This morning I was changing the water jug on one of those water coolers and my finger got in the way. I now have a nice bruise underneath the nail of my middle finger of my right hand.
Anyone else have anything fun like that happen to them?
Posted by fiazko (Member # 5812) on :
I stabbed myself with a screwdriver. I will probably have a permanent scar. I work in a photo lab.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
When I was pregnant with the twins and still working (I quit when I was seven months along) I was walking down a flight of stairs and my knee collapsed under me.
Because it happened at work, workman's comp paid for the hospital visit but it was a paperwork nightmare.
I remember fondly the expression on my OB's face when I told him they x-rayed my knee. He pitched a fit. Of course, they covered me with two lead aprons and took every precaution, but he railed about ER docs so incompetetent they couldn't diagnose a sprained knee without an x-ray. Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
A seven-year-old kid bit me hard enough to leave toothmarks and dark bruises on my arms through kevlar sleeves. Thus far, it's the most injured I've been at work. Though I did have a client hit me in the face a couple weeks ago.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
We had a huge swarm of bees outside our building once, all up and down the street. I had to run right through them all to get to the building. Once in the elevator, another guy calmly told me that I had a bee walking around on my back. That was followed by a rather frenzied few seconds after which I ended up squatting down swatting the bee over and over with my security badge.
But I never got stung, so I guess that's not really an injury.
Posted by racingbird (Member # 8400) on :
I'm pretty sure I only have one interesting story: I worked as a pharmacy tech for several years and one of my jobs was to sort and put up the medications we ordered. I was on my knees sorting drugs when the phone rang, tried to get up too quickly and ended up flat on my face passed out. Boy, did that cause a scene.
Posted by zgator (Member # 3833) on :
I was at a construction site at the end of the day with my left hand on the back of a pickup truck. The guy who owned the truck slammed the tailgate shut after he finished loading it. Guess where my thumb was. This happened on a Friday afternoon, so I took a few Advil they had on site and drove home. By Monday, it was still oozing blood, so I went to the doctor on Workers Comp to get them to pop a hole in the nail and relieve the pressure. I had to wait 4 hours in the waiting room. As soon as I left, I had to go somewhere else for a drug test. Next time I'll just go to my regular doctor.
Posted by ludosti (Member # 1772) on :
I've had lots of smashed fingers, all of them minor - one just last month.
I've gotten a few burns (working with heat treating equipment means you sometimes get burned). My burns are always on the low temp (less than 500) stuff because the radiant heat is not enough to keep me from accidently touching stuff that'll burn me. With the high temp stuff I just get a little red for an hour or so.
The only time I've ever had to go to the hospital was from a work-related incident. I got carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty rental forklift.
[ August 01, 2005, 06:04 PM: Message edited by: ludosti ]
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
I have a number of little scars on my hands from assembling/disassembling computers that were too small for their sharply pointy contents.
Posted by amira tharani (Member # 182) on :
My only work-related injury is tame compared to all these. I managed to fall down a couple of stairs and sprain my ankle (cursed ankles). Was terrified I'd broken it because I heard a crack as I fell, so off I went to A&E (in a cab paid for by the office, lovely people). Got it checked out and was told it was just a sprain, then came back to work and worked late to catch up the 2 hours I missed. It wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have three school groups visiting Oxford that week - I normally take groups on tours of the city, but there was no way that was going to happen!
Posted by Goody Scrivener (Member # 6742) on :
Worst I ever had was a pair of second degree burns on the insides of my forearms, starting right at the edge of where the hot mitts lay on my arms. I worked at a bagel shop at the time. I was pulling a rack of freshly baked bagels out of the oven - they bake at about 550 degrees Fahrenheit - and the rack frame wasn't quite at the right position. So I pulled a bit more than I should have to get the rack out, and one of the trays came sliding at me. Reflexively, I pulled my elbows in to catch the tray, unconsciously counting on the hot mitts, and the tray came out far enough to get me good. At the time, I had 4 inch long burns on both arms. I was supposed to be off work for a week, but between truly enjoying my job and really needing the money, the boss and I discussed it and agreed that I would keep my forearms bandaged to protect myself and I would wear long sleeves until the burns had healed enough. He even went out and bought me a half dozen lightweight white cotton henleys and had the store logo stencilled on them for me.
Nearly 15 years later I still have faint scarring and puckering, about 3/4 inch long, on my right arm. The left arm finally faded away completely after about 10 years.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I'm at work right now and just ate a hamburger that came out of a vending machine. This seems likely to result in an injury.
--Enigmatic
Posted by kojabu (Member # 8042) on :
Enigmatic that just sounds wrong.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I know. But I'd ate the lunch I'd brought in 4 hours previous, was really hungry, and had 2 hours left of the shift. Vending machine sandwiches suck, but little bag o' chips wasn't cutting it. The funny thing? On the wrapper of the hamburger it said "Quality guarenteed or your money back!" What sort of quality? I mean, the hamburger certainly had qualities but I don't think any of them were good qualities.
--Enigmatic
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
One of my housemates came home exhausted from work about a month ago with this weird brown spray pattern down one side of clothes. I jokingly asked if he'd stopped to play in the mud on the way home and, in response, he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a rather large bandage covering most of his upper arm. Turns out there was a bit of an accident and work and he got showered with shards of broken glass, one of which sliced open his arm spraying blood everywhere. After being rushed to the hospital for repairs he dropped back in at work to fill out an accident report form and was informed by his manager that he still had 6 hours left on his shift when he turned to go home. The guy wasn't all bad, he agreed to not make him do any heavy lifting because of his arm.
Now all my work place horror stories seem like Tales From the Kiddie Pool.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
When I was working at a McDonald's, another kid slipped and dropped a recently-dipped fry basket; it landed on my left arm, leaving a neat grid of thin scars that are visible to this day on the rare occasion that I tan.
When I was working at Burger King, I was carrying a vat of old fry grease to dump out back when someone exited the cooler and hit me in the chest -- and, incidentally, the vat -- with the door. The vat tipped up and poured over my chest, melting my polyester shirt and leaving me with second-degree burns over most of my stomach.
A few months later, I was mopping up after close (at the same Burger King) when someone bumped into a bucket of water that had been left on top of one of the mini-fridges, thoroughly soaking the cord -- which was apparently seriously frayed. As I was holding a metal mop and standing in an inch of water at the time, it wasn't that surprising that I regained consciousness against the far wall, feeling like a mule had just kicked me in the chest and head. (They installed GFCIs the next month, but I had already resolved to get the heck out of the service sector; it was trying to kill me.)
Ironically, the only time I've actually gotten worker's comp was for a completely mundane and humiliating injury; two weeks after getting hired here at Edgewood, I was walking back to my car after work when I slipped and fell on an icy spot on the sidewalk, spraining my right ankle badly. That in itself wasn't terrible, but I did exactly the same thing two weeks later -- on nearly exactly the same patch of sidewalk -- and wound up bending my foot in the other direction, nearly severing a number of tendons and resulting in what is actually a permanent (but hardly debilitating) injury to my ankle. By walking to my car.
Posted by Nitasmile (Member # 8275) on :
I have 8 stitches on the my left lateral thumb. I spent a short time working at Wal-Mart and was opening up a box w/a box cutter. Drops of blood all over the floor!
I once had a strained wrist from lifting a young man w/physical disabilities. I consider myself lucky since I do lift/transfer people as part of my job that I haven't been more seriously injured.
Oh- and then there was the time that a patient bit me on my upper arm. That really hurt, she didn't mean to bite me (due to dementia) but did I say that bite really hurt.
Another time I was punched by a young man w/develpmental disabilities. My fault, I guess. He was telling me something and due to slight mumbling, I didn't quite understand him. So I asked him to please say it again. And he got mad and punched me!
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
Well, this is actually volunteer work, but I might as well have earned a salary for the time I put in.
I was building sets for the theater, and I was holding two pieces of wood together to make a flat. The guy driving in the screw slipped a bit and went right into my knuckle on my thumb. Went down jsut far enough to scrape the bone, and then he panicked and pulled out.
To be honest, I didn't feel a thing. I'm wondering about my ability to feel pain at all in my hands, because my fingers get smashed, sliced, and burned more than anyone else I know and I hardly notice.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I have tons of burn scars on my hands and arms from oven and frying pan injuries. I work in a restaurant. And one or two scars from slicing open my fingers with knives from chopping various things. You can't see most of them though unless I get a good tan.
Posted by ? (Member # 2319) on :
Tom, I never knew fast food could be so dangerous. They should definitely raise minimum wage for that type of risk.
?
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
Got stung by a wasp while serving food outdoors, went to a worker's comp clinic after it got infected, was given a shot of something I tured out to be allergic to, and went into shock about 45 minutes later. Luckily, I'd gone back to work for a meeting. When I collapsed onto a warming unit for the sticky buns, I did receive some burnage, though. And I got to vomit all over my bosses' car as he raced to meet the ambulance.
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Next time I'll just go to my regular doctor.
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