Your worst injury in the garden?

Injuries are the least expected or desired to happen. But it happens, when least expected! Most of us gardeners at one time or other get pricked, poked or scraped while doing the chores out there in the garden.

The worst I have experienced is an injury to my left foot when the pick-axe hit the bone on the inside of the foot while I was moving a pile of red earth to another spot. The injury was small, but on the bone. It troubled me for more than 6 weeks. Due to it, I had to miss a cricket tour and miss a couple of matches because I could not wear the shoe! It was at the odd spot where the bone touched the shoe. Why shoe, even slippers would touch there. It was quite awful. Even now, a small scar is seen. Another time, the rake slipped while dragging some old leaves and the sharp edge landed on my toe. Luckily it was not seriously painful. Other minor injuries are common - cacti pricking us -ouch, it is very painful.

I knocked a bottle of beer over. Disaster!!!

I wept for a week ;-)


Wintermoor

Dinu my problem is pruning. I constantly am pinching my fingers in the pruners. I've tried various brands but somehow my big hands get in the way. Rose thorns are a problem too. I'm always getting scratched or have thorns poked into me. Jenny

Injuries .. and just as you've stated: totally unexpected!! ..

Digging potatoes .. and spot a big wet tail of something .. and swear it's a snake - - Naturally, panic .. and fall over and hit your head on the shovel that's leaning against a tomato cage nearby ... OUCH !!

Add insult to injury .. hubby then tells me to, "to quit being so dad-blame skittish, and things like that wouldn't happen!"

He had the wonderful pleasure of diggin' & pickin' up the rest of the taters!! .. ha!

Wintermoor, I did miss your humor, welcome back and Magpye, I'm sorry, but I had to laugh picturing you panicing with the snake.

I have a very sick sense of humor, my DH came in from the garage one evening holding his head because he had stepped on a rack and it came up and hit him. Boy, did he get mad when I couldn't stop laughing...it just reminds me of the old movies and the slap-stick comedy. I felt bad, but picturing it was so funny.

Outside of stepping on a big fat sticker walking barefoot in my yard, I guess the worst I've done so far is clip my hand with pruners (I think they bite!) and I do mean more than once. MAN that hurts!!

Other than that... I didn't hit my head on the shovel, but I did trip and fall over the wheelbarrow when I spotted something slithering away... Lord have mercy! I swear it was 8 feet long and 3 inches wide! sheeeeeeesh!!! Like Daddy always said... "not the kind of snake that can hurt you, but the kind that can make you hurt yourself!"

cajun2 .. That's it, precisely .. in reference to what your Dad said! .. hee hee ..

Kathy_T .. Ahhh, no problem here with any chuckles!! I suppose, that I have that 'ill humor' also then .. (hee) .. For most anytime I happen to witness such .. my body just collapses in laughter. It's a shame, in a way .. but, no one could count on me to regain my composure quickly enuff .. to actually give first aid!!

Back in La., Hubbys elderly grandmother was visiting us and we were all out lookin' at my yard and the plants, etc. .. I'd stepped several yards away from her .. telling her about some other plant she'd spotted and asked me about .. when she just happened to step in a wee tiny hole in the yard, and lost her footing. When I heard her make a grunt .. I just happened to turn, to see her going down in somewhat of a 'rolley-polley' bug fashion .. then just fell sprawled out across the ground.
My body refused to move .. no matter how much my brain was telling me to go to her .. my legs wouldn't move. I was forced to lean over and grab hold of my knees, to keep myself up .. from laughing so hard! I'd call to her to no avail, for I don't think any of my words came out quite the way they needed - I was laughing so hard. I'd already lapsed into the huffy like squeaks, trying to draw air into my lungs! I'd witnessed her making a couple of attempts to get herself up .. but then she'd collapsed again.
At one point she even made a roll onto her side, and tried to push up on one elbow .. but then just fell back again! I managed to get some small scoot-type steps a lil closer to her .. but my body just refused to co-operate fully.
Hubby had been off a little further away, but still within full view .. and when he heard my horrific laughter .. and my 'tryin' to call to him .. to get to her - he'd moved as quickly as he could to her - all the while, giving me one awful eye glare!
I started to really feeling badly about my behavior, and was finally able to somewhat compose myself, and managed to get to 'mawmaw' also. While trying to give her a tow up - we were both asking her, if she was alright .. "is your leg or foot hurt?, can you stand up?, can you walk?" type inquiries. MawMaw is not coming up from the ground all too easily tho' .. The hubby scolded me, for leaving her there on the ground .. and stated that he found "nothing humorous at all about this!"
Mawmaw was finally able to spit a few words out .. and very abruptly told the hubby to just hush up! And for him to leave me alone ... that she was just fine .. to just let her get thru laughing at herself, and she'll be able to get her noodle legs back up under her .. and, can then stand !! Then she and I both just tumpled over onto my hubby with even greater laughter and gigglin' .. Hubby let go, and walked off shakin' his head in grumblin' disbelief!!! ... The Mawmaw and I laid in the front yard, for what seemed like half an hour ..
reliving the entire episode! Hubby eventually came back and litteraly pleaded with us, to get on up and behave ourselves .. that we looked like fools out in the front yard !! .. hee heee We finally cut him some slack, and got up .. but, giggled about it the rest of the day.
I loved this lady, and miss her terribly so ... She was a hoot and half, such illumination of love, and a wonderful blessing in our lives! And, an ever so very special memory ...

Whooops .. I've done it again! ..
So sorry Dinu .. I've not meant to hi-jack your thread ...
I will remove it should you desire ...and will harbor no hard feelings toward you, in any way ...

Oh Magpye, that was an HYSTERICAL story! I love it! I could just picture the whole thing and was ROGL right along with you! What a hoot!! Hubby needs to lighten up a little maybe (evil grin). My goodness, if it's funny.... laugh!! Laughter still IS the best medicine, in my opinion.

Worst garden injury? I don't know if this counts, but I moved by whole compost pile to a new spot, at least 2 cu.yd., built a new bin and everything, only to discover I am horribly allergic to something in the pile! Broke out up and down both arms and feet for 3 weeks! Luckily I was wearing long pants and gloves-missed my hands and legs! Now I don't know whether or not to try to use the compost. I don't want to be allergic to my whole garden!

Magpye, I laughed so hard, had to get the "puffs" tears rolling down my cheeks. I kept thinking, "poor Grandma" but kept laughing.

trenchfoot

Never got really hurt, but since I deal with spiny bromeliads in a small porch, it´s 100% certain that I will get scratched everytime I take care of them.

This summer I was going out early one morning to water and DH said to be careful because the mower deck was off the tractor and leaning against the hose reel. He had been sharpening the blades the night before. DON'T DROP IT!

Don't worrry Dear, I wouldn't do that.

Yep! You know the rest of the story. I grabbed ahold of the thingies that bolt the mower deck to the tractor to lay it down not realizing that they were hinged. When they moved, the mower deck flopped and the force jerked it out of my hands. The whole thing fell right on the top of my foot and I had only flip flops on.

I jumped around in the driveway for a bit and screamed just loud enough to ease the pain, but not wake DH. Okay, now what to do?!?!? Can I pretend this didn't happen? Not very easily because it hurts something fierce when I put weight on it. Humph! I guess I'll go in and fess up.

I hobbled into the house, into the bedroom. "Honey? I think I broke my foot!"

He didn't even ask how it happened, because he knew. As he jumped out of bed to get dressed to take me to the hospital, he stopped and just looked at me and said, "You know, my first inclination is to chew your butt, but I guess I'll just take you to the hospital."

LOL, Who knew injury reports can be so funny. Magpye, what a great story and you have that memory forever and it was such a great story it was easy to picture.

JoanJ, I would have liked to see you hopping around, screaming silently.

My DH use to hang the bird feeder in the middle of the arbor so we could see it from the house. It never failed everytime I was working in the back yard I would bang my head on it, so my DH moved it off to the side of the yard and within 2 days I hit my head on it over there. Sometimes I think I spend most of my time outside looking down.

Just a few weeks ago I was out slaying slugs. I stepped back on the hose ( Zany said a slug tripped me) and fell backwards. I cracked my head open on the aluminum roof support. It's healed very nicely.

Ow! Elsie! I know that had to hurt!
But I swear, I was laughing so hard at the 'slug slaying' that when I got to the actual injury, I'm afraid I was still giggling (sorry!)

Great idea for a thread, Dinu! I'm pretty clumsy so this might not be the worst, but it is the most recent so it comes to mind:

Last spring, Blooms and I ran out of time and/or energy before we finished the whole backyard plan which involves arranging stepping stones and ground cover in an oh-so artistic design... we settled for landscape/weed cloth with a brick path just to a faux-door in the wall (mirror). Now, dead center in the area withOUT the path is an unused sprinkler head, about 1.5" tall; I didn't want to trip on it, so I cleverly positioned a half-size paver just to one side of it, on which I placed a cute statuary of two mice munching raspberries (small, ab. 6x8").

About 6 weeks ago, I was out watering when (okay, predictably) I tripped, not on the sprinkler head of course not, ON THE PAVER! I was leaning, probably, to reach with the watering cane, and threw out a hand which latched onto a branch of the fig tree... which is all this year's flimsy growth and did nothing to stop the fall, but instead caused me to swivel in mid-air, twist my right knee and my left ankle, and come down HARD on the outside of my left thigh DIRECTLY on the brick edging of the berrypatch. To add insult to injury, my flailing arms BOTH managed to end up tangled in the rasp- and blackberry brambles-n-thorns (after I let go of the fig)!

Another piece of Blooms's painstaking handiwork, the bricks are arranged on their long-narrow sides, tipped 45-degrees, and more-than-half buried (pic is before bed was planted, 2002 or 03) -- so not only did my thigh bruise the shape and size of a brick, the bruise FILLED with blood from landing on a point! It musta stood out an inch from the flesh, and was 2 or 3 weeks before the black-&-blue was absorbed; fortunately the twists were not sprains and healed faster in 2-3 days.

~'spin!~

This message was edited Sep 7, 2004 11:15 PM

Owwie! You can't help but laugh and wince when reading these posts! If anybody had a video camera running, we could win America's funniest videos for sure!

Magpye! I laughed until I had tears streaming down my face! I too am plagued by this terrible condition! I can't help it, I laugh! I have gotten in so many jams, I'm standing there laughing holding my injured area or trying to comfort my friend/sister/husband while tears stream down my face I'm laughing so hard.

JoanJ, are you sure we're not married to the same person?! I swear that sounds just like my husband!

My turn for a injury story, I AM SO VERY ACCIDENT PRONE! Where could I start?! The time I droped a concrete stepping stone on my ankle while moving it to a area in my garden that was washing out IN A RAIN STORM... ok, not my best idea.

My husband won't let me use knives around him, he says he can't watch I scare him. Guess who got a brand new pruning saw... yup, me. Now I'm not sure why it didn't occur to my beloved husband that this was a bad idea.... I sure am glad he's a combat medic, he had to stop the bleeding so many times.... some how I'd slip while cutting branches and cut my fingers, once to the bone on my knuckle (one emergency room visit later). I just kept going back to pruning. I went out to prune a branch today.... my pruning saw is gone! Sitting where my pruning saw had been was is a new pair of pruning clippers, guess he finally had enough!

Most of my injuries haven't been so funny, then or later. My worst one was about 35 years ago when I rubbed my eye one day while working in the garden because I felt like something was in it. There sure was! One of those tiny yellowish spiders. I squashed it and the result was that I nearly lost the vision in that eye permanently. Only very fast action on the part of me and my husband saved my vision. I went thru a couple weeks of high fever, huge swelling in that size of my face. The venom began to move over to the other eye before the doctor got it all under control.

My most recent "injury" was on the way outside to the garden last year. My dachshund had broken her back, and after successful surgery we had ramps everywhere, including one down the three steps out the front steps to the yard.

I went out on the steps, readying to go to the garden. One minute I was on the top step and the very next moment I had somehow done sort of a sloppy somersault over the dog ramp and ended up on my fanny in the yard. I never figured out how it happened... I was stunned, embarrassed, and skinned EVERYWHERE on my exposed skin as I had slid head over teacup down the dog ramp that was covered with outside fake grass carpeting. (Not a pretty picture for a 62 year old woman, LOL.)

I still think abrasions are worse than cuts.