Ways you never thought your kids would get hurt

[nova147]

I had one of these moments yesterday.

 

Our 10 month old was crawling around the deck at his grandma's house. He pulled up on the plastic picnic table and started to SCREAM. MIL was out there with him and as I ran outside, I could hear her asking him what was wrong, then saw her looking around him, trying to find the source of his pain. She picked him up as I got outside. It couldn't have been more than 30 seconds, but probably only 15. Well, that table had gotten so hot in the sun that he burned his palms! They were red for hours after and he actually has a couple of red spots on one hand still today.

 

What have your kids done that you never thought would have hurt them, but it did?

[Dory]

I have the opposite thing here. I grew up in a very accident prone family and was fully prepared to be constantly dealing with strange wounds on my kids. I have NEVER made a trip to the hospital for an injury yet. Nor have I had to deal with any actual injuries (beyond a sliver) at home. I'm hoping they aren't just saving it up for something big:glare:.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I had one of these moments yesterday.

 

Our 10 month old was crawling around the deck at his grandma's house. He pulled up on the plastic picnic table and started to SCREAM. MIL was out there with him and as I ran outside, I could hear her asking him what was wrong, then saw her looking around him, trying to find the source of his pain. She picked him up as I got outside. It couldn't have been more than 30 seconds, but probably only 15. Well, that table had gotten so hot in the sun that he burned his palms! They were red for hours after and he actually has a couple of red spots on one hand still today.

 

What have your kids done that you never thought would have hurt them, but it did?

 

We had this happen with a metal slide at a public park when my oldest was a baby.

[rieshy]

My 8 year old was jumping on a friend's trampoline during a birthday party. No, he was jumping alone. No, he didn't break anything.

 

However some sort of beetle that was on the trampoline was propelled upward at great speed and splattered in my son's eye. Small embedded pieces of beetle, yuck! Painful too.

 

Luckily the beetle pieces worked their way out within a few hours. However, his eyeball was dyed with beetle juice! The ophthalmologist said we could do surgery to remove the dyed bits of eyeball- or wait. It took about 6 months before all the tiny spots were gone.

 

We teased him about being so incredibly manly that he had his eye tattooed.

[Allearia]

This happened to ds10 on a pole at the park on a hot day. It very rarely gets that hot here, and you would think that age ten it would not happen at all.

 

My younger ds when he was four crushed his finger in a desk, it was a lift top desk but had stuff on it. He is my crazy daredevil, always doing weird stuff, but breaking his finger in a desk in his room :confused: He also happened to be stark naked at the time.

[TravelingChris]

Number two managed to get jellyfish poison in her eyes. We lived near the beach in Florida and she was old enough to be there with her older brother and younger sister (probably 14). She had picked up a Man of War to put back into the sea and then later rubbed her eye. I ended up taking her to urgent care.

[wapiti]

I can't remember off the top of my head, though I often find myself saying, "how on earth did you do that?"

 

I certainly didn't think that ds9 would catch pneumonia from dd3. Right after she spent 5 days in the hospital, he spent another 5. And, he's still there. :glare:

[slackermom]

On two occasions, while doing nothing out of the ordinary, my daughter has been stung in the face by a bee. Bizarre.

[amyable]

When my son was 9 months old, we had a kiddie table that used to be dh's - it had a metal band around the outside like the mid-century kitchen tables... well, he pulled himself up, started gnawing on it like all good 9 month olds do ;), and got his teeth caught between the table slab and the metal band. He panicked, and being 9 months old, he lost his balance, pulling his only two teeth loose in the process. He lost one for good (it was way too loose to save) but the ER staff "replaced" the other one and with careful treatment it re-rooted.

[amyable]

I can't remember off the top of my head, though I often find myself saying, "how on earth did you do that?"

 

I certainly didn't think that ds9 would catch pneumonia from dd3. Right after she spent 5 days in the hospital, he spent another 5. And, he's still there. :glare:

 

:grouphug::grouphug:

[4everHis]

Kids were jumping out of a pine tree, not high even, but ds's shirt caught on a limb. He thought he'd just take his shirt off and jump down. Got his arms out and it wrapped around his neck and his weight was pulling him down. Yea! never knew you need to tell them don't take your shirt off while hanging from a tree limb. :eek: one of the scariest things we've ever experienced. (older sibling pushed up on his body 'til someone could get me.)

[ChristyB in TN]

:D Folding laundry. Last year my daughter was folding laundry in our formal folding area (the dining room) and turned quickly and kicked a post in the corner of the room. She broke a bone in her foot, it was terrible. Two weeks later my youngest son was folding laundry and tripped on his basketball, went to catch himself and broke his finger. Folding laundry is dangerous at my house.

[4everHis]

When my son was 9 months old, we had a kiddie table that used to be dh's - it had a metal band around the outside like the mid-century kitchen tables... well, he pulled himself up, started gnawing on it like all good 9 month olds do ;), and got his teeth caught between the table slab and the metal band. He panicked, and being 9 months old, he lost his balance, pulling his only two teeth loose in the process. He lost one for good (it was way too loose to save) but the ER staff "replaced" the other one and with careful treatment it re-rooted.

 

That gave me the chills. YAH! poor kid.

[4everHis]

:D Folding laundry. Last year my daughter was folding laundry in our formal folding area (the dining room) and turned quickly and kicked a post in the corner of the room. She broke a bone in her foot, it was terrible. Two weeks later my youngest son was folding laundry and tripped on his basketball, went to catch himself and broke his finger. Folding laundry is dangerous at my house.

 

Well, there you go, one more reason not to fold laundry!:D

[4everHis]

Number two managed to get jellyfish poison in her eyes. We lived near the beach in Florida and she was old enough to be there with her older brother and younger sister (probably 14). She had picked up a Man of War to put back into the sea and then later rubbed her eye. I ended up taking her to urgent care.

 

:ohmy:

[clarkacademy]

When my son was little we were in an elavator and while I was trying to get the baby seat to snap in the stroller for the little one he reached for the door right as it was opening. The door took his fingers back with it They were all kinds of torn up.

[bagel270]

Yesterday we learned not to stick fingers in wiffle balls. I had to cut it off of her.

[kwickimom]

When my ds was 6 months old I snapped his baby carrier onto the top of the Walmart cart like I did a million times before. I went to get a box off the shelf and he somehow managed to FLIP his entire baby seat completely over backwards into the back of the cart and he landed on top of some canned goods. :001_huh: He was buckled in of course but the seat was still clipped onto the cart and I couldnt get the seat unlatched so I had to flip him back over. He had a giant goose egg on his head and was screaming so loud (mostly scared).

Totally freaked me out, but thankfully he was OK.

[ChristyB in TN]

Well, there you go, one more reason not to fold laundry!:D

 

Yes, I don't need more than one. ;) Notice we keep it formal.

[angela in ohio]

Dd sliced the tip of her finger off on a mandoline. Just days before her orchestra seating audition, too. :glare:

[Excelsior! Academy]

These aren't really injuries, but my children stick their heads into things. Our niece put dd's potty ring over her head. We liked to have never got it off. It took K*Y. Every time the kids bring it up they always ask what we used to finally get it off. Dh and I change the subject quickly.

 

My 4th dd stuck her head in the slats at the back of a dining room chair. After her screaming for what seamed like forever we finally coaxed her out. Later that day we were laughing about it. Then she walked back to the chair and showed us how she had done it earlier by actually doing it again. It took even longer to get it out the second time.

[staceyobu]

When my oldest was four, she had one of those play tents set up in the living room. She was jumping out the tent door and crashing on the floor on her belly repeatedly and DH and I were sitting on the couch laughing at her. All of a sudden she came up screaming with a hole in her head. She had landed on one of those wooden peg puzzle pieces for little kids. The peg you use to lift the piece had made a puncture wound on her forehead. It looked awful and she had to get stitched up.

 

Who thought a wooden puzzle piece could be so dangerous? The ER staff acted like they didn't believe that was what had happened.

[momtoamiracle]

my son has had his elbow pulled out of his socket twice. Once when he was 2 yrs old and sliding off the bed - my dh grabbed his arm and it came out. The next time he was over 3 yrs old and a child was pulling his arm to get him off the floor.

 

 

 

It hasn't happened in 2.5 yrs now so hopefully he's outgrown the tendency for nursemaid's elbow.

[staceyobu]

Yesterday we learned not to stick fingers in wiffle balls. I had to cut it off of her.

 

When I first read this, I thought you meant the finger!

[edeemarie]

We had an exercise band attached to a support post in our basement for using the 10 Minute Trainer. My oldest decided he would see just how far he could stretch the band and let go. The handle of the band went flying into ds3's head- blood everywhere and kids screaming! With a butterfly bandaid and a lot of cuddling we escaped a trip to the ER (thank goodness because dh was at work at the time!). I really never thought to tell them "now, don't pull on these exercise bands and then let them go!". I guess I will have to remember that next time!

[ravinlunachick]

My youngest recently got trapped in the folding seat at a baseball stadium. She is so lightweight that when she sat on the seat with her knees folded underneath her, it closed up. Her legs were trapped (still folded!) between the concrete and the seat. It was awful. Of course dh had taken my oldest off to get snacks, so it was just me and ds. No one was offering to help, even though I was tugging and dd was screaming bloody murder.

 

Just when I thought I'd have to leave the kids and go ask for help removing the seat, I decided to try one more time. I apologized profusely to dd and pulled with all my might. It scraped the you know what out of her legs from her knees to her ankles, but she was free, finally.

 

She sat in my lap the rest of the night.

[laundrycrisis]

Falling off the top of a yoga ball - broken collarbone.

 

Taking off a shirt - frenulum torn away from front of mouth.

 

When people think I am overprotective of this kid, I don't care. I've learned that I need to be because freaky things just happen to him.

[ravinlunachick]

I just thought of another freak accident. This time, my kid injured me! She was playing with an empty tube from one of those pump shampoo bottles and walking on my bed. I was lying there, reading a book, and suddenly she wobbled and fell, stabbing me right in the ear with the surprisingly sharp end of the tube!! :blink:

 

I was blinded by the pain, my ear was pouring blood, and I was sobbing too much to speak to my poor dh, who had no idea what had just happened. When I got to Urgent Care, they couldn't believe it. Miraculously, dd stopped herself *just* before my eardrum. I just had a big ol' cut all the way down my ear canal.

[tvaleri]

With five kids, we've been remarkably blessed. A few stitches and only one fractured bone. As the youngers tried to keep up with the olders, there were many mishaps =)

 

#1, now 24, took up running. A neighbor kid told her to run on the balls of her foot. That's great for sprinting, not so much for distance running. She wound up with a stress fracture in her metatarsals. The bone actually died and had to be surgically removed!

 

#4, my now 15 yo literally pulled his front tooth out after working on cutting it for over six weeks. Pulling up on everything, he grabbed a desk drawer and bit it when the drawer slid back in place. Ouch!

Another time he went to jump in a pool not realizing it was only a foot deep. Bad ankle injury in the growth plate.

 

#5, my youngest, now 13, was the one who was always getting hurt. He pierced his tongue twice; fell on scissors which went through his lower lip; stitches in his chin.

 

Smiles,

Teresa

[swellmomma]

We had this happen with a metal slide at a public park when my oldest was a baby.

 

This for us too. I learned very quickly and taught all my kids to check slides before planning to go on them and if sunny to never go on a metal one.

 

My kids have had injuries from innocous things though nothing springs to mind in the moment. I had a weird injury though a few years back. Washing my floor on my hands and knees. Linoleum flooring, had been swept etc nothing on it, smooth floor. Backing up as a go, managed to tear open the top of my foot, needed 4 stitches to close it. I did not catch it on anything. As the skin pulled against the floor when I backed up it just ripped apparently.

 

Rather things turned into rules here that I never thought I would have to verbalize.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Both of my kids had nursemaid's elbow two different times. One of the times with dd10 it happened while I was dressing her as a baby and she decided to flip over just as I was putting her arm into her little shirt. Another time it came out when and older child decided to swing her around by her arms. Fortunately that time we were saved a doctor's visit because the elbow went back into the joint just by trying to get her buckled into her carseat.

 

Ds14 got his arm caught between an automatic door and the window next to it - ie. in the small slot between the two. I was fortunately able to get it out of there but was really worried that we'd have to call the fire department to take apart the door.

[hsbaby]

When my oldest was a year she fell and hit her head on our brick fireplace (no fire). She actually didn't fall that hard, but when she hit it the cement holding the bricks was uneven and sticking out (does that make sense?). Anyway, it actually poked a small hole in her head and bled like crazy!!!

 

When I was in Jr. High I went tubing with my friends family. The intertube popped and somehow the tow rope hook (those BIG ones) lodged in my arm. They had to swim out, unhook me, and head to ER. A few weeks later another part of my arm started to swell. When they cut it open they pulled out a piece of the intertube. Ugh....that was just traumatizing!!!!

[Dobela]

My son decied to climb up on my mom's treadmill to get something from the top of her bookshelf when he was about 8, he fell, managed to turn it on as he fell, and the belt scraped a huge patch of skin off his back. His doctor said he sees multiple injuries every monthfrom treadmills.

 

Once we had a foster daughter about age 4 pretending to be a ballerina in the small narrow bathroom we had. She managed to hit her head on the toilet seat and required 6 stitches over her eyebrow. Another foster child shut his finger in a closet door and nearly took the end off.

[Tammi K]

We loved to tease my oldest about the fact that the only broken bone our kids have ever had was from the time she broke her toe tripping over a toothpick! :tongue_smilie:

 

She ended up having septicemia from the incident as well.

 

It was late one night and she had fallen asleep on the couch. I roused her enough to shuffle off to bed. Somehow a toothpick had fallen on the carpet. As she shuffled by, the toothpick was shoved into her foot at the base of her big toe. She yelped and pulled her foot back and stumbled off to bed.

 

We didn't really think much of it that night as she got back up went to bed without a complaint.

 

Aside from the yip she made when it happened, and general comments about her '"toe still is sore" she didn't say anything else for a few days until she pointed out he 'weird red streak running up the back of my leg."

 

A trip to the doctor and some x-rays confirmed a break. Antibiotics took care of the rest.

[HomeschoolingHearts&Minds]

When my oldest daughter was about 9 months or so, she was playing in her Pack-n-play while I was doing laundry. Suddenly she starts screaming. She had fallen down from standing and when she fell forward, her chin rubbed against the soft mesh side. Scraped the skin off her chin, never expected that to happen.

[Mommyof4ks]

My dd got stung by a bee that was crawling on e back of a store door handle. My youngest fractured his foot stepping off of a 5 inch drop. My middle son squished his finger flat in a door jam; I did not know fingers could be flat, but his was for a few hours.

[Mimm]

One of mine once needed stitches from stumbling into an ice chest and banging her head. On the list of household dangers, ice chest didn't really rank all that high... :p

[melissad2]

When my oldest was about 18 months old he was sitting in a booster seat that hooked to a chair in Cracker Barrel, well he was throwing a fit about something and pushed himself back from the table. The leg of the chair got caught in a groove on the tile floor and the whole chair flipped backwards and he smacked his head on the floor! He had a huge goose egg and cried for a solid hour but thankfully was fine. It totally freaked the manager out he was over there offering to call an ambulance and everything. I just scooped DS up and started driving to the ER while calling our pediatrician on the phone, they had me just bring him to the office. I can't even remember if we paid for our food!

[Laura in NC]

This past winter ds9 decided to jump off dd11's large dollhouse. He ended up flying into the wall and moving the bones in his nose sideways. He had to have surgery to fix it. Thankfully he had his ENT dr who has done 3 previous surgeries on him so we knew he was in good hands. It takes 12 weeks for a broken nose to completely heal we found out and ds9 is a daredevil.

 

Our dd11 needed stitches twice in her forehead. The second time she did in her sleep. She somehow hit her head on the end of her bed while sleeping. She woke up crying. This was around 3 years old.

 

DD12 hit above her eye on the edge of the floorboard in our hallway. She was chasing her sister. I think she was around 6 when she did that.

[elegantlion]

Ds tried to walk by me while I was in the bathroom, small bathroom little boy. He fell on the furnace vent that had the lever sticking up on it. It didn't puncture, but he had a large gash on his back. He still has the scar.

 

He stuck a sewing needle through his finger. WE were having a garage sale and he moved the handle on a old footpedal sewing machine. I have no clue why he stuck his finger under the needle.

 

My head. He was standing over me and I was leaned over. I went to stand up and bumped his mouth and chipped his front tooth. I cried more than him. I broke out my front teeth as a child and so did my mother (both in more silly accidents). Thankfully it was only a small chip, but I rushed him right to the dentist.

 

He's not really accident prone, but he's not too risky either. Thankfully because I've heard stories of dh's antics and I so didn't want to have that child.

 

He almost stepped on a coiled snake once. He was inches from putting his foot down on it buried in a pile of leaves. We cut nature study short that day.

[In the Rain]

One dd (about 4yo) was sitting on a pillow next to the coffee table. She leaned over, hit her forehead, and needed 8 stitches. :001_huh:

 

Same dd (about 7yo) stuck a wooden ring (base for peg dolls) on her finger. She hid the problem from me for up to an hour because she was worried her finger would have to be cut off. :confused: I assured her that was silly. By then, her finger was turning purple, and we were 45 minutes from the doctor. We went to the fire station, where the paramedics announced they would have to cut it off!! Dd nearly fainted. :tongue_smilie: Of course, they meant the ring, not the finger. :lol:

[~Tara~]

My now 8 yr old, as a new walker, wobbled and hit her fairly fresh front teeth on a glass table top. *poof* tooth dust scattered

It really wasn't that bad, in retrospect.

 

I never thought my 6 yr old would staple his finger.

 

There may be a couple more minor things, I just can't recall them at the moment.

 

We're fairly accident free here though, thankfully. Surprisingly. LOL

[funschooler5]

A lot of you have probably heard about something like this happening, but it was a first for me:

 

When DD6 was a baby (probably 3 or 4 months old), I pulled off one of her socks and her pinky toe was purple and bulging...the whole toe looked like a huge blister. I started freaking out, but DH noticed that there was a long hair (one of mine of course :glare:) wrapped tightly around her toe. He took it off and her toe was back to normal in an hour. During that hour I was googling like crazy and it turns out that it's a fairly common occurrence called "toe hair tourniquet."

 

Needless to say that the new baby gets her toes checked regularly!

[Melissa in Australia]

MY DH built out house, and it has a veranda around three sides including a wooden deck and wooden railings. He spent considerable time researching how far apart to put the railings so a baby couldn't get their head through them. Well my dd, at age 9 months crawled to the railing, put her whole body through except her head, which didn't fit, and was hanging there screaming. My DH went to see what was happening, and got her out before she had hung herself!. He then covered all the railings with chicken wire until we had no more crawlers.

[Melissa in Australia]

Oh, the same dd. When she was 11 months and toddling around went out onto the veranda and picked chili (hot peppers) that were in a pot and ate them. She came up to me and her face was a giant silent scream. she was trying to pull her tongue out. IT took me a few moments to work out what had happened. I crushed heaps of ice and put it in her mouth. The next day she did it again. I was at work, and DH was with her. He gave her milk. We got rid of the plants after that.

[abacus2]

My 8 year old was jumping on a friend's trampoline during a birthday party. No, he was jumping alone. No, he didn't break anything.

 

However some sort of beetle that was on the trampoline was propelled upward at great speed and splattered in my son's eye. Small embedded pieces of beetle, yuck! Painful too.

 

Luckily the beetle pieces worked their way out within a few hours. However, his eyeball was dyed with beetle juice! The ophthalmologist said we could do surgery to remove the dyed bits of eyeball- or wait. It took about 6 months before all the tiny spots were gone.

 

We teased him about being so incredibly manly that he had his eye tattooed.

 

This is impressive and the only injury mentioned so far that I would never have expected.

[In the Rain]

This is impressive and the only injury mentioned so far that I would never have expected.

 

:iagree: really, truly. A beetle tattooing an eyeball while jumping on a trampoline. Wow! :001_huh::tongue_smilie:

[Tenaj]

My eldest, when he was about 10yo was in our garage, just walking through, and his bike fell over on him and gouged his leg. We took him and got it all stitched up and then returned to our ped about a week later to have the stiches taken out. Our ped wasn't available so we were seeing an unfamiliar dr., he must have had some paperwork in our file about the injury and immediately started lecturing my ds on always wearing a bike helmet when he was riding his bike, because look what happened to his leg. He went on and on about how much worse it would have been if it had been his head. My ds finally interrupted him to explain that he wasn't on the bike, just walking by . . . the dr. just laughed and laughed!

[Tenaj]

A lot of you have probably heard about something like this happening, but it was a first for me:

 

When DD6 was a baby (probably 3 or 4 months old), I pulled off one of her socks and her pinky toe was purple and bulging...the whole toe looked like a huge blister. I started freaking out, but DH noticed that there was a long hair (one of mine of course :glare:) wrapped tightly around her toe. He took it off and her toe was back to normal in an hour. During that hour I was googling like crazy and it turns out that it's a fairly common occurrence called "toe hair tourniquet."

 

Needless to say that the new baby gets her toes checked regularly!

 

That happened to one of my dc. It's awful. My ped told me (afterward) to wash those footie sleeper pj's inside-out to avoid this problem.

[Belacqua]

My neighbor spent weeks and much money trying to figure out how her baby was getting these little punctures on her body. Two little pokes, like a snakebite, all over her at random times. She didn't seem to be in discomfort, but they kept recurring. The doctors determined it was probably some kind of bug bite, so my neighbor and her family spent several days in a hotel while having their house fumigated. But a few days later, more little pokes showed up on the baby.

 

Turned out the jealous (and, one must grant, creative) older sister had gotten hold of a fondue fork and was periodically poking the baby with it. The baby never aroused attention by crying about this, so either the sister was gentle enough to leave a mark without causing much pain, or clever enough to do it when the adults were out of earshot. Unfortunately, their sibling relationship didn't improve much in the following years.