Everyday Systems

Hey there. About a month ago, I had a bad Shovelglove accident. I will tell this story as a warning to those who may be as stupid as I.

I was Shovelgloving like I had been for two weeks: in my room while my roommate was away. I was trying new moves that I made up. One involved walking around with the sledgehammer on my shoulder. Well, the head made contact with my overhead light fixture, you know, the kind with the glass shell over the lightbulbs. The fixture rained glass on my head, a larger piece breaking in two on my scalp. A piece fell and gashed the top of my wrist. I was gushing blood out of my hand (you know, in spurts along with my heartbeat). My head was dripping blood. There was a trail of it from my room to the bathroom, and shards of glass all over. My roommate wasn't home, but two of my housemates were, luckily. An ER visit, three stitches in my wrist and two staples in my scalp later, I was okay. However, a fat hospital bill promises to leave me $500 in debt, even after my insurance takes care of some of it.

Most of you are not as stupid as I. Some of you may be. Please watch out for overhead light fixtures. I'm not telling you to stop shugging. In fact, I will keep on shugging, as I find it a fantastic workout. I'm telling you all to be careful.

Ouch! Accidents happen all the time, and the one you had really sounds scary. Glad you had friends around to help you in what sounds like could have been a really dicey situation. Think of the $500 as an investment in your future. And thanks for the heads up.

Eeeeeek!

Glad that you're mostly okay.

Have you figured out what you're going to tell people?

Somehow, "I was swinging a sledgehammer inside, and smashed a lamp, which rained showers of glass on me" sounds oddly implausible.

wow i'm sorry you had such a bad accident!.. please don't call yourself stupid tho, this stuff happens to us all.. i remember doing shovelglove once and forgetting that there was a ceiling fan overhead.. luckily it just tapped a blade lightly, but nothing fell down.. glad you had friends to help you and hope you heal up completely and have only safe experiences in the future.

Yeah, explaining it was the hard part, especially because I'm horrible at lying. I just told the truth. It was the doctor's first sledgehammer injury, and the guys in the ER next to me heard the story and started calling me Thor.

Hey Thor!

So, I'm a backyard beekeeper, and in the spring is when bees swarm (it's a reproductive imperative). Beekeepers like me try to catch wild swarms, partially to keep them safe, partially because because it's a free way to get locally-adapted healthy bees, and partially because it's kinda bad-ass.

Anyway, I was picking up a swarm of bees last night, and I got stung. In my crotch. Owie ow ow ow.

A fellow beekeeper ended up in the emergency room this weekend, because as he was cutting stuff out of a tree to get to a swarm, he got a splinter of an empty squirrels' nest in his eye. The doctors thought he was insane.

So, I think we could start a club of idiot injuries that will make us laugh, just not right when they happened.

For some reason, Thor (the ancestral shvelglover) wear a helmet and wrist bands (THOR).
It probably happened the same to him.

Do not consider yourself stupid, but a hero

Wish you a fast recovery.

Ouch. I'm really sorry to hear this -- hope you've recovered OK.

Maybe I should put together a shovelglove war/horror stories section of the site linking to this post and a couple others... (this is the bloodiest I've heard, but not the only injury).

In any case, thanks for the graphic warning!

Reinahrd