Worst gardening injury/fail?

Slow-worm

Nothing too bad for me, but plenty of minor incidents; I recently fell backwards off a raised bed and broke my bird house feeder, getting a 10 inch long cut on my leg, and ripping a nail half way off. Last year I got a twig straight in the eyeball end on, from my own hand - "better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" it was not!! 🤣

steephill

Accident with a chainsaw. Thankfully not the cutting end, my electric chainsaw kicked back when cutting a large oak log on a tricky slope and drove the motor very hard into my leg. I had a very tender fist sized lump on my shin for a couple of weeks.

Hostafan1

smashed my finger with a 14lb sledgehammer. 5 stitches and a month off work

Dovefromabove

I have a snapped anterior cruciate ligament in my knee and sometimes, if I turn suddenly to my right with my weight on my right leg, that knee just folds under me and I drop immediately to the ground. 

A few summers ago I was moving the sprinkler in the garden when my leg collapsed beneath me and I fell flat on the ground (as long-standing members will remember,  I flattened and wrecked the Hesperis!!! 🙄).  

I couldn’t get myself upright … my knee and ankle were just too painful, so I crawled on my hands and knees across the garden, up the steps, across the terrace and through the sliding studio door that fortunately Id left open, and made my way through the house and onto the sofa, and was able to phone OH who left work and raced home on his bike. 

I thought I’d sprained my ankle and that time and rest would heal, but next day the pain was awful and my foot was swollen … OH called a cab and with the aid of a pine towel rail used like a walking frame, he got me to the nearby A&E where X-rays showed I’d broken bones in my foot.

 I spent that entire summer (if you remember, we had a heatwave) with my foot and lower leg encased in a plastic and foam cyber-goth fracture boot. 

Not the best summer of my life. 😢 

30 May 2017

But I think my injury is outdone by @Hostafan1 ‘s ‘squashed’ thumb 😱🤢 😭 

B3

I dropped some secateurs on my foot, blade side down. The blood was spurting 6 inches in the air. Now, if I touch my foot in the right place, I can feel it on my chest. I don't know what happened there🤔
I was alone with my 18 month daughter and managed to get her to pass me a tea towel while I sat with my foot elevated.
Now, whenever I drop something sharp in or outside the house, I jump back rather than try to catch it. Lesson learnt.

steephill

Scratch from a bramble gave me a bacterial blood infection which took 3 doctors, 3 different antibiotics and six weeks of uncomfortable symptoms before it got sorted. Feet and legs swollen so badly I couldn't wear shoes, face swollen affecting vision and horrible itching on legs.

punkdoc

Bonfire...... went out!!!!....... petrol........ explosion......... 3 weeks in hospital....just avoided skin grafts..... months of physio before use of hands back to normal.

pansyface

Same thing happened to my OH. No eyebrows, no beard, no moustache. Local GP, a man of dry wit and few words took one look and said “next time use paraffin” and that was it.😁

mikeymustard

I feel a wrong'un hitting the "like" button, but I have enjoyed the stories 🙂
Quite a few years back I fell out of an approximately 20ft bramley tree in a friend's garden and somehow managing to grab the bottom bough.
My partner often attributes my grumpiness to being "hit by every branch of the sour tree on the way down"

Biglad

Oh dear - I knew that opening this whilst eating wouldn't be the greatest idea  

I've mentioned this before but when I was 5, I was 'helping' my mum mow the lawn by putting bits of grass into the top of the lawnmower. Next news I'd allowed my hand to be eased down gently into the rotating blades.

I recall a lot of blood and being rushed to hospital where my tiny mangled, left mitt was put back together with a mere dozen stitches. A useful guide to knowing my left from right and mildly interesting anecdote are all that remain from a potentially more damaging attempt at a Darwin Award. By turning off the mower the split-second she realised what her numpty son had done, my mum saved a crucial selection of nerves, tendons, etc. in my wrist and hand from being severed. This would have rendered the hand useless I was told (much) later.

Skandi

Nothing major, when I was 10 or so I was pruning the top of a pear tree, I had my hand round the water shoot I was cutting and managed to prune the heel of my hand as well. Lots of blood and 30 years later I still have a scar, but no stitches or anything like that required.