Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

1

2

3

3.5

4

5

<10<

<15<

<100<

∞

[Heliman]

Me, at the edge of a bay in New Zealand: "Hmm. That Island doesn't seem so far away. I can totally swim to that."

15 minutes later, I am laying on the floor of some strangers moored and unoccupied boat halfway to the island, barely able to move and waiting to get picked up by the coast guard, and the only thing I can think to myself "This poor guy is going to be so confused when he comes back, wondering why the fuck his boat his boat is covered in blood."

You can fill in the blanks, I think. I'm not really a very good swimmer.

where did the blood come from?

[GlyphGryph]

The bottom and sides of boats tend to be covered in barnacles. I did not have enough muscle strength to pull myself onto the boat with just my arms, even to pull my legs up to the first step. I had to hug the barnacles and push off them just to get myself onto the "bumper" of the boat, and slipped twice trying to get form there INTO the boat.

So the blood was from the hundreds of cuts I got in the process, basically across the entire front of my chest and stomache and on most of my legs. But thank god for the barnacles because if they hadn't been there I probably wouldn't have had the strength to get enough resistance with my legs against a smooth bottom to push myself onto the boat.

[dreadmullet]

What is it with Bay12 and electricity...

When I was about 10, I had a small railroad track with a powered train. The power came from the rails, which means there was electricity going through the rails. I discovered that if I took a straightened paper clip and scraped it over the rails really fast, it would create sparks. Over carpet. Nothing bad ever happened, though.


A few years ago, I had a computer mouse that was mostly broken. Sometimes it stopped working, and I knew it was because of the USB cable. So I had the fantastic idea of taking it and another mouse and dissecting them, hoping to somehow replace the broken cable with the older mouse's cable. It turned out that I could, so I did. When I plugged it back into my computer, it didn't work at all. And then I notice that the cable is getting REALLY hot. Like, painfully hot. Fearing that it would suddenly burst into flames, I quickly unplugged the mouse.


I tried to make Jell-O when I was 3. I didn't know how to make Jell-O. However, I did know how to operate a stove.

[RedKing]

We just discussed how it was a myth. They wake concussion patients up every few hours when they're sleeping if they can't directly measure their brain activity to ensure that they haven't fallen into a coma.

Yeah, they did that to me when I was a kid admitted overnight for possible concussion. They knew I was okay because I was getting PISSED that they kept waking me up every hour.

How I wound up there:

As a kid, I loved Looney Tunes (hell, I still do). And after getting done with my shower and my pajamas on for the night, I would sometimes pretend to be Speedy Gonzalez and race around the house yelling "Arriba! Arriba! Andele! Andele!"

This one night, I did so and ran into the kitchen not knowing that my grandfather had just mopped and waxed the linoleum floor.
"Arriba! ArribaaaaAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" 

The funny part is that I kinda froze and managed to keep standing up as I slid at high speed towards the counter. Had I been alone, I would have caught myself on the counter and been okay. But my grandfather turned around, saw me careening terrified across the floor like a deer in the headlights on ice, and tried to help by swinging out his arm to catch me. Unfortunately for me, he misjudged my height by several inches and clotheslined me with a right hook that would have made a professional wrestler weep. My feet went flying out from under me, and I fell back hard on my head. The floor was a thin layer of linoleum over a thin layer of hardwood over a concrete slab.

I got a couple of aspirin and some profuse apologies and went to bed. Middle of the night, I woke up with an incredible throbbing in my head, like someone was stabbing me in the ear with a knife made out of pain. Given the way I was screaming, we rushed me into the hospital. Turns out, I had hit my head hard enough that it dislodged my eardrum slightly, tearing the skin around the edge of it and allowing a bit of bleeding inside the ear. They kept me overnight for observation and gave me some meds for the pain. It was fun at first (hey, the bed has a remote control!!) but I quickly got sick of being woken up every hour and asked my name and if I knew where I was.




I also stuck my tongue in a light socket once because, hey....light socket. I think I was fascinated with the taste of metal at the time (i was like 4 or 5). The stupid part was when I wondered "I wonder if it tastes different with the power on". >_<
The answer is yes, yes it does. It tastes like BZAAAAAAAAAAP--

[GlyphGryph]

Dear god, how are any of us still alive?

[Bauglir]

Because if we die, we will no longer be able to amuse the gods with our antics in the mortal realm.

[Nadaka]

When I was a teenager. We had a washing machine that was poorly grounded and had a short, but was ok to use as long as you wore rubberized shoes and didn't create a circuit with the ground. While loading laundry the family dog walks in and licks my hand.

[Virex]

Dear god, how are any of us still alive?

Contrary to popular belief, killing a human for sure is pretty tough. People can and have survived being shot multiple times (even in vital organs such as the heart or the brain), getting hit by lightning or even falling out of an airplane, you just have to have some luck and get immediate medical attention.

[GlyphGryph]

Also, confirmation bias, obviously. Maybe only 1/4th of us made it through, and these forums would just be a lot more populated.

[RedKing]

Dear god, how are any of us still alive?

I think my entire childhood exists pretty much as a cautionary tale for my children. "Don't be like your father, kids."

Although my daughter is fascinated with these sort of stories. Especially the ones where I get injured in some way, whether it's being bitten by a snake while hiking, or nearly impaling myself on the clothesline pole, or going sledding and winding up 15 feet off the ground in a tree.

[Itnetlolor]

Way back when, when we used to own a large trampoline (like the kind you can have 4 people jumping on at the same time), we did a series of tricks and attempt to out-perform each other. What's one of my best tricks to do? Jump-sit-flip (flipping right after sitting, while holding the sitting position). I've accomplished it a few times, despite the risk, but one more attempt now I have an audience and... I land on my head, on a trampoline. That did not feel too good. Surprised my neck is still as flexible as it is today.
Another one from my childhood. Back when I still had friends I regularly hung out with. I don't recall exactly what we were trying to do, but it involved having your hand on the edge of a surface while the other attempts to punch it, or something. Anyway, after I got a good hit or 2, it was my turn to do the same with my friend. My first shot did okay, but my second shot, I essentially wound up and did a powerful punch... only for my so-called friend to pull away at the very last second, and I end up Falcon punching the corner of a water fountain (which we were using as the surface for the game). I still have the marking on the base of my middle finger from that incident, and I am surprised I finished the day off despite nearly breaking my hand.

Sometimes, I question if I ever really had friends of my own at all.

[GlyphGryph]

That last one reminds me of one of my own...

There's a hill near where I grew up. It's very steep, and towards the bottom a path cuts across it with some built up dirt on the other side before dropping off again. It made an awesome jump - you could get quite a bit of air off it going down on a sled. Two people had already managed to bruise there asses and tailbones with poor landings, when I have a great idea.

"Hey, guys, lets see how many people we can fit on this toboggan, go down this steep hill into that bump jump halfway down. Oh, and since you're too hurt to join us, Tom, you should give us a nice big push to start off."

We got a lot of air. Overshot the patch of snow that doubled as the desired landing zone. My ankle slipped under the toboggan and we land on a flat, icy, hard packed batch of snow.

Cue: Two broken bones in my ankle.

My family, having become frustrated with my ability to injure myself on every outing, told me to drag myself to the van and when everyone else was done sledding (in a bout an hour) they'd take me to the hospital.

Jump-sit-flip

I always liked that one. Especially if you could get someone to boost your bounce, you could make it look pretty impressive.

[Jopax]

One that I recall including a bike was using my mothers old bike to go down this rather steep and long road that at the bottom of the hill ends with a two meter ditch. Well the bike had both brakes, but they were in such a condition that only the front one barely worked. Luckily  for me after some five tries I was still in one piece.

Or how about being a not so good swimmer and taking my younger cousin for a ride on my back, halfway across this three meter deep pool my muscles fail me and the rest is a desperate struggle to reach the end of the pool.

And that one time when I was five or six, it was very fun to jump off this big drawer cabinet that was in my room, one time tho I falil around in the air mocking my sister or something and I fail to land properly, my hands slipping on the wooden floor and my head hitting it shortly afterwards, this wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have my tongue out at the time, nearly bitten the bastard in half. Afterwards it was a rush to the hospital very late at night for a quick stitching, without any anestheatics.

[Stargrasper]

Dear god, how are any of us still alive?

Because if we die, we will no longer be able to amuse the gods with our antics in the mortal realm.

Isn't that the actual reason in The Sims 3 that the Grim Reaper doesn't take sims who accidentally die and have the Unlucky trait?

Dear god, how are any of us still alive?

Contrary to popular belief, killing a human for sure is pretty tough. People can and have survived being shot multiple times (even in vital organs such as the heart or the brain), getting hit by lightning or even falling out of an airplane, you just have to have some luck and get immediate medical attention.

You're right, though.  Humans are extremely resilient.  It's really hard to kill us.  We have a lot of built in defenses and healing mechanisms that keep us alive despite terrible things that we experience.  Just put it this way...essentially everything that could kill a human, humankind has an internal defense against.  Overpowering that defense usually means hitting it hard and fast or hitting it softly and wearing it down over a long period of time.  It's the same as going through a brick wall; either punch straight through it or spray it with water for fifty years until it erodes.  The poor human will then die...eventually...

That last one reminds me of one of my own...

There's a hill near where I grew up. It's very steep, and towards the bottom a path cuts across it with some built up dirt on the other side before dropping off again. It made an awesome jump - you could get quite a bit of air off it going down on a sled. Two people had already managed to bruise there asses and tailbones with poor landings, when I have a great idea.

"Hey, guys, lets see how many people we can fit on this toboggan, go down this steep hill into that bump jump halfway down. Oh, and since you're too hurt to join us, Tom, you should give us a nice big push to start off."

We got a lot of air. Overshot the patch of snow that doubled as the desired landing zone. My ankle slipped under the toboggan and we land on a flat, icy, hard packed batch of snow.

Cue: Two broken bones in my ankle.

My family, having become frustrated with my ability to injure myself on every outing, told me to drag myself to the van and when everyone else was done sledding (in a bout an hour) they'd take me to the hospital.

Jump-sit-flip

I always liked that one. Especially if you could get someone to boost your bounce, you could make it look pretty impressive.

That's...criminal child neglect and a few other crimes that I can't immediately think of the names of...  Great parents, huh?

[GlyphGryph]

I wasn't exactly in any sort of danger. I could hold myself together for half an hour. And the injury wasn't really that bad (they were broken, but not severely - weren't poking out of the skin or anything).

At no point was I in any danger of further injury or death, it wasn't getting any worse, and acting quickly really wouldn't have accomplished anything, so I'm not entirely sure how.