This is a bit of a long one and I’ll tell you why at the end.
What is the dumbest injury you’ve ever had trying not to get bested by a kid?
Buckle up, this is going to be a bumpy ride.
The year is 2012. Mrs Wookie and I were only married for a few months. She’d heard stories about me but she was about to see firsthand how I operate.
We were at our friend’s house. They used to own the house pre-Mrs Wookie was renting before she met me. Somehow my name came into conversation, she emailed me, and the rest is history.
My mate is a sparky with his own business and one of his clients is the biggest rest-home in town. One day he rocks up to do some maintenance work. A huge pile of walking frames greets him.
He enquires about these things and finds out that by law they have to replace them after so many years. Then they made the request that triggered a chain of events that led to the dumbest injury I’ve ever had.
They asked him if he wanted any. You know, because he could use the wheels for something. He said yes and grabbed a couple.
These things have a seat, four wheels, and independent brakes on the turning wheels.
My friend’s wife used to be my mortal enemy when we were kids. She suggested that her boy show me his trick on the walking frame.
He takes the frame up to the top of their steep driveway. He kneels on the seat. He barrels down the driveway, slams on the brakes, he stops.
“Give me a go” I say.
So I’ve got this thing at the top of the driveway. I kneel on the seat. I barrel down the driveway…
It’s about this time I need to tell you that I got 12% in my physics exam the first time around and 25% in the second. I slammed the brakes on at the same time as he had. I on the other hand was not an 8 year old kid.
I hit the lip of the driveway as it enters the - by the grace of God - open garage. At this point I recalled an event that happened some time around 2001 or 2002 where I came off a biscuit. I had the biscuit on a 30° lean which allowed me to have reasonable control over the thing. My mate’s boat had a foot throttle. When he turned he pulled his foot off the throttle which pulled the nose of the biscuit down. When he throttled again it pulled the nose further into the water. We were doing about 70 at the time and flicking me off. I bounced a few times until I somehow managed to become upright. I then ran on water like Jesus, until I tripped. I then flew through the air like Iron Man, not like Superman. When I hit the water I did so face first at about 30km by now.
I bobbed up and down waiting for them to pick me up. My neck hurt like hell. I needed to see if my neck had broken. If I could move my head it wasn’t broken.
It hurt to the left of me
It hurt to the right
My neck’s not broken
So she’ll be right
I didn’t feel the need to go to hospital for something that wasn’t broken. I found out last year, when I went to the chiropractor for the first time ever, I had most likely burst a couple of discs. Still… no broken neck.
Anyway, I’m flying through the air again like Iron Man, but instead of face planting water, it was a roll of carpet. It wasn’t the nice fluffy side that caresses our feet. Nope, it was the course, cross hatched pubic hair side.
As I picked myself off the floor I heard Mrs Wookie laughing:
“I bet you won’t be doing that again will you”.
My friend said, “I told you what he was like”.
Me on the other hand stood there brushing myself off, checked my nose to see if it was bleeding. I should know by now that taking a round to the shnoze doesn’t get me a bloody nose but I still check.
I then said “I know what I did wrong”.
NOW, any sane and rational person would have stopped there. Those two words got removed from my dictionary very early on in life. They prevent me from being awesome.
So I grab the walking frame and take it to the top of the driveway. I barrel down the driveway and everyone is gasping to see the inevitable. But I braked earlier and even though the lip of the garage was approaching fast, the frame stops short.
“I knew it” I exclaimed with great pride.
Then the kid said:
‘Watch this’.
He takes the frame to the top of the driveway, rides off to the left where he then flies off the unfinished driveway. He’s got some air as there is a drop due to lack of concrete.
“Right” was my reply.
If your brain works the same as mine, your brain has seen me barrel down the driveway, getting airborne on the drop of the unfinished driveway. You've then seen me hit the gravel and dirt of said uncompleted driveway, flip head over heels and face plant the dirt. Most likely Iron Man styles once again.
Ziggy calculates there’s a 99.99% chance that that’s exactly what happens. Had what actually happened not happened.
When I left school I became a farmhand on a farm between Hawera and Normanby. My boss had taught me how to drive a tractor and I was about 2 weeks into the job when I took the tractor to open a gate. My route took me down a steep hill. I reckoned that sticking the tractor into 1st gear would prevent the tractor getting away on me. I was sort of right.
It did start to get faster and faster and so I hit the brakes. The tractor was a stupid Ford. While it did have dual brakes, it did not have a brake lock which applies both brakes together, like on the Fordson. I slipped off one brake which locked one wheel. The next thing I knew I was facing back up the hill… after having trenched the paddock.
You might remember I said these walking frames had independent brakes right?. I figured I could steer this frame like you’d steer a tank. For a little bit I succeeded, right up to the point where the left brake locked, pulling the frame to the left.
The driveway had a bunch of pavers lining the driveway, all on a 45º angle. The frame hit this and toppled off to the right. I stuck my hand out to support me. It then slid from under me and my arm sprawled out.
And this the stupidest injury I’ve ever had. You see, when I was 15 I took a header off a balcony while we were playing ball tag. I snapped my radius clean in two and dislocated my ulna at the same time. It grossed out a nurse… cool injury.
10 years later I had a motorcycle crash. While I landed right I was rolling towards the gutter so I put my arm out to alter my direction. At some stage I landed in such a way that my right radius went through my wrist bones and skittled them. I also went insane because I recognised the nurse from somewhere. I didn’t want to ask where I knew her from. I felt she would have thought I was trying to hit on her with some dum bar pickup line. It turns out I’ve never met her before. She was the cousin of my friend who is the wife of the mate who owned the boat. The nurse looked so much like my friend that my brain thought I’d met her.
I also must mention that I annoyed my physio nurse too. For a couple of weeks I had three sessions a week and I couldn’t move my wrist much. Straight after my 6th session I decided that to get more movement I was ready to get back to doing what I do best. Ride motorcycles. I went from the physio straight to the motorbike shop. I bought me a 250cc single cylinder Suzuki Marauder. I regret not getting the Intruder but finances wouldn’t allow. I went cruiser style because I figured less weight on my wrist.
The next physio session I had about 60% movement again which led her to question how I did it. I told her about the bike.
“WHAT?!” Was her reply.
I then replied “Well, you tell us to get back to doing what we normally do, and riding bikes is what I normally do”.
Ever seen anyone destroyed by their own rationality? It’s beautiful. I used that same rational when, at my next visit. She asked what I got up to on the weekend. I told her I got towed down Oakura Beach on a body board behind another of my mate’s four wheeler. I had no physio sessions after that.
So that was a cool and weird injury.
Then there was the biscuit and the neck injury. I figured it must have been around 2001 / 2002. I was working for the gas company at the time. I know this because one of my colleagues was coming towards me with his neck in a brace. He thought my movements were mocking him. I then had to explain my injury. We had a laugh, right up until it hurt the both of us.
Cool injury.
But this injury was dumb. After it happened I felt that all I needed to do was walk it off. After about half an hour I decided it was best to go to the hospital because I couldn’t walk off the pain.
I wait in a hospital waiting room for two hours only to find that I had fractured my elbow. But the fracture was so small they had to magnify it 6 times before it was visible was pretty much a let down.
Still, the doctor had a good laugh. She knew all the words I was saying but could not grasp them in the sentences I was saying.
There was a spin off of this. I got an official ban from getting old by my wife. It seems she can’t trust with the equipment. So I’m locked in a body that doesn’t look too dissimilar to the one I had when I was 36. I’m also locked into a body that thought riding a walking frame down a driveway was a good idea. The joke’s on Mrs Wookie I guess.
Now, you’re most likely thinking that this story could have been shorter by a lot. If had I taken out all the superfluous stories that you wouldn’t have to read so much. I agree but I wrote it like this because I love the irony of telling a story like an old man after getting banned from growing old.
Stay reckless folks.
PS, Alcohol was not involved in the creation of this story or any of the mentioned injuries.