I got my worst scar when I was eight years old in grade 3 playing football in the school yard. I tackled Tony Holenstien and in so doing fell on a shard of broken Coke bottle. At first my major concern was that I had cut my new pants and my Mom was going to be mad at me but when the blood started to literally gush out I realized that it wasn't only my new pants that were cut.
I ran to the school, seemingly miles away at the time, and into the nurses office with blood flowing down my leg and soaking my pants and shoe. The nurse wanted to see the wound but my pants were so soaked with blood that they were stuck to my leg and I couldn't roll the leg up and instead had to pull my pants down and there was a four inch gash that was welling and pumping out blood in time with my heart beat. The cut was just below my knee...
The doctor at the hospital put in 10 stitches which proved to be inadequate because once they were removed and I was playing at recess a few week later I fell on the same leg and the cut tore open again. This time because the tissue was still so new and fragile that they couldn't put in stitches and I had to have butterfly bandages applied and changed daily for about three weeks.
The doctor that I saw who tended to the wound the second time asked my mother who had put in the stitches the first time and all she could tell him was that it was a doctor in the ER. He shook his head and said that I should have had 20 stitches and not ten.
I have received many far less serious scars since then and wear each one as a either a badge of honour or stupidity....
So who else here has scars they want to tell a story about or amazingly remains scar free?
Last edited by screature; Mar 24th, 2012 at 02:45 PM.
Back in the early 60s I was working at a letterpress newspaper where all production involved working with lead. All lead was cast into its various shapes and fonts from 'pots' of liquid lead kept at 612° fahrenheit.
While operating a linotype one day, I had a splash, the common term for the mold not properly sealed and hot metal being injected out of the mold and squirted. When I heard the distinctive sound of a failed lockup, I pushed myself away from the machine on the wheeled operators chair with my right arm. With the arm fully extended and not yet retracted from the push, the molten metal hit me right in the inner crook of my elbow. Of course, when I felt the pain, I snatched my arm into my body, thereby setting the molten metal which had now solidified onto my skin and kept on burning me.
I rushed to the cold water tap and ran the cold water over the area. I could not straighten my arm as the molten metal had burned deeply into the skin and solidified, so it tried to tear itself out.
I was taken to the hospital where a doctor took a scalpel to my arm to cut our the metal. When he was about to begin, I said to him, aren't you going to freeze it first? He looked at me and smiled and said, son, that is so badly burned I guarantee you won't feel a thing. He proceeded to cut the metal and most of my skin out of the arm. Then he cleaned the area and covered it with a Sofra-Tulle dressing.
That dressing had to be changed twice daily and my wife who is an RN looked after it for the eight weeks it took to form new scar tissue to cover the burn. That scar, about three inches long and a half inch wide has been visible on my arm now for over 45 years and people who notice it always ask what happened.
My arm was in a brace which did not allow me to bend it for those eight weeks lest I tore the area open again. They called me 'straight arm' at work for a long time after.
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I've only had two stitches, and since they were in the top of my head, I have not seen the scar. Although I have many small visible scars, the only one of interest is on my right hand. It's about half an inch long, and it's from a rabbit bite.
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,051
Quote:
Originally Posted by SINC
Back in the early 60s I was working at a letterpress newspaper where all production involved working with lead. All lead was cast into its various shapes and fonts from 'pots' of liquid lead kept at 612° fahrenheit...
Ohhhwww!!!!
SINC, strangely that scar on your arm looks a little like the one on my leg (I should probably post a pic a little later). I can't imagine how much that would have hurt as burn pains are just about the worst.
Ironically the only pain I felt with my cut in grade 3 was from the freezing which were a series of injections into the wound site.... and the pain actually burned like hell. For an eight year old it was excruciating and the worst pain I had ever felt in my life... I may feel it differently if it were to have happened now but at the time I thought "Why are you doing this? It couldn't possibly hurt any worse than this without the freezing".
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,051
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazak
I've only had two stitches, and since they were in the top of my head, I have not seen the scar. Although I have many small visible scars, the only one of interest is on my right hand. It's about half an inch long, and it's from a rabbit bite.
Not from the one in the Holy Grail then I guess...
Three inch scar on elbow. I was using a push mower and forced my elbows backward, only to have one hook on the barbs of a barb-wire fence...
Seven inch scar on left leg. Climbing a tree when the branch broke. I fell into a thorn bush.
Thick scar along top joint of middle finger of right hand. Father accidentally reversed riding lawnmower tractor as I was hooking up the hitch to a cart. I removed the stitches myself when they got too itchy later in the summer, watching the little pieces of thread disappear through the holes and coming out the other side.
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SINC, strangely that scar on your arm looks a little like the one on my leg (I should probably post a pic a little later). I can't imagine how much that would have hurt as burn pains are just about the worst.
Actually, I call it my little map of Italy tatoo. Has the boot shape and all!
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Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,051
Quote:
Originally Posted by Macfury
Three inch scar on elbow. I was using a push mower and forced my elbows backward, only to have one hook on the barbs of a barb-wire fence...
Seven inch scar on left leg. Climbing a tree when the branch broke. I fell into a thorn bush.
Thick scar along top joint of middle finger of right hand. Father accidentally reversed riding lawnmower tractor as I was hooking up the hitch to a cart. I removed the stitches myself when they got too itchy later in the summer, watching the little pieces of thread disappear through the holes and coming out the other side.
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