No one ever expects to be injured, but sometimes things just happen. Unforunately, these people didn't know what was coming their way when they went about their normal day. These people share the unexpected way they got injured. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
A Tooth Ache That Went From 0 to 100 Real Quick
“The first time I had an infected tooth was a couple of years back and I went ten days in a lot of pain before booking an emergency appointment where my dentist took out most of the decay and then it was a two-week wait for root canal treatment. I thought that was bad.
The second time it happened to the tooth beside the root canal. I’d been feeling uncomfortable pain for a while but thought, ‘Hey root canals can hurt sometimes, it’s nothing.’ Or ‘I clench my teeth when stressed or sleeping, I’ll wear a guard.’
Eventually, I had to book an appointment to get the tooth seen because I was waking up in the middle of the night from the pain and barely sleeping. On the morning of the appointment, I had an x-ray and they found out it was decay, like right down to the nerve. The whole inside of the tooth was nearly black, which was horrifying. The dentist gave me antibiotics and told me to wait a couple of weeks and they’d either do a root canal or extraction.
Throughout the day the infection was really kicking in, I was taking painkillers whenever I could and I had to cut a hangout with friends short because I was so sore. I couldn’t sleep that night because of how intense it was becoming.
The next day, I called the dentist for an emergency appointment and they told me to keep taking the antibiotics and, ‘They’ll kick in soon enough. Wait until tomorrow to see how it is.’
The rest of the day I was taking co-codamol because it was the only thing that helped. Then later that night it went downhill. Anytime I lied down and rested my eyes, it felt like I was being stabbed in the jaw with glass. The only thing that helped with the pain was ice water. So the next morning, I called the dentist in tears, begging for an emergency appointment to extract the tooth. The receptionist was short with me and told me to keep taking the antibiotics. I told her that they were not working and the pain was getting worse, I had been up for 50 plus hours and I was exhausted from the pain. She sighed and said she’d contact the dentist and he’d get in touch. I got a call and he said he’d see me but he didn’t sound happy. I got there and they made it out like I was being a nuisance but at this point, I could barely stand.
He asked what I wanted to be done and I said, ‘Take the darn thing out.’
He looked really concerned and told me that it might not work; he couldn’t be held fully responsible and I needed to be certain. I was basically crying and begging him to take it out, it was worth the risk.
I have very long and twisted roots. It was 45 minutes of pulling, twisting, and grinding but all he managed to do was loosen the thing. He had to call it quits because they couldn’t do surgery because of restrictions that were in place. I was shaking uncontrollably from the experience, my lip was swollen by the cut from the instruments, and bleeding like crazy. I felt like I was about to pass out and I was terrified. He took me to the side and said he’d give me stronger antibiotics but what I’d need to do was wait till after midnight and call 111; I was to tell them what happened and to ‘play up’ the pain so I’d get emergency surgery.
That was the most horrific night I’ve ever experienced. I was passing out, blacking out from the pain, and waking up screaming because I’d shut my jaw and slammed the hanging tooth against bone. I couldn’t think straight and I was hearing things that weren’t there. My face was swollen, I couldn’t blink on one side and it felt like someone was slicing the side of my face open with an iced razor. Nothing helped at all, not even iced water but I was slumped by the bathtub, constantly sipping ice water and letting it fall out my mouth in hopes that it worked. I called 111 and after being told off for taking too many painkillers, they booked me in for surgery. However, the hospital would call me at nine am to let me know what time to come in.
It was 10:45 am and still nothing. I had to call 111 again. I was raging and told them I’d keep calling until they took me in, the poor guy on the other end sounded so done with everything but he booked me for that afternoon.
The surgery went well, took about 30 minutes, but I eventually got to see the tooth. It looked like when you cross your fingers for luck and it was easily two centimeters in length. The surgeon and nurse were freaked out by it but impressed at the same time.
‘Oh wow, no wonder they couldn’t get it out,’ commented one of them.
In the end, I recovered really well. Had a couple of weeks off work to recover from the whole experience. I lost nine pounds in those two weeks because all I could eat was soup and baby food and I finally managed to sleep after being awake for over 88 hours.”
Walking Is Easy, Well For Some
“I tripped and fell down the stairs at school because my own lizard brain forgot how walking was done.
So I sat there and couldn’t get up on my own because of the intense pain. So two girls from my class did their best to help me up. Mind you, I was the tallest girl in my class, but I somehow was painless.
So I walked to my mother’s car because she picked me up from school. And as I was loading in my backpack, I realized that my lower right leg was violently shaking. I thought nothing of it and got in the car. I told my mum that I fell down the stairs but I was fine. Spoiler: I wasn’t. Why I didn’t feel it at first? Maybe Adrenalin?
Halfway home, my leg started hurting and I started sweating uncontrollably. I told my mum that it was starting to hurt. As we got home, I was crying and limping. My mum told me to go inside and sit down. She put my leg on a wooden stool and pull off my sock to reveal a big ol’ lump. My foot had swollen violently.
We went to the emergency room after my parents gave me some painkillers. I got strolled around in a small plastic wheelchair by my dad. The doctor did his work and said I may have damaged ‘something’ so off my dad and I went on our quest to the x-ray room (wheelchair included). We did some x-ray beep boop zap stuff and I ripped something in my foot. Imagine a sheet of rubber. Pull the rubber to the point you stretch it too much and now it has a small tear. That was what happened to my foot.
We went to a different room where a bunch of nurses came in and wrapped my leg in a cast. I had a cast for like a week and almost tripped three times with my walking cane. But I got to stay at home so yeah. It was a four out of ten experience; the pain was bad but the staying at the home part was awesome so two points for that and two points for the amazing plastic wheelchair. I love the plastic wheelchair.”
A Nice Chicken Dinner Gone Wrong
“My wife was trying to fry chicken. The oil she was using ignited. Within moments there was a tower of flames shooting out the top of the pot. Well, at the moment, I wasn’t thinking and instead of smothering the flames with the lid, I grabbed the handle and made my way outside.
It was January in New England with a ton of snow so I figured it would be fine. On the way out of the door, the flames came back toward my arm, and just out of reflex, I let go of the pot. At that moment I knew my house was going to burn to the ground. It all happened in slow motion. The pot fell. Somehow, it landed upright. Unfortunately, it spilled boiling hot oil on my foot.
I grabbed the pot and put it in the snow where the flames when out. The aftermath was second and third-degree burns on my big toe. It covered my whole toe and part of my second toe. It was awful. Just raw pain. Mind you, it was winter in New England, and wearing a sock or boots was painful.
I had a fever and chills after a few days and thought I might have had an infection. Lucky it passed. I eventually had a doctor look at it who consulted with a burn specialist and prescribed some medication. It took around a month to completely heal. You don’t realize how much you use your toes for balance until you have to balance without them. I had to change my gait. I had a limp for months, even after it healed. I had to make a conscious effort not to limp.
Fast forward to May that year and my foot fell asleep. I tried to take a step and proceeded to get a rug burn on my freshly healed toe. It immediately burned and blistered. Eventually, that healed. I have a permanent scar and it will get sunburned easily if I’m not careful.”
Maybe They Need To Stay Away From Animals
“I had a cat bite on my hand and thought, ‘Oh, it’s just a cat bite. No biggie.’
Well, that night the pain got really bad and had that weird pulsating infection feeling running through my body from it. The next morning I was trying to work, but half my hand was swollen and in pain. A customer looked at me with my face all white like a ghost and really out of it.
They said, ‘You need to go to a doctor.’
So I left work and had my mom drive me to urgent care. The nurse attending me said I was dumb and should have gone immediately to the emergency room when it happened. Turns out cat bites got really infected, apparently from the bacteria in their mouth. The nurse told me if my hand swelled up anymore, I’d have to get an I.V.
A few years later, I worked as a mail carrier, and I got a dog bite on my hand at work. I went to the emergency room. That bite actually hurt really bad too, but I sat in the waiting room for three hours before they would see me. And I almost passed out when the nurse gave me a few numbing shots right around the tear in my hand. I stumbled off to the bathroom and my vision got real fuzzy and white. I splashed water on my face and finally, the numbing shots kicked in. Those shots hurt even worse, probably because she stuck them in right in my freshly torn flesh.
A year after that happened, my girlfriend got a cat bite on her hand.
I was like, ‘Alright we ain’t messing around. We’re going to the emergency room right now!’
She waited 20 minutes to be seen.
But the moral of the story: If you get a cat bite, then don’t sleep on it. And the second moral of the story: If you need to be seen at the emergency room immediately, then just tell them you have a cat bite.”
Fuzzy White Worm
“I was making my way upstairs in an apartment complex where the stairs were outside to reach the second floor and that was when I suddenly felt light pain on my arm. I thought it was weird yet kept walking upstairs but the pain kept progressing. So I stopped near the top of the stairs, wondering what in the world was happening. I thought maybe I had touched a broken rail and had scraped myself. So I went back down and saw a huge, fuzzy white thing.
I looked at it for a few seconds and was reaching out to touch it with my hand when suddenly the pain that was initially forming turned into full beast mode. I ran up the stairs, crying in pain. I knew I had to go to the emergency room.
I begged the nurse to cut my arm off, but obviously, she didn’t. My mom had sprayed the worm with Raid and put it inside a Ziploc to take to the emergency room, so they would know what touched me. The nurse grew up in the country and she said there were many of those worms where she grew up and that her brother would always get stung/bit. As if it was no big deal. To me, it was the worst pain I have ever felt. I am so happy I didn’t touch it with my hand. It was unbearable.”
A Nice Swim At The Quarry – Sike!
“Back in 2013, I went swimming at a local quarry. It hadn’t rained for a while so the water wasn’t very fresh. I ended up getting a particularly aggressive fungus in my left ear and apparently it felt right at home because in two days the left side of my head was completely swollen. The pain was so immense that I really did want to die that first night without painkillers.
I went to the local Urgent Care and they gave me ear drops and heavy downers. My ear was so swollen that my jaw was locked and I had to go be on a liquid diet. I had to take the downers every six hours and they gave me incredibly lucid dreams where I had full control. I would sleep for five hours, wake up for an hour to drink my Slimfast, and take my pill then go back to sleep. I was sleeping 20 hours a day for two weeks with incredibly lucid dreams. When I say I lived entire lifetimes in my dreams, I’m not exaggerating.
I hadn’t showered, I hadn’t shaved, and I hadn’t eaten much. After two weeks, there was barely anything left of me and my dreams left me feeling insane while awake. I was probably the trippiest time in my life.”
Halloween Costume Malfunction
“I wore those Halloween contacts to a party. I proceeded to drink way too much and fell asleep with them in. The next morning we were driving to Oklahoma from Colorado because my sister was having a baby. So I slept in the car with the contacts still in.
So for about 24 hours, I had those black-out contacts in, so when I took them out, I literally ripped that part of my eyeballs off. It didn’t hurt at first but everything was really blurry. But after about 20 minutes it was by far the worst pain I have ever felt like someone was pouring burning coals into my eyes. I couldn’t open my eyes because the air hurt, and moving my eyes around hurt even worse because the backs of my eyelids were just scraping where the skin was torn off. I went to the closest emergency room and they said I had torn holes the size of my fingernail. And they did have some numbing drops that they used to see the damage, but it wears off after a few minutes, and you can’t keep using it because it causes ulcers. So I was blind for about 3 days, in excruciating pain and I just had to wait it out. Freaking miserable.”
What Happens In The Bathroom, Stays In The Bathroom Or Not
“One time at a party, my friend was just having a massive panic attack. So I took her to the bathroom to try to calm her down as I had panic attacks and knew what it was like. I got her a bit calmer, but then she just hit the deck from exhaustion and proceeded to poop herself while she was at it.
At that point, I was very dicey about the situation. I didn’t want her to have the shame of having just pooped her britches in front of her friend. So I was thinking, ‘What should I do?’
Thankfully, she woke up about a minute later, so I didn’t have to make that decision. She cleaned herself up and I promised to never tell anyone about what happened. To this day it’s the first time I’ve spoken of it.
Thinking back, it was kind of funny. It was like something you’d see in a sitcom.”
Never Underestimate The Fire Extinguisher
“I dropped a fire extinguisher on my foot at work. I knew a bone was broken because it was beyond agonizing. But other than bruising, I didn’t have any other symptoms the next day. It wasn’t until I went in for an x-ray for arthritis in my toes a month later that the doctor pointed out I had a broken cuboid bone.
Then a few years later, somebody t-boned me with her car. I heard my head hit the pavement, which that sound will forever haunt my dreams.
I woke up in the hospital five days later. They told me I had a massive skull fracture. Even though you don’t move the skull, but years later it still hurts to press where the bone healed.
Bone fractures are sneaky and evil.”
“I Turned Purple”
“I had a bad allergic reaction to an antibiotic. I went to the emergency room with difficult breathing and then my skin starting sloughing off. Eventually, all my skin came off and I turned purple. I spent a day in the ICU and then 16 days in isolation. Nothing stuck to me so they were going to ship me to The University of California, Los Angeles’ burn unit, but there was a nurse strike so I stayed where I was.
I had to be bathed twice a day and have ointment and lotions covering my body. The whole thing happened three more times over the next three months. When I was released I couldn’t walk due to the pain. I couldn’t even crumple a piece of paper it hurt my hands too much.”
Soccer Game
“I’m a soccer goalie and a few weeks back in a game, I came running out to the edge of the box and jumped to punch a ball. Unfortunately, I and the attacker were both running at full speed when we hit each other.
He went down and I managed to stay on my feet and my instinct was to run back to my goal but after two steps, I realized the top of my body wasn’t working and I crumbled to the ground. Fortunately, I was just winded with some bruising on my ribs. But the feeling of not being able to move for about 10 seconds hurt the worst.
We finished the game and we won so it was worth it.”
Beware Of The Bats
“I got bit on my thumb by a bat when it was in my apartment. I was trying to catch it in a garbage sack to get it outside when it got me through the bag. The next morning in the emergency room, I needed to get the rabies vaccine.
Turns out, you want the injection of the vaccine to be around the point of potential infection, so I had to get 14 shots in my thumb. There was still some of the formula left in the vial so they had to also give me a shot in each shoulder, each thigh, and my butt. The thumb pain was probably the worst I’ve ever felt.”
Basketball Practice
“I was once practicing basketball down at a local park. I went up for a right-handed layup, and as I landed, my entire body looked to the left to see if the layup went in. Unfortunately, my left leg didn’t turn left with me, it stayed straightforward.
I had to sit down on a bench and actually threw up because how the pain was so bad. Imagine feeling like someone is pouring cast iron underneath your kneecap. And I had to walk myself home afterward. It was the most painful half mile I’ve ever had to walk. I ripped my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) and MCL (Medial Collateral Ligament) I would come to later find out.
Stay safe out there sports guys.”
“I Asked My Grandma If Anyone Has Died From This Before”
“I got stabbed by a pen on the side of my butt when I was a kid. It was sticking up out of the couch between the cushions.
When I got out of the shower, I ran over to the couch, jumped up into the air, and body-slammed onto the couch. I had never jumped up off the couch and ran around the house so fast in my life until then. I probably should have gone to the hospital because I bled for weeks and have a gnarly scar. It hurt so much and I was so scared that I asked my mom and grandma if anyone has died from this before.”
Cops Were Called At This Pizza Hut
“I worked at a Pizza Hut as a manager and one of the employees who was getting fired poured cleaner into my soda. I took a fat swig of it and swallowed it. The burning down the throat was awful but it got worse when it was in my stomach. The fire sensation was literally burning in my belly.
I started gagging about to throw up. I called poison control and they told me I couldn’t throw up because it would destroy my throat so I had to gag until I could get my stomach pumped. Needless to say, the former employee was arrested for assault and food tampering.”
Thanks, Brother
“I was racing a bicycle down a steep road, no idea how fast I was going. It was pretty fast, I can tell you that. I had no idea that my prick brother tampered with the brakes, so all I knew was I could not stop.
I decided to try to ramp onto the sidewalk and bail in the grass, but I missed terribly. Flipping over the handlebars, I smashed into the curb and turned into a meat crayon. I snapped my collar bone, separated my shoulder, and broke two ribs all on the right side.
Never break your collar bone.”