So the reason I'm making this thread is because I think there could be some good stories in it and because I have a good one from today.

I dislocated my jaw by yawning.

As I write this my jaw is, to use the technical terms, weird feeling and a bit wonky. So looks like I'm going to need that looked at. In the mean time, let's hear some stories!

When I was a kid, I made a "rope" swing by throwing an old garden hose over a big maple tree branch. I made a handle for the new "rope" swing with a stick. Everything was working great until I was swinging parallel to the ground and the stick handle snapped. Smashed my face flat on the packed-dirt ground and got a bloody nose. Haven't been able to breath well through my nose without feeling like it's partially plugged in decades.  :'(

Also hacked on a 30ft tall dead tree with a hatchet when I was a kid. I was trying to cut the tree up so that I could make a fort wall with the cut-up sections of the tree. As I chopped, I heard a crack and was momentarily relieved to think that the tree was about to fall over. The relief only lasted about a second when a 2 foot section from the top of the tree hit me squarely on the head and nearly knocked my lights out.  :o

Ouch! Both of those sound pretty nasty. Quick update on my jaw: I went to accident and emergency, a doctor yanked on my jaw for a bit, my jaw didn't budge and I was told to dose up on pain meds, start hoping it gets better by itself and then got sent away. Here's hoping it sorts itself out soon because it's getting rather boring.

One time when making a bow I was forcing the combined strength of both highly reflexed limbs straightened against my workbench using a large 9 inch metal c-clamp. Somehow the bow twisted and shot the heavy clamp at mach 2 against my barefoot large toe splitting it open like a rotten grape.  Ouch. Took years before my toenail would even grow connected again and there's still a large split straight down the middle although at least the two sides are now connecting. Needless to say I wear shoes now when working with bows.

Stupidest? Ummm,
probably when i welded my hand
to a car when I was welding in patch panels with the oxy torch.

Also put a 4 inch nail all the way through my foot when I was about 7 or 8.

Gave a girl my fishing rod to have a go when I was about 12 and ended up with the fish hook through my eyelid - that would have been the dumbest if it had actually got my eye instead.

And actually a lot more, now I think about it I'm kinda lucky apparently lol.  ;D ;D

Wow these are some bad ones. One toe related one which was really stupid happened last year. I dropped a plastic spatula onto my big toe nail and, somehow, it landed on the absolute smallest point of the spatula that it could have so all of the force of it falling was super concentrated in that one spot. It sounds ridiculous because it was just a plastic spatula, but it was absolute agony and I had trouble walking immediately afterwards it was so painful. It hit me right in the bed of the nail, meaning I had a bruised area that took half a year to grow out. Not fun.

A number of years ago a few friends and I used to have fairly regular outdoor drinking parties.  We would always have a pretty good fire going, and at some point get the great idea we should jump over it.  On one these occasions there was a branch sticking out of the fire pit on the far side, and I didn't see it.  Ended up landing on it and turning my ankle over.  That got me a pretty good sprain and a couple weeks on crutches.  It was definitely the worst pain I had felt at that point in my life.

I think one of my stupidest was around age 11 or 12. I bought a Gil Hibben throwing knife, which had nice curves like a fighting knife (and was impeccably balanced) but it had a continuous smooth line where a guard would normally go on a hunter/fighter.  You probably already know where this is going... I was swinging it around in the garage thinking I was some sort of ninja, and I didn’t notice that I was too close to the freezer. The tip of the knife put a nice gouge in the freezer door, and when the knife stopped moving, my fingers slid right along that smooth line up the handle and across the blade. Somehow I didn’t sever any tendons in my hand, but o this day I don’t understand why my parents let me collect knives at that age!

Ok, this is only partially related to the theme, but I really need to tell you about a friend I had in college. He was the king of freak accidents. Every fall, I’d ask him about his summer, and he always had a new story involving a concussion. One year his car broke down and he hitched a ride with a trucker. They drove under a low bridge and peeled the top of the truck open like a can of sardines... and he got a concussion!  Once he fell out of a tree fort, hit his head on a branch (concussion #1), then landed on the ground on his head (concussion #2). Another time he was out fishing and a beaver with rabies jumped into his boat and started gnawing on his leg. He had to snap his fishing pole in half and stab the beaver to death with a broken pole!  No concussion that time, but it also wasn’t his first time to need rabies shots. Fun times!

Ahh... a diseased beaver... the downfall of many a brave man.  ::)

Morphy wrote on Aug 18^th, 2019 at 10:41pm:

Ahh... a diseased beaver... the downfall of many a brave man.  ::)

As oddly specific as the scenario is, once you’re tuned in to it, it’s surprising how often you see news articles about people being attacked by rabid beavers. I am not aware of any stories  where the beaver actually wins (or lives to bite again), but having to stab a murderous oversized rodent with a jagged broken fishing pole sounds like a really good argument for why it’s a good idea to keep a gun handy.

Turns out I haven't dislocated my jaw! But they don't what's wrong with my jaw... And now I need an MRI scan... Sigh...

Sorry to hear that Kick.  Hope they find out what happened and it's not a big problem.

I hope that too. It's more been inconvenient than anything else. I just want it sorted.

the Jaw yawning things happens - generally it just sort of 'clicks' and you get earache for a few days.

Most recent thing. I was cutting something, and cutting towards myself - like you tell people never to do.
And I was thinking: 'if i keep doing this I'll cut myself'.
And I did !

I'm generally quite careful.
But some years ago I was using a new mini plane on a small piece of wood.
I was holding the wood in my left hand and the plane in my right.
Took a chunk off the top of my left index finger.
Never entirely regrew.
If I put both index fingers together you can see where the left one is a slightly different shape.

Can't work out how to take that picture though :-)

NooneOfConsequence wrote on Aug 19^th, 2019 at 1:48am:

Morphy wrote on Aug 18th, 2019 at 10:41pm: Ahh... a diseased beaver... the downfall of many a brave man.  ::) As oddly specific as the scenario is, once you’re tuned in to it, it’s surprising how often you see news articles about people being attacked by rabid beavers. I am not aware of any stories  where the beaver actually wins (or lives to bite again), but having to stab a murderous oversized rodent with a jagged broken fishing pole sounds like a really good argument for why it’s a good idea to keep a gun handy.

I once heard of a jogger that had a rabid raccoon come out of the forest and chase her down and bite her. Rabid animals are scary. Nature's version of a zombie apocalypse. Now imagine living in a time when the rabies vaccines did not exist. Now you have to either chop of the bit appendage immediately or wait days or weeks for your inevitable death. Scary stuff. 

Speaking of animals, by far the dumbest thing I ever did to hurt myself was play with a snake my friend was sure was a harmless "mud snake". Yep, you guessed it, it was venomous. And it bit me. But I deserved it for being too trusting. I was a kid and indestructible (or so I thought) and got a very severe bite from a very pissed off water moccasin. One of the worst sustained pains I've ever felt and for the entire first day I couldn't have any pain meds. Good times, good times.

    There are so many to choose from that it's hard to pick.  I'll go back to when I was eighteen or nineteen.  I was by a little lake in New Jersey called Square Circle.  I was partying with some friends and we had some fireworks.  Back then we partied hardy.  I don't remember exactly what we were doing but from the time period it could have been almost anything. 
    Here in America we have a firecracker called a Hammerhead.  I don't know if it's popular anywhere else.  It packs a pretty good boom.  I lit one and threw it on the beach.  Nothing....I waited to make sure the fuse was out.  I waited for maybe a half a minute then decided the Hammerhead's fuse had to be completely out and it was safe to investigate.  I'll bet you can guess where this story is going. 
    The fuse was completely burned off.  I was thinking that I could put the Hammerhead on a burning leaf or something and still make it explode.  I picked up the Hammerhead.  There was some white ash on it where the fuse had been connected.  I blew the ash off and saw the red glow of a small ember.  The firecracker had been sitting there smoldering all of that time.  I immediately tossed it toward the lake but not quickly enough.  It blew up immediately after leaving  my hand.  The hand was numb and I didn't dare look at it.  I was pretty sure some of it would be missing.  I stuck my hand in the lake to cool it off.  Finally I took a look.  Thankfully the damage was only superficial.  Had I been a bit slower I certainly could have lost a finger or two. 
    Yep, that was pretty stupid.