About 3 years ago, I was looking for emeralds at a closed emerald mine when I had the brilliant idea of hitting a random rock with my pickaxe. Turns out the rock was harder than the pickaxe, so a piece of the metal broke off and flew into my finger. I was 10s of hours away from any hospitals, and the metal curved around the bone of my finger, so I had to take my dad's camping knife and cut the thing out. This was at a camping spot, so I had running water, but it wasn't easy.

A friend who worked in ER told me this, a person walking a friend's pit bull while the friend was away, very familiar with the dog, and the dog lunged at a passing dog, they gripped the leash so it didn't get away, and it turned on them instead and ripped their arm right off. Someone called 911 and the cops had to shoot and kill the dog to stop the attack. The arm could not be saved at all. Imagine talking to your friend when they returned when you suddenly have no arm and the dog is gone? What's that conversation like?

No pit bull apologist will ever convince me they're safe dogs. I have a few other stories, including my own niece needing four facial plastic surgeries due to a family pet attacking her. Those dogs should be banned.

I didn't see it happen but my Dad, a local rugby legend in his youth, decided to play again in his 40s. Him and another guy jumped for the ball at the same time and my Dad's eye socket collided with the other guy's head. It looked like he'd replaced his eye with a purple tennis ball for about a month.

Some junkie, high as a kite, ran into a truck. So the rescue guys were sent up to us, the xray department, straight away with a request form where basically every position was marked. Usually, we don't see the rescue people, as their job ends at the trauma department.

This guy was so gone, he had not really registered what had happened, and tried to kick people with broken legs and fight them off with broken arms.

Both the rescue guys, one xray specialist, and I had to wear lead and hold him down, while the other specialist was changing plates and shooting pictures for a whole album.

I later learned that this guy had broken about everything one can break without dropping dead on the spot.

Probably my own injuries. When I was a kid, maybe 9-10, was playing football and one of my friends kicked the ball near some flats. I ran to get the ball and didn’t see a nail sticking out the wall, ran into it with my knee and ripped a huge “smile” into it. 15 stitches and some tetanus shots later I was fine but no football for a few weeks.

Also cut the tip of my finger off, which to my surprise grew back.

Oh boy! ER Nurse at a busy urban trauma center

The one I'll never forget was self inflicted GSW to head. He pulled the trigger with the gun pointed to his temple. Bullet somehow immediately took a turn downward and exited through his jaw on his opposite side.

Came in by EMS alert and neuro totally intact. I heard he even walked out of the hospital on his own when he was discharged

Saw a guy who cut his finger mostly off and it was dangling. Went to the hospital with him to make sure he was ok. They couldn't save the finger. They described as trying to put a mash potato back together. 😭

I encountered a very aggressive stray dog when I was about 14. It bolted after me, I climbed and vaulted over a chain link fence to get away. When I landed on the other side I thought I caught my sleeve on the top of the fence. Nope. At the top, one of the links was bent outward into a hook shape. It entered my wrist and exited my palm. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug because I barely felt it. Probably should have gone to the hospital but my dumb ass just rinsed it off when I got home and put a bandaid on it. Now I have a long scar running down my wrist where it entered and ripped. A small exit hole near my palm.

Well, honestly, probably one of two of my own. I've posted about both on lemmy before, but:

• When I was seven, I broke the radius and ulna in my right arm. This resulted in what the doctor called, IIRC, a "swan neck break." I don't know if it's a widespread phrase - looking it up online returns a deformity rather than an injury. However, essentially my arm extended normally until maybe a third of the way up my forearm, then curved in a shallow U, then continued normally. I don't really understand how it supported itself in that shape (other than very painfully), but it did. It was back in the nineties and, as mentioned, I was seven; so there are no pictures and my memory of the event may be exaggerating how dramatic the curve was. This mostly no longer has an impact on my life, but if I run my finger down the side of my arm now, around thirty years later, I can still feel where it broke and pressing on the spot causes tingles further down my arm. Also, fun fact: the doctor who treated my arm called me a crybaby.

• The other one was much more recent, three years ago. I slipped on some ice on my front porch and broke my ankle. Because I have a history of joint dislocations and the foot was pointed ninety degrees to the right, I thought it was just dislocated, not broken. I twisted it back to the correct orientation and tried to stand on it ... Twice. I told the EMT's that and I guess the story got around, because once I got to the ER, every single member of staff with whom I interacted asked me some form of "did you really do that?!" The doctor who treated me for this had a much better bedside manner than the one who did my arm, but apparently messed up the repair, according to my current orthopedic doctor, so I'm still enjoying the impact to this day.

Probably the mark I have on my arm. It's nothing spectacular, scars happen all the time... until you realize mine is in bruise form. Just a bruise chilling on my arm. I'm not even sure about the mechanism behind it. It doesn't hurt and is just a mark, but people don't realize scars aren't just an exterior thing.

While I would have seen my siblings broken arm, I was too young to remember it.

I do remember them stepping on that rusty nail and having to get tetanus shots!

I've been diced up by various cats, but all those wounds were very surface level.