Last year, I was out with my pruners and open sandals, a bad combination. I put my pruners in my pocket and bent down to pull some weeds. The pruners fell out of my pocket, and the blade went right into one of my toes. Completely bypassed the bone (thankfully) and sliced through the flesh. The pruners were so sharp, it didn't even hurt. I just picked up the pruners and then saw the blood. It took forever to get it to stop bleeding. I had to prop my foot up and compress it. There was blood all over my kitchen floor. I thought I'd have to go to the ER and get stitches, but it finally stopped.

You didn't go to the ER gesh I would have if it sliced my toe... But then again I dont do needles, or any sharp thing coming at me so I probably wouldn't have gone just because of the stitches.

My wife had a good one last fall. She had complete knee replacement on both legs (R/Feb--L/May)and was out in the garden doing a little dead heading and stepped into some soft soil. Twisted her right leg and fell down flat between 2 bush's. She felt something "pop". X-ray showed nothing wrong but the dr said a lot of the new parts were high grade plastic and don't show on x-ray. Be carefull and watch. Well something did pop. On the back of the knee cap they put a plastic cushion so the knee cap won't rub against the new knee parts. The caps that hold the plastic cushion in place popped loose and the plastic was working it's way out the bottom of the knee cap. She just had it repaired last Friday. Sounds like a simple fix??? Nope. Open the entire knee area (28 staples) and take the knee cap out, check to make sure nothing was messed up. Put a new cap on her knee cap, then put everything back together. The Dr and the entire hospital had heard of this happening but had never seen it. If something weird can go wrong, it will happen to my wife. She told me a couple of weeks ago that she will no longer mess with the rose beds on the hill. She will take care of the beds out front.

I put my back out crawling through the lawn pulling up every teeny-tiny weed sproutling I could find. Even then it was totally worth it to only have two dandilions.

I just get a kick out of all my rosebush scratches on my lower arms. I do feral cat trap-neuter-release so people assume that's how I get all banged up. I'm alsways so glad to defend the honor of the kitties and explain that it's because I'm too dumb to avoid a plant covered in prickles.

haha my mom was doing something to her rose bush and there was a garter, gardener snake whatever you call it jumped at her and she jumped I promise 4ft into the air and landed flat on her back. I thought she did major damage but she just ended up very sore...

Some years ago I decided I needed to move some big ol' monster hostas. I dug one with a big rootball and then discovered it was too big for me to heave out of the hole. Somehow I maneuvered my leg under it, figuring my strong thighs could help me get some leverage to lift the hosta ball up and over the edge.

Wrong. The big hosta ball was so heavy that it weighted down my thigh, and I realized my leg was trapped under the big hosta ball which I could not move at all now. Soooooo embarrassing as I sat there pinned at the bottom of a planting hole with a monster hosta holding me down. I was so glad no one was around in the neighborhood to see me there and ask why I was sitting in a hosta hole holding a hosta on top of me!

After about 20 minutes, I regained some of my energy and will power and somehow managed to slowly squirm my way out from under the monster hosta. No permanent damage to me or the hosta, but I decided to leave it where it was. Watered it in well, and it is still growing there years later!

That is more a "How to feel foolish" story.

Kate

I ran myself over with my garden cart. Black and purple gashed ankle as a result, and I still have a scar. How I ran myself over when I was driving is quite hard to explain. Slopes need to be respected.

Oh, god, these stories help me feel not quite so foolish for some of my mishaps. My latest was trying to sit on the tailgate of our Ranger Polaris garden dump truck (which had a sign specifically saying don't do this). It dumped me on my fanny in the driveway and it was months before I could sit very long on my tail bone. Thank god the driveway was clay and not pavement or it would have totally broken my butt.

Ten yrs ago, for my birthday- I BEGGED my husband for a tiller. NOT one of those little ones-I wanted a big--expensive- one that would till our heavy clay soil.. So, off to the dealer we went.. I used it in the little area they had to try it out in.. I felt great about it.. Brought it home and started to use it... I got half way down the first row and it hits a rock--lifts me off the ground about three feet and throws me to the side--- I eanded up w/ the tiller on top of me! My husband helped me up--busted lip, black eye and bruised all over... Dh took the battery wires off and pushed it in the shelter.... with a warning that I never use it again... He was more scared than I was...

Some years ago I was stapling sod down on the side of a ditch.

I would drive in the staples by hand or foot if necessary grab the box and toss it couple of feet drop down on my knees to drive the staples, and repeat.

Well, I dropped down once and drove a staple into my knee far enough it stuck in something.

It hurt in an odd way, kind of like a bruise you discover days after it happens.
So I pulled it out.

Very little blood.

I went to the doctor the next day and got shots and pain killers I did not really need, and went back to work but did not drop on my knees for a week or so and when I did, I was far more careful.

Thank Heavens I usually only slice the end of my finger off with my clippers! I did impale myself once on a very large rose bush in the old garden. I'd carried a fifteen gallon can full of horse manure over to dump in a spot which needed it. I turned, walked about three feet and nearly stepped on a four foot long rattle snake which had to have been headed toward the path I had just walked down on the way to dumping the manure. As soon as I realized what I was about to do, the can went flying. VERY strange noises emanated from my constricting throat at very high decibels and I levitated, landing squarely on a five by five foot Rachel Bowes Lyon! Talk about your skin crawling all over you like a cheap suit!

The snake was hurried up the hill with a strong stream of cold water from the hose nearby, until it disappeared into the chaparral. It took quite a while to regain my composure (as well as control over bodily functions!) I just don't DO snakes! Kim

Yegads! I hurt just reading all these. I've done some silly garden oopses too but so many that off hand I can't think of any particular one, lol! It usually involves a cut with the pruners, stepping on something (I garden barefoot for the most part) or tripping and falling on something.

I was doing something to a Le Vesuve planted at the top of a hill, lost my balance and fell partially into Le Vesuve and then all the way down the hill which was baked-dry dirt with no vegetation. I must have rolled over six or seven times on the way down and every one of them hurt. When I came in the house I was bleeding from my scalp, face and left arm. My husband's first thought was that I'd been attacked by a mountain lion (we do have some nearby). The bruises on my legs took many weeks to go away. When I went to work very few people dared to ask about my bloody scars and bruised left side of my face. They probably suspected some form of domestic violence. I'd told my closest co-workers what happened before I came in but they said hearing about it and actually seeing it were two different things!

The tiller one is scary, that could have been more serious. I am afraid of machinery.

I've stopped gardening barefoot for a few reasons. A few years ago DH had to dig a few tips of rose thorns out of the bottom of my feet. I couldn't get them. Also, my clutziness as witnessed above with the pruner incident. The third is that I now have weak ankles and risk them getting worse being barefoot while doing anything beyond sitting and watching tv. So I now wear heavy hiking boots, even in the summer, when out in the yard. And you know, my knees and back also feel better. While I hate shoes and love being barefoot, I like not being in pain all the time.

Wow there are some pretty serious injuries thanks heavens you are all still here!!

Kim that rattle snake was scary I bet it took you a while to get over that!

Queen bee you are very lucky with what happened with the tiller, my dad has one or two of those and I don't think my mom is allowed to use it. I wont dare use a big one.

Rpr you drove a stake thru your knee! ouch!

Ingrid I bet you were sore for a while!

I am glad all of you are alright! Be careful this year! :)

Knock on wood, but no serious injuries in the years of the big clean up at my parents garden.

Other than when I knocked my head on a branch and considering the blood and how long I had to be careful to not bend over or touch that spot, a stitch or two might have been a good idea. But I have long hair and the idea of a shaved patch....

Only one nail has been stepped on, by mom...just try and get a tetanus shot these days, what a project.

As much as I would love a serious tiller, dad had added too much "iron" to the soil in the form of iron tools, fittings, pipes etc, I figure either the tiller or I will hit some something hard. So shovel it is!

Even with as many trees cut, roots cuts etc...we have stayed safe.

And...no more thrown out backs from crawling under trees and branches!

My mishap was caused by pure stupidity. The back third of my property is a slope covered with four different kinds of junipers. At the top of the slope there is a path and a planting area for a few trees. I had decided to prune out the dead branches next to the path.

I took one step "down the slope" and found myself hanging from the junipers. My feet were not touching the ground. Instead of stepping down the slope, I fell off of a small cliff covered by the junipers ! I tried to find something I could put my feet on so that I could climb out, but there was nothing there. So, hand over hand, I grabbed onto juniper branches until my feet found one very large juniper branch and I could push myself up and out.

When I was finally back up on the path, I just sat there thinking that if my hands had not caught the branches at the top of the junipers, I would have fallen through and no one would ever think to look in the junipers for my body.

Since that experience, I have been very careful about what I now call the "danger zones."

Smiles,
Lyn

Welll...I used to have perfect teeth. Dentists and other folks would compliment me on them, often asking if I ever wore braces to have such beautiful teeth. Nope, I just inherited them from my mom and dad. Well they aren't perfect now after I stupidly heaved a concrete block over the backyard fence and accidently chipped them. Arrrgh!!! :~p

I have a very bad habit when in the garden of looking at everything except where I'm going. My brain is observing each plant as I breeze by, determining if it needs anything - pruning, dead-heading, fertilizer, weeding, etc. I have gone ass-end over tea kettle so many times it's silly - landed face-in-thorns, stradling wood borders, attacked by my dogs who respond with excited face-licking whenever I hit the ground. Probably the silliest time was walking into a forehead level, very very wide tree limb. I stayed on the ground for quite a while after that one.

Wow you guys crack me up! Except for the serious injuries of course... As for myself, I've been pretty lucky so far.

I've fallen a few times and hurt various parts of my body in the process, but not seriously, thankfully! Almost cut the tip of my finger and glove with the first pair of Felcos, so I'm always careful that way. The tiller story brought back memories of my husband's EX-brother-in-law. He's this big tall guy, like 6'4" or so, thin, bald, goofy, resembles Max Headroom or a big Genie. He had just moved into my sister-in-law's house and borrowed her dad's big-ass Troybilt tiller. He and my husband went out to try to get it running. Well, they got it going, and he put it in drive and it took off (with him holding on) and it skimmed over the dried up heavy clay at about 5mph. It was a funny sight... seeing this big tall dufus go flying by along the fence hanging onto that big tiller yelling "whooooooaa!!" He was running with it trying to keep from losing control! My husband had to run up alongside and kill the choke. Thank heavens nobody got hurt! But I always think of that whenever I hear about rototillers!

These stories are funny and frightening at the same time. I get lots of cuts, prickles in my hands, and so on, and my husband's and my tetanus boosters are up to date. Once I twisted my ankle nastily. The worst accident I DIDN'T have was when my husband dropped his turned-on chainsaw on the top of my head. I'm talking about the blade part. Thank God DH had a moment of self-knowledge when he bought this chainsaw, and he got a model that stops if the operator lets go of it, so saving my life. The chain got stuck in my hair (and a bit in my scalp) and I had to wait listening to the motor running as my husband climbed down from the ladder and disentangled the blade. This was the one time in the seventeen years I've known DH that I considered I had the right to yell at him as loud and long as I wanted to; and I exercised that right.

Good Lord Melissa, I am as far from squeemish as one can get, but praise the Lord you survived that unharmed.

The only thing worse than it killing you may have been surviving as a vegetable.

I have used a chainsaw for hundreds of hours and I use in in what some call a risky manner, but I never-ever let anyone be within range of being hurt when I take my chances.

One note to anyone who uses a chainsaw, and ignore the exhaust, two years ago I was up in a tree crotch with room for one foot and the chainsaw.
The other foot was up at an angle braced against a different branch.
Was of those situations where getting up is easy but getting back down is whole different proposition because one of the major branches one uses to get there, is now on the ground.
Well I could not hold my self up with one hand reach the ladder without setting down the chainsaw next to my leg, I was wearing shorts and was barefoot.
The saw has an auto chain disconnect that works when it wants to, so I had to make sure the blade was pointing away from me.
I felt a warm spot on my leg but I thought well at least I am not close enough to the exhaust to get a burn.
Guess again, it burned me although it really did not feel hot enough for that, to the point I now have permanent scare about one inch wide and two inches long.

Yes, I am lucky.. I am 5'2" and 130lbs.. This is the largest Troybilt till they make... My husband was even more scared than I was.. He kept saying how horrible it was to watch-how high it lifted me off the ground--

RpR, yes, it was a creepy experience. DH never did quite understand why I was so upset, which I think shows a distinct lack of imagination on his part. But he has the husbandly virtue of accepting a lot of things he doesn't understand, and just bowing his head at times to the wifely storm.

Queenbee:
Having used many tillers, I can see how it could happen but until one sees it happen people tend to see it as something that happens only if the phates are all lined up incorrectly.
As a child, my father, when he started the tiller told me to never stand infront of it.
I listened as to disobey would mean either getting dragged in place or if he was in a bad mood, the back of a hand.

WELL- go foreward a few decades and I have found that with older tiller sometimes in the spring one is more focused on hoping it starts than any safety precaustions.
I have had several tillers take off on me and head for the hills.
Thank God they have never been on a real level surface as they move a lot faster than one thinks and you are up chasing them in the blink of an eye.

You are most fortunate, as I have used the big rear-tine tillers and quit as they are too much a pain in the buttocks.
I am a tick over six feet tall and two hundred pounds so I can believe with ZERO doubt that that machine tossed you around like a rag-doll.

When we first moved to this small city and read the local newspaper, there was a report of police responding to a man who was trapped by a runaway rototiller!
My gardening story is so dumb. I was preparing my wheeled sprayer and was (I guess) on the wrong side of it. It was slightly tiled away from me and snapped back. The handle cracked me in my forehead pretty good. The result was floaters in my left eye which are still there. I have gotten used to them somewhat, but in a sunny weather, it is more bothersome. A permanent problem from a lapse of judgment--shame on me. (I don't spray now.)

One year, I tripped over a rake and ripped a tendon in my knee and had to have surgery. I swore I'd be more careful, but darn if I didn't do it again the following year, on the other knee. I'm undeterred.

Egads! These are getting scarier by the post! PLEASE everyone, let's all be VERY careful out there this year!