Carol Gee
I call this “Adventures in ‘Break Dancing.”‘ It happened on my 44th birthday, a holiday of sorts. I was a “fur mom” to two kitties, one weighing 18 pounds of fluff at the time. This cat was in the upstairs foyer with his feet under him when I attempted to pass him and go down the stairs. Suddenly, he jumped up, startling me, and I felt myself starting to fall.
With only one banister on the left of the stairs keeping me from tumbling down 11 steps (I counted them later, trying to decide whether tumbling down their carpeted facade would have been safer), I grabbed ahold of it with both hands, throwing my body off-center and coming down funny on my right ankle…fracturing it. I didn’t realize I had fractured it until it immediately started to swell. Happy Birthday to me!
My husband, hearing the commotion, ran to my aid. Trying to put weight on it was the first clue that I was really hurt. The trip to the Emergency Room confirmed I had broken it funny, requiring surgery. I would have preferred cake. And scotch.
Multiple casts, a cast shoe, crutches, rehab and three months later, I was good as new.
My family has a long-standing tradition of making eggnog for Christmas. My mom would make non-alcoholic eggnog for the kids and another set mixed with bourbon for the adults. My mom would pour each batch of eggnog into a large container, and she would label each container so she would know which eggnog was in which container.
One Christmas — I think I was seven years old at that time — we had several of my mom’s relatives come over. My mom asked my dad to label the containers but he mixed it up and well, the adult’s eggnog ended up being labeled “for the kids.” Before dinner that night, I, together with three same-aged cousins, sneaked up to the kids’ snack bar and secretly drank a lot of eggnog. It tasted weird, but we kept drinking it ─ I don’t know why we did. Half an hour later, all four of us were rushed to the ER because we were vomiting our guts out.
Rachel Davidson
Kalev Rudolph
I can see them now so vividly. Somehow, holiday injuries seem to follow me around. Maybe it’s everybody? And letting down your guard while celebrating simply raises the chances of catastrophic error. Here’s my craziest one.
Weddings seem especially prone times for injury. When I was a kid, my family brought me to the wedding for one of our family friends in this remote Colorado town. The house was one of those 70s hyper-modernist affairs—a ranch home, but with glass windows and walls everywhere. A breezeway made of eight-foot-high glass panels led out into the reception area.
The night before the ceremony, my mom was helping set up the processional while my siblings and I watched a movie. She called to us and asked if we’d come to help her. Both my older (and teenaged) siblings continued watching the movie, but I decided I’d help. So, I sprang up, ran out into the hall and right outside to where my mom was working.
However, I did not see that “outside” was through a glass wall. The force of my running shattered the entire plate of glass. Shards exploded into my body, and one punctured my head. We’d later find out it was less than an inch from the sagittal suture where, had it landed, I’d be dead.
From this point on I don’t remember much. The story goes that my mom picked up my body covered in blood. Then took me to the kitchen where her very strict distant cousin tried to tell us we could not come in as she “had just mopped.”
As you can guess, my mom had none of this and crashed her way in and began to apply pressure to my cuts. We were so far out of any cities we had no hospital to go to, so my mom called my pediatrician. Luckily, my mom is first-aid certified and got the bleeding to stop. Magically, the next morning I had nothing but a few minor scabs and a scar I’ve had on my scalp ever since.
This is a crowdsourced article. Contributors' statements do not necessarily reflect the opinion of this website, other people, businesses, or other contributors.