Missing legs and interesting scars.

[Nomadicalpirate]

you've all heard the stories, and i'm sure you've noticed the check box next to the word "Amputations" on your employment forms. But how many of us (you) have had serious injuries whilst upon the waters? it get's talked up alot in the galley/coffee room/shipping crate but the worst I've ever seen(as it happened) or experienced is perhaps being belted with a stray spar here and there.

So tell us your tales of woe, anything greater than a broken finger will do.

[blackjohn]

This didn't happen onboard, but it did happen during an event. At the first Howard Pyle Festival, while setting up camp, a piece of rotten driftwood hidden in the beach managed to imbed itself in the top of my foot. A good 5mm worth broke off and stayed in my foot. But the shoe, I mean show, must go on!

I spent the rest of the day hobbling about, toughing it out. By day's end, my foot was swelling with an infection. A few days later I was finally able to squeeze that bit, as well as a teenier bit, out of my foot. Then I went to the doc for some anti-biotics. I suspect, if it had been the 18th century, I may have lost the foot.

The moral of the story... maybe GoF has the right idea about getting shoes first. I was wearing sandals at the time...

[Captain Jacob Badger]

Only one 'event' I can recall from bein' aboard (apart from the usual 'bangin' me noggin on the hatch lid).....after the anchor being snagged on a discarded fishin' net in Cardigan bay. Me first mate an' I jumped in the what was freezin' cold murky waters (january!! brrrr!) t' cut said net orf....dew t' the coldness off the waters, me hands weren't workin' t' well an' cut through the net an' me thigh at the same time......ouch!....6 inch scar...an' a week of fever.....naught nice I can tells ye...

[capnwilliam]

How did this topic end up in Ports o' Call, mates? Sounds more like a Rabble Rousing topic.

Capt. William

[Captain Jacob Badger]

Don't be lookin' at me mate.....nobody saw me right.......I was elsewhere...hurr hurr

[Nomadicalpirate]

It's in Ports o' call because i've got the brains of a stewed fish, If you know how to move it, be my guest.

[Diego Santana de la Vega]

I was playin linebacker in college when this southpaw quarterback (After I had already had a knock down and an interception) threw a pass through me right thumb and bent it back into a new place it'd never seen afore nor since! Kinda wierd as I played with it's new movement there on the side lines I showed it to me coach and he taped it and sent me back in on the next defensive series. Then too I had a half back hold me turn me around and the full back planted his helmut into my (shoulda been fused thirty five years ago) lower back discs. (twas the last game in pads I played)

[Dorian Lasseter]

Hrmmmm....

"Pyratey" type injuries I've incured...

I've the luck o' steppin on three nails stickin' outa planks. (3 seperate occasions)

I've been shot just above m' right knee wi'a scattergun.

I've a sword slash scar on m' left cheek... on m' face... barely see it now...

My brudder tried ta throw me off a dock inta th' water n' missed... kinda... I half landed on the edge of th' dock an' a raised nail head tore inta m' left inner knee... Left a nice jagged scar...

I had the knuckle o' m' left hand ring finger crushed by a sword blow...

I've 'ad three rapiers (ok, epees) broken on me... none drew blood tho....

All I c'n 'member at present...

[Pirate Petee]

bloody Serbian

[Captain Jacob Badger]

Dorian.....Three epees!!.....now thats just greedy!!

Petee.....served have we sah?.......

[Dorian Lasseter]

Me?

Greedy?

Nay... just got inta lotsa swordfights...

None o' that modern style... All elizabethan swordplay....

Funny tho.... alla the tymes I's fought wi' live steel cutlass' I's was never hurt (Knock on me wooden leg)

[Pirate Petee]

Aye, served as an infantry soldier in the army.

[Rogue Mermaid]

I have an interesting similar topic story.

I work for a boating magazine called Nor'easter that runs around the Maryland/Delaware/Pennsylvania/and some of Virginia area.

Years before I started here someone found a prostetic leg floating in the Chesapeake and for some reason turned it into us. For about a year they ran an ad that said, "Attention One Legged Boater, We Have Your Leg" My boss still has the leg in his office.

[Dorian Lasseter]

RM,

That's rather amusin'.... inna twisted way....

[Rogue Mermaid]

There isn't much about this office that isn't twisted

[Dorian Lasseter]

So, since th' leg has been there fer so long, what kinda salary is it gettin'?

[Rogue Mermaid]

I think it gets paid in dust. Lots of dust.

[Capt DaggezEber]

When I was 18 someone shoved a main gouch threw me right hand. It hit between bone and muscles and really did not hurt all that much when it happened. An hour later at the hospital, my hand started to curl uncontrolibly and it got extremely painful. The major vain was missed, but the tendens were scared a bit. I'm 32 now and after typing a little bit. My wrist and hand start to make crakling noises. I can still feel the blade as it came to rest. It left a nice scar on the back of my wrist and jsut bellow the thumb. I did take real fencing lessens again years later.

[capnwilliam]

For what it's worth, Dorian, I've had a fencing foil broken on me: no blood, thank God.

Fencing (Olympic, and SCA) also aggravated my knee problems (arthritis). So, I can't do it any more.

For what it's worth, mates, I'm going to move this topic to Rabble Rousing. Of course, I'm going to do about 50 other things, all of which I've ben meaning to do for awhile, before I do this one. So don't look for it to disappear from Ports O' Call overnight.

Capt. William

[Pew]

As an intern with the Md Natural Resources Police on the SAR Dive team, we had the dubious honor of fishing out jumpers who swan dive off the Chesapeake Bay bridge who then resurface after 4-5 months underwater.

One particular fellow had been in the Bay for approx 5-6 months. As we lowered the Stokes basket and put him in, he began to "drain" through the wire mesh as he was lifted to the boat.

Worst call ever. (Or maybe it was the guy who been run over by a propeller . . . )

Anyways, it was the worst I'd seen.

[Desert Pyrate]

Well, having spent more than a bit of time as a tall ship sailor (2nd Mate Ketch Royaliste, Deckhand Brig Lady Washington), I have my share of injuries. Luckily, none too bad: prudence is always in the mind of sailors.

I have a wicked scar on my leg (not an exciting story, just a metal box with a sharp edge). A little scar on my arm accrued at some point on Royaliste. At least one concussion from Royaliste's main boom (since removed; we run loose-footed now). Countless nasty cuts, bruises, scrapes, burns, etc.

What's interesting now is my hands. After a couple weeks of not being aboard, they're starting to lose their calluses... always looks like I've got some sort of skin condition.

[Cpt Sophia M Eisley]

All these injuries sounds so...ouch!

I have a few that I endured either from clumsiness, or from trying to avoid more serious injury.

Below my left knee, I have a scar from falling and slamming into metal edging in the family front yard when I was ten.

On my right kneecap, I have a scar from when I fell out of a bunkbed at the Air Force Academy (I didn't go there...my boyfriend at the time smuggled me in). When I fell out of the bunk, I landed in the "proposal position", and the rough carpeting scraped the first layer of skin clean off. And he had no first aid kit (d'oh!).

On my left wrist, I have a scar (complete with stitcch marks) after I banged it on the remnants of a towel bar in my previous shower. I ended up with what doctors call a ganglion cyst (bible cyst - in olden days folks used to try to pop these with bibles, and other large, heavy books) that showed up on the injury site a few weeks later. It grew, I sought medical attention as it was making my hand a bit tingly. I went through various treatments in an attempt to remove it (i.e. popping and a cortisone shot). They finally took it out during surgery (arm numbed up with a "Bier block"), and after that, I had this lovely scar, and limited mobility in my wrist for a few years.

[Capt. Morgan]

I'm with Petee...

Dirty ol' band of Iraqis thought it would be funny to fire some mortars at me an' my boys... I took the brunt of the explosion, which took off most of the calf muscle on my right leg, severed the artery, broke about two dozen bones in my foot, leg and right arm, and tossed random and assorted bits of surplus Soviet shrapnel about the rest of me... unfortunately, the bandits didn't live to brag about it... too bad...

[Captain_MacNamara]

I've posted this before in this forum, but here goes...

I have alot of scar tissue... only some of it is external, like the:

4" one on me left wrist from a bone-carving accident.

one from when my left thumb was 75% severed.

both knees and right elbow, all fractured in a motorcycle accident.

right ribcage, where they had to put a tube in my lung.

left temple where I fractured my skull in the car wreck...

speaking of that, bring us to the internal scar tissue...

scar tissue in the esophogus where it was ripped completely out

scar tissue on my heart, where it was nicked by one of my ribs

scar tissue in both lungs, where they were punctured by my ribs

scar tissue in my sternum, where is was broken in half

scar tissue in my right shoulder, where my collarbone was broken in 3 places and ripped up the muscle tissue as well

scar tissue and adhesions in the chest cavity from all the ribs snapping free of the sternum

scar tissue in my liver, kidneys and spleen, where they were perforated from a very hard impact with the ground

All the internal injuries happened in one car wreck in 1998... was driving angry and too fast in the rain, and ended up flipping a 4 door car end over end 5 times... fractured my skull on the driver's side window, busting it out when the car hit the ditch before it flipped... knocked me unconscious is the only reason I survived at all. elbow hit the seat belt release and I flew out the back glass, and the car hit me as it flipped, catapulting me 120 feet in the air... then I belly-flopped on the ground and the car landed on me on it's last flip, and came to a rest on it's side right by me. My lungs and stomache filled with blood, and my heart and respirations stopped. Then I was revived, and the first hospital was going to send me home to die in a familiar enviornment. My family insisted on taking me to a different hospital, where I spent 4 days and then walked out of the hospital under my own power. I have bad headaches alot now... among other problems.

[Rummy3]

Well, I wanted to share my son's scar. Quite ugly - the result of a slice from a box cutter.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/la_woman00/d...231.jpg&.src=ph