Dumb self inflicted sports injuries

Currently sat in A&E having tripped myself up trying a desperate between the legs recovery shot playing squash*. Went shoulder first into the glass, in a massive amount of pain but hopefully haven’t properly damaged anything.

What’s the dumbest sports injury you’ve given yourself?

*I haven’t played in nearly three months due to a bad back. First five minutes and I broke myself!

Bilateral spiral fracture of the 5th metatarsal, Doing star jumps 😳

I broke a rib punt jousting

Pretty trivial injury but:Riding la varda at les arcs, doing a rocky bit and not in great shape and I just thought “I’ve got a great idea, I can stop myself by mashing my foot into that massive rock”. So I did, it worked perfectly, except for the bit where it broke my big toe like a twig.

Caught a bar end in a wire link fence whilst riding to work, went down like a sack of spuds. Broke the little pointy bit on my elbow, smashed up my helmet and generally made a bit of a mess of myself.

Oops, forgot my best one – maybe I’m trying to forget it. First 5 minutes of an adventure race I ran full speed into the end of a pedestrian guard rail at the side of a road (I was looking sideways to check out a route). Might have been OK, but is was bent over like this:

…I ran into the pointy bit. Fortunately where it hit me was about an inch away from where it might have done permanent damage. Unfortunately the impact was still hard enough in an important area that it hurt a lot. Couldn’t even walk properly and had a trip to A&E with a lady doctor inspecting my bits. Had to get AA relay home and a lift to work for a few days as I couldn’t lift my left foot off the floor when sitting down, so couldn’t drive.

…have remembered the railing was visible on streetview: https://goo.gl/maps/Rjh4D5oFqhS2 – clearly my memory is faulty and I was probably looking at the map as there’s nothing to look sideways at there.

Dumbest was breaking my little toe playing volleyball barefoot on a lawn. I sort of pivoted on the toe and it snapped. The real pain came the next morning when the nurse manipulated it back into position.

bouldering on a beach cliff in northumberland, had been staying low as I was there alone (other than my dog). Fell 3 foot onto the only rock on the beach and broke my heel. cue a 1 mile crawl/hobble to the carpark with the dog trying to lick my face and jump on me all the way back and a very grumpy wife to drive me to hospital, pack up camping gear, look after small children and drive me home to london the next day.13 years on and I’m still paying for it.

Hardly ever play football, but work were down on a couple of players for their regular weekly indoor 5 a side, so I enthusiastically volunteered… Long story short, wedged foot between wall and floor and tore ligaments in my right ankle. Mtfu and tried to continue, then went in goal.- I should have stopped straight away, it was agony. Cycled 10miles home one-legged!

Went to hospital, they said sprain. I wasnt so sure.. they said use it was much as possible.

Few days later, went to a different hospital. They said uh oh… It’s ligaments, don’t use it!

God know what damage I’ve done but the immediate three months are worse than a bone break, as it can’t be potted. That was 12 years ago, and it’s still not right. Took two years before I could walk with minimal pain 🙁

Foot slipped off pedal miss clipping in pulling away in a hill. Leg slipped down chainring slicing back of leg open. Lay in road bleeding, hospital (taken in police dog van as no ambulances available), overnight stay, surgery in morning ( managed not to damage achillies), lots of stitches and 3 weeks in lower leg plaster!

Winter just gone I’d finished a section of trail and was riding along a fire road when I noticed a twig stuck under the front mudguard. Lent forward to try and pull it out whilst still riding slowly, but somehow folded the front wheel under me as I lent forward. As I was clipped in, I couldn’t get a foot down and ended up stacking it and landing chest first onto the end of my bars. Cracked rib.

The internet isn’t big enough for me to list them all but showing a kid how to skateboard on Christmas Day after a large meal and a couple of bottles of wine led to grazes on my shins knees and feet that were still oozing and sticking to my clothes when I went back to work in the anew Year

Squashed f3 vertebra in my back because i was stupid enough to follow another rider down a trail i did no know which had a section way beyond my capabilities,we turned into a gap in the trees off a gravel track to find a 12 foot almost vertical plunge onto a couple of planks stretched acroos a giant 8 ft deep bomb hole …in retrospect he could have warned me. 😕

Whilst playing indoor football I decided to play the man not the ball i.e, foul, cheat and boot the other fella…missed and kicked the ground, broke my foot and 3 toes.

Karma.

I am pretty sure we saw a bloke who broke his collar bone in the car park at the Passportes one year. The lifts hadn’t even opened and he was receiving medical assistance and waiting for an ambulance. First day too.

I’ve managed to crack a rib on a waterslide on a French campsite. Discovered that if you ride the slide with only your shoulders and heels touching the surface you can get up quite a speed (ie not letting your shorts create drag on the slide). Then discovered that the last twist on the slide could spin you if you were going fast enough, then discovering that if you get it slightly wrong you can land ribs first on the final metre or so of the run out.

I also managed to fracture my coccyx landing a jump off a ramp created by piling snow in front of a drystone wall in the sledging field next to our house. The kids were impressed. Mrs Scape wasn’t.

Well I’ve broken my collarbone so it could have been worse. Still means weeks off the MTB though

Trying to decide if this one or when I slid down a wall indoor bouldering and did all my ligaments in my ankle twisting it on a skirting board is the dumbest one

Oh a some of you have done some fine work breaking yourselves (and street furniture 😯 )

One of my favourite Mash articles seems relevant right now:

Exercise really paying off

Most of mine are just silly overuse injuries, my first herniated disc was probably a result of an entire summer spent trying to learn to manual whilst employing the ‘jerk and thrust’ technique, never did get very good at manuals and my back still twinges today 😳

Trying to bunny hop on flip flops, slipped the pedal and put DMR pedal pin shaped holes in my shin.

Bike related if not sport.

I broke my ribs trying to bunny hop up a curb on my way back from the supermarket. No idea what went wrong just remember my rib cage landing on the edge of the curb This was closely followed by a landed porpoise impression in the road, much to the frustration and annoyance of the traffic that was held up for possibly more than a minute or 2.
I couldn’t apologise enough.

I stepped into a dinghy at work and tripped on a loose rudder left on the, wearing my sandals against company risk assessment, and broke two toes.

Oops, forgot my best one – maybe I’m trying to forget it. First 5 minutes of an adventure race I ran full speed into the end of a pedestrian guard rail at the side of a road (I was looking sideways to check out a route). Might have been OK, but is was bent over like this:

As a kid I once ran into a set of railings full speed running downhill
(Clitheroe Castle)

I have no idea how…. the railings were not bent lik the pic or invisible… I just didn’t focus on them… broken collar bone and nose ….

Quite apt for me at the moment – two knackered ankles and two knackered wrists here. One wrist I broke 30 years ago playing football and is a malunion, one ankle is overuse/poor mechanics from running resulting in tendonitis (something I’ve had problems with for over 20 years, and it’s now still knackered despite last running over 6 months ago), one wrist is sprained due to landing badly on it when my wheels skidded doing downhill slaloms on skates about a month ago, one ankle I sprained taking a swinging fall rock climbing a couple of weeks ago.

In case you were wondering I’m still skating and rock climbing – well the skating is a bit curtailed by the ankle injury now, but the wrist injury didn’t stop me (I did 26 miles the day after) and did a full days climbing the day after the ankle injury (that actually seems to help the recovery a lot, though I’ve managed not to repeat a similar fall)

Not a sports injury but certainly a contender in the dumb and self-inflicted category. yesterday I was shaking up a tin of radiator paint prior to application and neglected to keep the lid fully secured.

One second later I looked like Baron Samedi from Live and Let Die.

My instinct to rush into the shower to get cleaned up was misplaced. Pretty soon I had whole body coverage of slightly diluted enamel paint, right down to my junk.

Took a painstaking hour or so of sponging myself down with neat white spirit to restore something approaching normality to my appearance.

It’s a miracle I still have my eyesight.

Rolled my ankle coming out of the pub at the bottom of the Pleney lift in Morzine last week sheperding my 4 year old from the bouncy castle. Gnarcore I am, gnarcore, and I’d only had a beer !

Fell in a XC race a few years ago landing on my own fist and breaking a couple of ribs. 800m from the finish still managed to finish 2nd before the pain kicked in!!!

Somehow sticking my left foot into my front wheel whilst riding along the road. Twisted my ankle pretty badly, went all purple and fat. Now I cant ride my bicycle 🙁

surfer – Member

Fell in a XC race a few years ago landing on my own fist

At least, that’s what you told the doctors

Broke ribs surfing. Water is soft but my 10 foot 1963 longboard comes out of the water like a Polaris missle.
Sunday elbow scrapping wasn’t clever. Was getting to cocky with my new trike and let it follow the camber into a hole. Elbow and hip now just a touch tender. Ribs are very sore.

lost both front teeth in road bike crash.
Medial meniscus tear and sprained MCL – snowboarding
Separated AC joint in left shoulder – snowboarding
chipped elbow landing on glacier – I could manipulate the ‘chip’ of bone for ages
badly sprained both ankles – one whilst running, the other on the mountain bike
various skin removal, lacerations, puncture wounds, blunt trauma and sprains – both on a longboard and a mountain bike.

It’s worth it isn’t it? 😆

One of the most memorable ones of mine was a Uni Mtb club trip to the alps. First run of the trip I attempt to send it off a jump, but all my pals are standing on the landing, so I bail. Land on my shoulder, knee and head. Crack the chin guard on my helmet, something weird with my shoulder, knee hurts. Rest of the holiday i self medicated with beers and ibuprofen. Still have a slightly dropped right shoulder that crunches and my knee had fluid on it for months.

Good holiday though.

Overreached to down shifter and missed. Rattled my finger on the spokes crapped it rode into the hedge.

Similarly reached down to adjust front calliper on the fly. Missed and staved my finger.

Snapped my RH UCL by skiing into a german snowboader at some speed. Concussion , black eyes , and no thumb tendon.
Snapped my RH UCL by riding into a tree out the back of QECP.
Now got a pin and new bit of twine holding the ligament together.

Second day of my first ever Alps trip, riding down fireroad from the Swiss border, take a corner too fast, plough straight on so I can’t make the next turn, straight into a large rock, resulting in a rag doll down the hill.

Cue separated shoulder, a long walk to the bottom and the rest of the week off the bike. Boo.

Back in the late 70’s sawn of jeans were the trendy swimming trunks. Despite my mums warning I didn’t see the point of trunks underneath until the zip and my foreskin became snagged.