What's your worst (or most comical) non-caving caving injury?

[MJenkinson]

I have a habit of taking my SRT kit off after a trip, clipping it all together by clipping various bits to various loops. Flick if over my shoulder and its an easier walk out. I will never again clip my stop to a cowstail again, after casually flinging it onto my shoulder and the length of cowstail and stop vs distance between shoulder and bollocks coinciding beautifully, I properly dropped myself onto the floor near Lancaster Hole.

 

[Alex]

I have a habit of taking my SRT kit off after a trip, clipping it all together by clipping various bits to various loops. Flick if over my shoulder and its an easier walk out. I will never again clip my stop to a cowstail again, after casually flinging it onto my shoulder and the length of cowstail and stop vs distance between shoulder and bollocks coinciding beautifully, I properly dropped myself onto the floor near Lancaster Hole.

Good job you were not close to the edge then! Death by bollocks strike!

 

[Fulk]

who freezes tomatoes??  :blink: :blink:

We freeze our home-grown ones, otherwise we can't eat them quickly enough; and if you want to peel them for use in cooking, then just put the frozen ones in a bowl of hot water, and the skin comes off very easily after a minute or two, plus when they're partially thawed out you can slice them up quite easily (though at the risk of contributing another anecdote to this thread  ).

 

[Pitlamp]

Playing indoor cricket in the Belfry I was struck by a frozen tomatoe, that was bowled full toss, just below my left nipple. 2 cracked ribs and a very fine round bruise. Trying to explain that to the nursing sister raised an eyebrow. I had succesfully defend the wicket against a large knife and a small armchair.

who freezes tomatoes??  :blink: :blink:

Come on Pegasus - you know what they're like in that establishment "everything to excess"! 

 

[Duck ditch]

We were playing a drunken game of celebrity pool in the Marton arms.  Where you play a shot in the style of a celebrity.  Anyway it was my round. I put my hand in my jeans to get my money out and dislocated a finger.  Luckily the CRO doctor was in the pub and fixed It with a large paper clip and a toothbrush.  I think my next shot was in the style of nick faldo.

 

[PeteHall]

Playing indoor cricket in the Belfry I was struck by a frozen tomatoe, that was bowled full toss, just below my left nipple. 2 cracked ribs and a very fine round bruise. Trying to explain that to the nursing sister raised an eyebrow. I had succesfully defend the wicket against a large knife and a small armchair.

Sounds about right for the Belfry! 

Not sure if this is more or less dangerous than crockery cricket...

 

[mikem]

Defiantly more  :chair:

 

[Pitlamp]

Potato baseball is a good variant, though a bit messy. Hell, I've had some great times in caving club hostels! And don't even ask about the swede cannon - that's a story perhaps best told after over pint. 

 

[mikem]

There's a sprout gun on Mendip - ideal for the Xmas dinner, it's also caused some inexplicable bruises...

 

[andybrooks]

Is that anything like punkin chunkin?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmSyrGsqmg8

 

[Pitlamp]

. . . and then of course there's that well known and exacting discipline, involving paraffin.

Not that I've ever involved myself of course.  :

 

[Bob Smith]

Playing indoor cricket in the Belfry I was struck by a frozen tomatoe, that was bowled full toss, just below my left nipple. 2 cracked ribs and a very fine round bruise. Trying to explain that to the nursing sister raised an eyebrow. I had succesfully defend the wicket against a large knife and a small armchair.

Sounds about right for the Belfry! 

Not sure if this is more or less dangerous than crockery cricket...

we were all out off crockery, for some reason...

 

[Joshlivesoutdoors]

Camped down at hard rock cafe in Darren Cilau, and after a long day of caving bruised my coccyx when i sat on a rocky protrusion within camp, unfortunately I happened to be cooking at the time. Nothing serious just a sore rear for a few weeks 

 

[pwhole]

Both of these are actually caving trips, but they're both pretty stupid, so...

I once visited a certain mine shaft which has a scaffolding platform installed at a landing about 50m down. In my haste to get down there I managed to abseil myself onto the end of one of the upright tubes, landing on my coccyx. It hurt too much to even shout - I think I may have just cried like a kid and had to lie down for ten minutes to get over it. I didn't dare look at the time but I could tell it wasn't dripping blood, so carried on with the (5 hour) trip. Not surprisingly I had the bruise to end all bruises when I got my kit off, and a nicely chiselled impression of a tube corner which stayed for days and it hurt for weeks. Next time up there I took a carrier bag, which I stuffed into a ball in the end of the tube to soften the impact should anyone else do the same thing. I think it's still there.

Oh, and on my last digging trip into Nixon's Aven in Peak, only a few months ago, I picked up a big slab of rock to move it out of the way as it was dangerous, and trapped the tip of my little finger between it and the wall. That was another delayed trip to the hospital, another 'disappointing' X-ray and another no-fix situation. They even gave me a tetanus jab and five days of antibiotics when I told the nurse I did it in a cave. To be fair it was twenty years since I'd had a tetanus, so it was probably time for an update.  But that was another two weeks off.

I do generally do a lot of trips though, so my annual average of accidents, above ground or below is still pretty low. There's still time.

 

[zomjon]

I used to have the bad habit of leaving my caving suit draped over the wall at the back of the garden for quite a while, that was until the day that Owd Git and myself were getting changed at Knotlow Triangle. Was just pulling  up the oversuit when I received a searing pain on the upper thigh. After a record breaking derobe of my undersuit, a queen wasp drowsily fell to the floor. Ric then kindly put the poor creature out of its misery with his steel toe caps whilst I hopped about swearing!

 

[PeteHall]

Reminds me of one day in Kingsdale, we'd changed and put on srt kits, picked up tackle sacks and crossed the style towards Brown Hill if I remember.

All of a sudden, my friend dropped his bag and started calmly taking off all his kit.

We assumed he'd forgotten to take a pee,  until he reached into his fury suit and pulled out an enormous insect from his nether regions! 

The same friend (who didn't believe in pants for caving) also managed to trap himself in his fury suit zip on at least one occasion that I remember... I think he wears pants these days, so perhaps he eventually learned his lesson.

 

[GoneCaving]

Spiral fracture of the right fibula just above the ankle after tripping over a kerb walking back to the car after two pints in the New Inn after a day down GG. Thought I'd just badly sprained it, and drove back to Ireland the following day.

 

[caving_fox]

I assume to make them viable as a cricket ball.

Gave myself a black eye with haul cord crab when I picked up my bag too vigorously when setting off from the car. I learnt my lesson always to clip the those flails to my back after that.

I also knocked out a filling by kneeing my hand-jammer into my face on an awkward pitch-head, but that was in a cave, so I guess that don't count.

I chipped a tooth with a flailing krab whilst rigging a few years ago. It remains (I Hope!) my most serious caving injury.

 

[Laurie]

1964 - Took out my right fibula with my motorbike kick start lever while a London bus was smashing my right femur into a jigsaw puzzle.

 

[Jenny P]

A certain Mendip club used to boast a climbing route up the wall alongside the front door, across the top of the door and down the other side.  I attempted this on the evening of the club barbecue but failed miserably, having to jump down from level with the top of the door, and hit a half-brick in the grass verge.  I wasn't going to miss the barbecue so limped painfully across to it and continued to limp for another couple of months until eventually the pain died away and the limp went.

About 10 years later I broke my ankle playing in the staff V girls end of term hockey match at the school I taught at (actually heard it snap this time!); and shared an ambulance down to the local hospital with the chap who'd torn a ligament in his knee in the staff V boys football match.  The A&E doctor came along with my X-ray and asked "When did you break your ankle before?"; I said I hadn't; he said "Oh yes you had!" and showed me on the X-ray the thickened place on the bone where the earlier break had healed by itself.

The only bright point about the whole episode was that the Head insisted that both of us teachers claimed Industrial Injuries Benefit!