Recently, I was inspired to turn to our BuzzFeed Community to ask, "What is the absolute dumbest way you've ever gotten injured?" And reader, the answers were even better and stupider than I hoped. Here are a few of the best:
1. "[I] grabbed the fridge handle, and before I pulled the door open, I felt a sneeze coming on so I turned away from the fridge, but left my hand on the handle. Dislocated shoulder. Ouch."
2. "I wanted to save money on my wedding invitations, so I handmade all 300. I’m pretty crafty. I was using a mechanical pencil and a ruler to line my cuts, as I was layering cream cardstock paper on black cardstock paper."
3. "I was ducking under a volleyball net to get to the other side of the court, and [I] dislocated my kneecap."
4. "[I] put my bag in my locker. Twinged my back. Went to bed, couldn't move for three days."
5. "At the age of 8, I burned myself on scalding hot mud. I was at a friend's house in the country, and they had an old wood-fired stove in the yard. Her mom had it going because she was going to cook chicken in it later, and my friend and I decided to make mud pancakes on the top, which was super-hot."
6. "I broke my ribs from coughing too hard when I had bronchitis."
7. "I lost one tooth and chipped another playing 'balance beam' on the curb when I was 8. When I was 9, I chipped the same tooth running full speed to my friend's hammock and slamming into the very clean glass door."
8. "I threw my AP biology book on my bed, and it bounced off and landed on my foot. Broke a metatarsal and two toes. 🤦🏻♀️"
9. "Running for the school bus when I was 12, tripped and fell, would have been fine, but my enormous backpack slid forward and made me head-butt the pavement."
10. "I have vasovagal syncope (a condition where one faints in response to certain triggers, according to Mayo Clinic), [and it's] triggered by the sight of my own blood. I'm not squeamish; it's a weird reflex. Anyway, I once got a nosebleed on the toilet and passed out, fell off the toilet, smacked my head on the toilet roll hanger, and came round on the floor with my pants still around my ankles."
11. "I sprained my ankle in the stairwell at work, as the light was out. The day I went back to work, I sprained the other ankle trying to hail a cab and had to be admitted to the hospital."
12. "I was cleaning the cats' litter box and leaned over to grab the scoop. I was balancing on one leg to do so, and I lost my balance. In what felt like minutes ([and not] the second or two it really was), I tilted forward, falling toward the poop-filled box, until the top of my head hit the wall and I slid down to my knee."
13. "I dislocated my knee by tripping over my own feet. I wish I was kidding."
14. "I was going down the basement stairs on crutches (I didn’t need them, was just using them for fun). I tripped over them and fell down the whole flight [of stairs], jamming my foot against the opposite wall and breaking three toes. I actually DID need the crutches after that, LOL."
15. "My high school robotics club got bored one night, and we all took turns holding a piece of cardboard while another person punched it, and I sprained my thumb holding the cardboard."
16. "I worked at a dog daycare. We had one French bulldog there that was a voracious poop-eater. I mean this dog knew when another dog was going to poop before they were even outside. It was truly something else. Anyway, one time I looked up and saw from across the play yard that a large dog was getting into poop stance and the Frenchie was hot on her tail."
17. "My dad broke a finger taking off his sock."
18. "I sat down on my office chair and didn’t sit back quite far enough, and my butt hit the floor. I broke my tailbone. It’s on camera. FML."
19. "Our college dorms had desk chairs that rocked back. They scared me at first, but I got used to them — so used to them that when I was home on my Thanksgiving break freshman year and my mom told me to look out the window at something, I rocked back in my regular four-footed desk chair. It felt like slow-motion — I was halfway back and just thought 'Oh no…' before crashing back and whacking my head off the corner of my wood nightstand."
20. And finally, "I sprained my tongue licking Nutella off a spoon. Yep."
