What accidents did you get into as a kid? I was once riding my bike over to a friends house.

[applegrove]

I had to go through the governor generals estate to get there. I bombed around a corner and I guess my head was in the clouds. I hit a 'sleeping policeman' (a traffic speed bump) at full speed. I remember hitting the cement and scraping myself. And I thought - where is my bike? Then thonk! My bike landed on my head. I got scraped up a bit but continued on.

[Chan790]

1. I was riding my bike down the big hill...

and I took the hard-left at-grade into my (blind) driveway and smack full-speed into the bumper of my visiting aunt's Buick.

[Avalux]

2. I was sled riding in the cemetary.

Did it all the time; an old cemetary behind my mom and dad's property and it was on a hill, so perfect for sled riding. Anyway, I was about 10, it was night and it was icy and I was going fast and my rudder sled wouldn't steer on the ice, so I came barreling down the icy cemetary road and slammed into a tree. I was laying on the sled on my belly, and hit the tree with such force I flew off and landed on my back, the wind knocked out of me. I couldn't breathe and thought I was dead. Took awhile before I came around and could stand up. I was lucky it wasn't worse!!

Can't say that stopped me from sled riding in the cemetary!

[applegrove]

4. You are very lucky. I had a friend who ended up in hospital because of a sledding incident.

[pipi_k]

3. Sledding at the golf course

there was one very big hill popular with the kids for sledding.

I was 13, I think.

anyway, I'm going down the hill and realized that I'm traveling faster than I thought I would and had two choices...

go into the brook or hit a tree

I hit the tree and wiped out.


Oh, and it must have been that same year I was out hiking in a local park with my sisters and our next door neighbor (who was mid 20s maybe) and we're rounding the far end of a large pond and the ground is wet and swampy. Suddenly I feel pain all over me. The last in line, I somehow disturbed a nest of bees and got stung many times.

I was hysterical. I don't remember the return trip to the ranger's station, but we got there and we all got a ride home in a police car, whereupon my mom filled up the bathtub with cool water and baking soda and I soaked for a long time till the pain went away.

[applegrove]

5. I stepped on a hornet's nest when I was about 14. Only got stung about 8 times. My brother

and cousin disturbed a bees nest and each got stung about 30 times. It was terrifying.

[pipi_k]

10. Do any of you

now have a bee phobia?

I'm surprised I don't have one. I used to have a butterfly bush in the yard that would need trimming and I'd be out there on a warm and lazy summer day cutting off the dead flowers while bumblebees buzzed around me.

[Populist_Prole]

16. I am absolutely terrified of them

I later found out that I am highly allergic to bee stings, so that moved the paranoia up several hundred notches.

I'm scared shitless of them all, but it's the ever aggressive Yellowjackets put me into an almost uncontrollable panic.

[applegrove]

18. I remember that when I got stung I was in a bush right by the lake. A few years later

there was a game hunt with poetic clues at our cottage. I was the only kid in a boat of adults. They wanted me to get out of the boat and search along the bushy shoreline for a clue. I was like "no way am I searching in bushes". .

[Populist_Prole]

6. Bad crackup on a bicycle when I was 9 or 10

Going down a very long and steep hill, and though I didn't know it at the time, I went so fast my unbalanced wheels began to wobble violently and the oscillations became so big they eventually flung me off the bike. It was terrifying in that I knew I was out of control and that I definitely would crash and could do nothing about it. No broken bones but I had a concussion, was scraped up, surely in shock, and had the wind knocked out of me. Short of a head-on collision in a pickup truck when I was 22, it was the most physically traumatic thing that ever happened to me.

[From The Ashes]

7. I fell off of my bike...

...the summer I was 12. I used to spend summers at my aunt's house. She lived in central Pennsylvania at the top of a very steep hill. About a block from her house is a cemetery with a road that twists and turns through it. To my 12 year old mind, it was an awesome prospect riding down that hill. My aunt forbade me to go there. Yeah like that did any good...

On the day it happened, the ride started out all nice and smooth. After the first turn, there was an area where the road was a few inches higher than the surrounding grass, and my tire went off the edge. I don't remember whether I had tried to get the wheel back up on the road; or if I just overbalanced myself. The result was the same either way. I fell off. I got lucky in that most of me hit the grass; I didn't break anything. My forehead hit the concrete. I stood up and dusted myself off.

I started walking back to the house, and I could feel something on my face, which felt like sweat. I found out a few minutes later that it wasn't, when my aunt caught sight of me. Yep, you guessed it; I was bleeding. I had a small gash in my eyebrow. Luckily one of her neighbors was a nurse. It was decided that the cut wasn't big enough to have stitches, so the nurse put one of those butterfly bandages on it.

After nearly 40 years the scar is mostly faded. But that eyebrow never grew lashes back very well.

[charlie and algernon]

8. I fell head first off the back of pick up truck

I was 7 or 8 and at a friend's house. We were all in the back of his dad's pick up truck tossing a ball back and forth when, of couse, the ball is thrown too hard and flies out of the truck. I volunteer to get it and as I'm climbing over the tailgate, I somehow trip and fall head first onto the driveway. I get up in a daze, not realizing that blood is now gushing from a deep cut on my eyebrow. Heh, that put my friend's mom into a panic.

My mom came to pick me up and as we're driving to the doctor's, she starts quizing me on stuff I should know and apparently I had forgotten what my address and zip code were, haha. I ended up getting 5 stiches and a cool story when we got back to school on Monday. Surprisingly, the scar has healed nicely and you can't even tell it was there.

[RiffRandell]

9. I broke the same wrist twice within a month.

Once I fell off my bike, the second time a kid that liked me tripped me at recess---then I got lectured by my principle that "I need to be more careful." This all happened in fourth grade.

[bluedigger]

11. Bicycle wipeout.

Two friends and I went for a ride when I was about 10. We made it up to the Hardy Farm at the top of the hill and turned around to come home. Coming down the very steep hill, on the poorly paved secondary road, we all wiped out. We were three abreast, so one friend went off the road to the left, through the ditch and barbed wire fence, and into the field. My other friend went right, into the stone wall and the woods. I chose the center, and skidded down the roadway.

All three of us walked out bent and damaged bikes home, bleeding all the way.

[AngryAmish]

12. City put in new curbs and I decided it was time to jump them on my bike

Was rolling down a fair sized hill, hit the curb perfectly...did not realize they put in new street light poles at the same time. THat one put me out for a few minutes.

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. We had moved to a new neighborhood with tons of kids.

There were still houses being constructed and big, fun hills where foundations had been dug. When it would snow, we would sled down them. One side would typically be smooth, while the other side was an almost sheer drop off. (I'm sure it wasn't the 100 foot tall hill my 7 year old mind remembers it as but still) I was getting ready to go, stepped into my red, plastic (supposed to fit three but who are they kidding?) sled. Only I slipped fell backwards on the sled and proceeded to drop over the edge of the drop off. I still remember the look of shock on my brothers' faces and the faces of our friends. I bit through my tongue and had the wind knocked out of me (only I thought I was dying because I couldn't breathe, as so many of us do when that happens the first time). I don't think I ever went "foundation sledding" again after that. I spent my time on the construction sites drawing on the sidewalks with broken pieces of drywall.

[RiffRandell]

14. And I bet you weren't wearing a helmet!

We NEVER did--or seat belts for that matter! Now all the parents are all about the helmets, but I have to admit, if my son is just riding 4 houses down to his friends---I let him go without...same with his scooter. He hates wearing helmets...not that it makes it ok.

Yes, I am prepared to be lambasted on the seriousness of head injuries---deservedly so.

[geardaddy]

15. This one's particularly idiotic.

When I was three, I was staying at a friend of the family's house while my parents went down for my grandpa's funeral. They had a fireplace that was raised up on a brick hearth and a sofa directly opposite. I would run head down from the sofa to the hearth, stand up, turn around, then sit. Then I would repeat those steps back to the couch. On my return to the hearth, I forgot to stand up.

I had eleven stitches in my forehead.

[cbdo2007]

17. Flew 10 feet over the handlebars of my bike....

Was riding as fast as I could down our big hill of a street.....took my foot of the pedal and to coast, then reached down to pedal some more and missed the pedal and my foot hit the ground. Bike stopped and I flew 10 feet further over the handlebars. It was bad. I still have scars and had to be covered in washclothes for 2 days because of all the scraping.