Since we were one of the last generations to not grow up with tablets, cell phones and Internet to keep us self occupied and absorbed, we always played outside and sometimes would get hurt badly. I can recall three of these times involving a bicycle.
My first one was when I was 10 yrs old on the way to school down the street (straight shot) riding my trusty BMX bike and being mesmerized at the time at how my legs were powering the bike. Right about that time, I remember standing there, looking at my wheel and it was spinning, and some guy ran up to me to see if I was okay. I told him I was and went to the school and to the school office as the guy was very concerned. I ended up with quite a gnarly goose egg from slamming my bicycle into the back of a parked car!
My second one was on the same bike and I built a fun ramp to jump my bike off of on the sidewalk and was having a great time doing so until I somehow landed the wrong way and tore my right muscle in my neck. A trip to the ER later, I was home and back to doing things maybe a week later.
My third and final time, I was 14 and on this really awesome for the time, 10-speed with a black frame with red trim including the cables and seat. It was glorious! I was enjoying my time riding it at the top speed I could and didn’t negotiate a turn correctly and ran into a curb and flipped off the bike and landed hands down to the ground. I bent my right arm some and had a ‘splinter fracture’. That trip to the ER resulted in a splint which led to the orthopedic doctor who gave me a wrist brace they use for surgeries and I guess Carpal Tunnel. I had to wear that for 8 weeks and it was a long hot summer!
Back when I was a kid, there were always a couple kids with casts in most classes. It was just what happened with freedom to be reckless and explore. Near the end of my teacher career I was up talking to the class one day and realized I couldn’t even remember the last time a kid came into class with a cast. I asked the class how many kids had ever broken a bone and out of about 40, I think 2 (maybe it was 1), kid raised their hand. I remember thinking how weird that was.
The first time my parents took me to church around 6 years old, I tripped on the steps and broke my ankle. They never took me to church again and raised me atheist. It sucked because I had to spend nearly the entire summer in a cast.
Too many to recount. Broken bones, cuts and burns. I have scars across my hand where my sister’s curling iron fell on it when I was an infant. Also scars on my knees where a broken bottle I was playing with fell just right. I got to the point where I could tell a broken bone instantly from how it felt.
Now, as an adult, I can tell kidney stones that quickly.
First I remember I was maybe eight. We lived in a 2nd floor apartment with a back porch and we had a dog. The back yard was all just dirt parking and some trees. We had a dog lead at the top of the stairs that was long enough for the dog to roam the whole backyard. Well, I was putting him on the lead one day and he must have seen something he wanted to chase. He pulled me down the entire flight of stairs on my ass. I couldn’t see it but I’m told the bruise was impressive.
The next one, I flew off of my bike and slid across our all gravel driveway. My hands were all tore up and full of little rocks.
The last was when I was a teenager. My school sent our class to a nice day camp with a pool and other recreation facilities. I’m very pale and I didn’t plan on being out in the sun so much. I got severe first degree burns on the front of my arms and legs. I missed school for the rest of the week. Everything that touched my skin was uncomfortable. The doctor wouldn’t give me a note to wear shorts the rest of the year. Kind of pissed me off that my parents didn’t advocate more for me. The discoloration didn’t fade completely for about 10 years.
I broke and dislocated an arm and a shoulder in the same incident in elementary school. I recall two nurses trying to get it back into socket, and then I fell asleep while my dad drove me to a different hospital, and it went back in on its own.
The first was when I was 5. A friend and I were tossing huge (well, huge to a 5 year old, probably not that big) rocks over a railing that was nearly as tall as we were. One hit the railing and came back on my head. Looked at in the ER, turned out to be no big deal.
I mostly remember that because the ER was nearly empty and we were seen without waiting. My how times have changed. Also because they were testing the generators and I thought it was cool the way the whole floor was vibrating.
When I was 7, going down a slide, a long stick hit the ground first and jabbed me just above my eye. My first stitches. I still have a nearly invisible scar from that.
My hip popped out of socket when I was working on dunking a basketball. It was fucking intense pain I’ll never forget. Especially when they popped it back in.
Also, I fractured my skull around the same time. Though, I was in a coma for like three weeks, so it wasn’t too horrible
Did you ever dunk the ball?
The time I jumped off of a 7’ or so roof (it was this weird rock building thing attached to my neighbors 1930s house) and landed on the piece of rebar I had just chucked down that stuck in the ground like a spear and that was sticking straight up. Another 1/4" and it would have went through my eyeball into my brain. As it was I just got a nasty black eye and a chipped orbital bone. This was the sixth or seventh time I had almost died by the time I was 10ish.
