to the hospital for it. At least until I had an appointment for something else anyway, at which point they saw it and immediately made me go to another doctor to get it addressed.

  • I was using a sharp stick for breaking and steering while sledding, only I had the stick in front of me so it stuck to the snow, and pierced my face.

    I wasn't very old.

    I still have a scar on my left cheek where it went through.

  • I was playing with my cat, chasing him and all that. He took a quick 90° turn around the couch. My hand took a quick 90° turn against the couch. Broke my finger :)

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