Childhood accidents

[debih]

Did you have any major accidents as a child? Break anything or worse?

I was always very disgruntled that I never broke anything - which was a miracle really the amount of trees I fell out of.

My only real accident happened when I was around 9 or 10 years old. I was at the riding stables and I turned around and walked straight into a stable door that had been closed when I walked past it. I knocked myself out and also lost my tooth in the process. The whole tooth came out, root and all - one of the front ones at that!

I was rushed off to the dentist who, after giving me a million injections (and so starting my fear of needles) put the whole tooth back in the hole. I then had to wear a white brace like cover over my front teeth for about 6 months - it looked as though I had stretched chewing gum across my front teeth.

I remember once at school telling my teacher that the cover felt loose (I think a little hole had appeared in the back of it and so it was moving slightly) and he got into a real panic. My mum was called and I was whisked straight off to the dentist for a new cover.

Eventually the gum healed around the tooth and I was able to take the cover thing off (it wasn't removable - so had been on the whole time) and at last I looked normal. But not for long.

Less than a month after having the cover thing off my cousin accidentally hit me in the mouth with a baseball bat and chipped my tooth - diagonally from the bottom of the tooth to the base of the gum. It looked horrific but unfortunately because it was the tooth that had been reset they couldn't do anything with it - it still wasn't stable enough to be capped. So I had to live with it like that for well over a year - I remember moving up to secondary school with this horrible spike like tooth.

Just over a year later I went back to see if it could be capped and they x-rayed it only to find that the root was starting to disintegrate so they decided to take it out altogether and give me a false tooth on a plate, which I still have now.

Before I lost my tooth I had perfect teeth but almost immediately after the rest of my teeth started to deteriorate and now they are horrible (in my opinion anyway).

[Kaz]

I never broke a bone but had plenty of accidents! When I was about 10 I was bitten in the park one day by a puppy who bounded playfully up to me whilst I was making a daisy chain - then took a big chunk out of my ear!!! I had stitches and it bled a lot!

I came off my scooter and bit through my top lip - I still have a tiny scar and a slightly uneven mouth......

I had a couple of riding accidents too Debih - I lost a toenail when a shetland pony trod on my foot, and I was once bucked off right onto my head and the top of my riding hat was all dented. Thank goodness I was wearing one!

Then I fell on my head from some scaffolding at the side of our house when the council was reroofing. I was swinging from my legs upside down and fell off straight onto my head! Slightly concussed but luckily no permanent damage - allegedly

I sprained my wrist once falling off a swing..........I think that's about it really.

My sister was run over by a car when she was nine! She was thrown into the air, in hospital for a week with bruised ribs and black eyes but was very lucky not to be killed. It was on a notorious blind corner in our village and sadly a few years later a child was killed there

[Kaz]

Debih my sister slipped in the playground and had the same thing with one of her top front tooth - a horrid spike! She had a rebuilt tooth made by a London orthodontist but gradually over the years it went a horrible colour! She was stuck with that until she was about 20 and started work, and could pay to have either a cap or veneer - not sure what they did but her teeth are nice now.

Ironically her daughter, my niece, fell on her face and damaged her front teeth on a family day out a few years ago! She fainted She was already over 18 but because the damage was caused by a faint ie a medical issue the NHS funded her to have the work done. She had to wait until the teeth died completely then a few months ago they put a bone implant into her jaw (the jaw was also affected) and temp teeth - she's having the permanent ones later this year!

[Ally]

My worst accident was at the swing park where we were all doing double broncos on the swings.
This was brilliant fun..you'd swing waaaaay up high, as high as you could then jump off with such force that the swing would loop over the bars. If you done 2 loops in one it was a double bronco!

Except once my double bronco backfired and the swing clattered me right in my mush...what a sight.
Blood everywhere and my sister screaming like my head had rolled off!

I needed 2 stitches in my eyebrow and had a whopper of a black eye.

It is nothing short of miraculous that I broke no bones as a child...I was forever covered in bumps and bruises.

My knees and shins were continually covered in cuts, bruises and scabs..which I would pick away at until they bled!

Compared to my sweet little sister with her preference for dollies and tea sets I must have been a horror for my mum.

[Kaz]

I always had scabby knees Thinking about it I cant remember the last time I saw a child with a scabby knee - that seems a shame somehow

My sister was a little blonde angel - I wasn't

[debih]

Compared to my sweet little sister with her preference for dollies and tea sets I must have been a horror for my mum.

That sounds so much like me and my sister. My sis much preferred being at home, playing house. I ran wild with gangs of children around the fields near our houses.

We once burnt a tree down. I stole sausages out of our fridge and my friend stole matches from her house. We had a completely concealed den inside a bush/tree and decided that we would cook ourselves some breakfast. It didn't take long before the whole tree was on fire - fortunately we got out before it got too dangerous. We had a good talking to from the police about that one. And I don't think I sat down for a month after my mum had finished with me.

[debih]

I always had scabby knees Thinking about it I cant remember the last time I saw a child with a scabby knee - that seems a shame somehow

You need to meet my youngest then Kaz.

They came home on Sunday completely filthy. They had been playing in the woods with our neighbours two children and had decided to make an igloo out of mud. The four of them were absolutely covered. L had fallen out of a tree and came home with Emily's tights wrapped around her head like a bandage!

[Kaz]

[Diflower]

It's a miracle I never broke anything more than a finger too, but there are scars everywhere
So many accidents, scabs and bruises were normal
At infants school the playground was concrete; we had to have a race up it and I crashed straight onto my face. They didn't do anything but waited till my mum came to collect me at the normal time She took me do the chemist, I can still remember sitting on his chair, he picked bits of grit out of my face with tweezers. My leg was quite a mess too, I had a few days off school for that one, my mouth was so swollen I couldn't eat.
My cousin and I used to put my mattress against the wall, jump onto the bed then slide down it. I jumped into the metal bar along the side of the bed, into my shin. There was blood gushing out and I was telling my cousin to stop screaming while we put the mattress back because we weren't supposed to do it

My mum sent me on my bike to my aunty's house with a message and I turned back into our road in front of a car; I sailed through the air and landed on my head, the poor man thought he'd killed me! I had a brilliant bumper-shaped bruise all down my leg, a bump on my head, but according to the doctor not even concussion. Years later a big metal beam fell on my head at a garden centre, that only gave me a small bump and a headache, it must be harder than most
A cousin broke his arm slipping on the ice, after a month in plaster he got off the bus when he came home from having the plaster off, and slipped on the ice and broke it again

[Kaz]

Oh Di your poor cousin - but that did make me LOL