The Worst Injuries I Have Ever Suffered

At the age of two, inexplicably, my left lung collapsed. I was with my mom at the time riding in her car. She looked over at me and I my face was blue. She immediately rushed me to the hospital and surgery was performed on my lung. The doctors told her I was minutes away from dying. I still have the scar to this day, a thin line that starts under my chest in the rib cage area all the way around to the middle of my back.

When I was young, probably around seven or so, I made my sister mad over something. I forgot what it was over, most likely something small. But as I sat back thinking everything was great and fantastic in the world, my sister had a pencil in her hand. She lunged forward with a sunk it a good INCH AND A HALF into my right shoulder. I think it was pretty sharp. I remember my mom and my brother there, but I don't recall the pain. As my mom pulled my sister away, I looked at my shoulder in shock. A pencil? I just remember staring at it, dumbfounded. The scar today is three-quarters of an inch long, so I can imagine how big it must have been when I was younger.

A few years later, I was riding my bike in the street. I was going pretty fast, when I lost control all of a sudden and my right foot slipped off the pedal. It didn't make matters any better with the fact that I was wearing sandals. While I tried to stop, my two smallest toes got dragged against the concrete in the gutters. I remember the pain well. It was horrible. It stung badly, and throbbed. I got off the bike to inspect the damage. My toes were bloody, and small bits of dirt and tiny rocks seemed embedded to my skin. I say skin because most of the toe-nails were gone. In severe pain, I walked back home and located my Mom for help with my toes.

At around twelve I shared a room with my younger brother. We had a bunk bed in one corner of the room. My brother and I both wanted the top bunk and I got it, since I was older. That was a mistake. One time, my blanket slipped down between the bed and the wall. I tried to pull it up from the top bunk, but my brother, being mischievous, grabbed a hold of it. I think I was tired that day and wanted to go to sleep quickly. A tug of war ensued, and my brother would not give up. I gave one last tug and fell head first off the bed. Normally we have a ladder that hooks on to the top rail of the bunk bed, so whoever sleeps on the top can climb up easily. It was also made in such a way that it prevented you from rolling off the edge of the bed. For some reason, the ladder wasn't hooked on that night. Well, everything happened so fast as I flew off the bed. I could see nothing but blurs, then my head hit the carpet. I remember silence. As my brother glanced at my slack body, he realized he was in trouble and hid in our closet, quickly. I was mad at him, and I tried to crawl towards him, but gave up after two feet. The pain I was in would not let me go any further. At that same time, my mom flung the door open and looked at me laying on the floor. At my side the next second, she looked at me to see if anything was broken, then she quickly surmised that my brother was behind this. She walked up to the closet doors and slid them open. After that , I don't recall anything besides getting picked up, being put in an ambulance and my neighbors all outside to see what was going on. I guess I have one tough head.

Around seventh grade, I had this awesome skateboard. It had wide wheels, and it was really small. It was much too small for me at the time. Regardless, I rode it on the sidewalk right next to my future junior high school. I was going at a good speed, careful to dodge obstacles like rocks, fresh gum, trash and the like. I was doing pretty good for about half a block, when an olive seed came out of nowhere. If you haven't seen an olive seed, it's about half the size of a Jolly Rancher. So my skateboard stopped, and I didn't. I flew a good six or seven feet forward. I realized the distance as I was in the air, looking down at the sidewalk and looking at the cracks. When I hit the ground, it wasn't pretty. I slid on my palms AND my knees. The worst experience of concrete burn EVER. For those of you who have been fortunate enough in your life NOT to experience concrete burn, you are lucky. As a kid, this is horrible pain. Concrete burn is when you fall and your skin gets ripped up by you sliding on the ground. Your first layer of skin gets burned off by the friction you make as your skin gets peeled off. The result is raw, peeled off skin. The affected areas are left stinging badly with whole patches of your skin gone and bleeding, with tiny rocks stuck to the blood. After my half a foot slide, I laid there for a few moments. My knees stung badly, and it felt like my wrists were broken. Pants didn't save me that day, I was wearing shorts. I slowly got up and got my skateboard. My first thought was that some one might take it. After a few minutes, a clear liquid started to mix in with my blood, dirt and rocks. That was plasma. That's when you KNOW you are hurt badly. I didn't touch any of my injuries, it would just hurt more. I walked home slowly, in pain. My knees were scabby for weeks after that.

Working on a car to take parts off, I was in my friends house. He has a big piece of land that he uses sometimes to fix cars. Using my ten millimeter size socket, I was working to take off a bolt that was really close to the part where the hood lines up. A thin piece of metal sticks out, and this particular bolt would not budge. I knew that if I wasn't careful, I could slip and injure myself. Even so, I did just that. The bolt was loose, but my thumb went forward to the area I didn't want it to go and- thunk! The metal sunk itself right in the middle of the space between the knuckle and the nail. I yelled out. I looked at it my thumb for a second as it was still in the metal.The pain was sharp, at it started to throb immediately. I pulled my thumb out, looked at it, and quickly closed the flap of flesh down. It stung like the dickens!! I got some electrical tape and bound it tightly and kept working. It throbbed horribly all day and felt like it was ready to burst.

Two years ago, a friend and I were riding bikes in the street. We were always doing stunts, despite the fact that we had mountain bikes. I sped up to pass between a narrow space on the sidewalk and a pole. Normally, this was an easy stunt to pull off, but not today. As I passed through the small area, my right handlebar hit the pole. I was going at a good speed, and I went flying off my bike. I flew at least ten feet, did a 180 horizontally in the air and landed on my left arm. Instinct kicked in at the last second, because I could have easily hit my head on the unforgiving concrete. As I landed, my left arm took a lot of my weight and almost snapped at the elbow. Instead it fractured, right inside of my elbow joint. It was the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I cried out and continued to tumble on the ground. "You alright man?" my friend called out to me. I got up and cradled my arm. I tried to bend it a few times and it felt OK. Then it didn't. We parted ways and I rode my bike home with one hand. I was halfway home when a bush snagged my left arm and reminded me of the pain. I walked home the rest of the way. I didn't think it was that severe, so I tried to sleep it off. That was a mistake. After going to Urgent Care the next day, I got my arm scanned four times. The doctor said he didn't see anything broken. He set my arm in a fixed position so it would heal right and sent me on my way. In three weeks it healed, good as new. I suppose all the milk shakes I drank at work helped me out a lot.

Gecko Joe, The Worst Injuries I Have Ever Suffered Associated Press