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What's the worst/most embarrassing injury you have sustained at work?

78 replies

NoEffingWay · 22/08/2021 21:11

I am notoriously clumsy, work is a minefield of beds, chairs, walking frames and hoists. Suffice to say, I am often covered in bruises.

The worst one was nearly rupturing my achilles tendon whilst stood on a sofa fiddling with something up high. It went one way, and I went the other. I ended up lying on the floor clutching my foot, and the patients helped me up!Blush

OP posts:
Scarby9 · 24/08/2021 01:03

Slammed the car door on my own thigh in the car park on the way in to work. HUGE bruise.

Demonstrated a backward somersault between two ropes to my Y4 class. I then had to lie on the floor because I was seeing stars and say to the children (from the floor, with my eyes shut): 'Now, everyone close your eyes and we will all spend one minute planning what we want to achieve this lesson'.
That gave me enough time to decide I wasn't going to pass out and I could stand up and resume control of the class, thankfully.

MoreRainbowsPlease · 24/08/2021 01:05

I picked up a crate of drinks and as i stood up with them I turned and started walking. I misjudged where a massive metal support was and clonked the side of my head on it. I honestly saw stars. My DP (who wasn't my DP at the time) found me wondering the staff area tearful and confused, he asked if I was ok and I burst into tears and started hugging him. My mum had to come and take me to hospital where it turned out I had concussion. They said I was lucky I hadn't fractured my skull as I had hit my temple really hard.

SoddingWeddings · 24/08/2021 09:19

Slammed my hand in a car door... Broke the tip of my middle finger, burst it open and the nurse at the walk in clinic had to drill my nail to release the pressure under the nail bed. She took a lot of delight in me being an on duty police officer and me crying 😂 Weeks of changing dressings and soaking the hand. It's still misshapen many years later.

I really hope some of you guys have sued your employers and that these incidents were reported to the HSE....

Historyfan · 24/08/2021 09:35

Fell down the stairs and landed on my back but somehow nutted the wall and had a lovely black eye for weeks
Tripped over a wet floor sign that I’d put there 10 seconds earlier
Broke my finger by putting something in my bag and somehow bashed my hand on a cupboard door next to it
Fell over a mop handle that someone had left in the bucket
Tripped over a customers bag-then tripped over their coat on my way back up

I’m that accident prone that my (frankly evil and uncaring) boss has taken me to one side to ask if everything’s ok at home and my mil phones every Saturday and the second question she asks is ‘has history had an accident this week?’ (First question is always ‘what’s the weather like?’we live 200 miles away)
The answer is normally ‘yep!’

BackInBlackAgain · 24/08/2021 09:45

We were moving boxes of papers (hundreds of boxes) from the storage room to a container so the storage room could be racked properly.

The warehouse is full of men and pump trucks, but no, it was decided the 6 women in the office could move these hundreds of boxes (most were falling apart).

The day of the move it was pissing it down and really windy, there was only 2 of us doing it, we had walk hundreds of boxes from the store, across a yard into the container. I came up with a good idea, use the work van, load it up, drive over, empty it. The warehouse manager took pity on us and lent us a worker who was Polish and didnt speak any English.

So in mid move, outside the store room they have huge decorative cobbles cemented right outside the door, with a heavy box in my hands i slipped on a cobble, my foot twisted and i went down onto the ground, on my hands and knees, the box tipped and papers were flying everywhere. I thought i had broken my ankle, then i was going to be sick, whilst asking the warehouse man to catch the papers, he didnt understand what i was saying. I think he was asking if i was ok, he looked shocked.

Anyway, the pain subsided and i managed to get back up and hobble around still loading boxes, it took a couple of weeks to do it all.

The bruising was unreal, my whole foot and ankle was blue/purple. Made sure i put it in the accident book.

And i didnt realise at the time that loads of warehouse workers saw me on my hands and knees in the yard.

BananaMilkshakeWithCream · 25/08/2021 15:30

Fell backwards off a chair when the back collapsed and I suffered whiplash. Still having physio 8 months later 🤦‍♀️

SirenSays · 25/08/2021 16:03

I worked in a new age shop as a teenager and one day I was working the front alone while my boss was giving tarot readings in the back. It was a quiet day, so when the cute boy who worked in the supermarket next door came in we got chatting. He thought the phallus candles we sold were funny and he was juggling them to make me laugh, but when we heard my boss finishing up her reading he put them on the desk. He asked for a packet of herbal smokes so I bent down to grab a bag for him and Whack! Penis candle right in my eye. It was so embarrassing and hurt like hell but I kept insisting I was fine.

ShinySquirrel · 25/08/2021 16:09

Dislocated my knee working at a theme park as a teenager. I couldn't walk, so I was wheeled through the entire park in a steel cage, in full view of all staff and guests.

Blueuggboots · 25/08/2021 16:14

Arrived at a 999 call (paramedic) and slammed my own finger in the ambulance door....

Streamingbannersofdawn · 25/08/2021 16:17

I once stabbed myself in the eye with a piece of thick card...scratched the retina.

Another time I picked something up from the floor and hit my head on a shelf on the way up. I knew the shelf was there I'd just dropped something I'd taken off it. I gave myself a concussion!

Thelikelylass · 25/08/2021 16:25

I didn't hurt myself but this happened:

  • I tripped slightly over a cable in the office, no injury
  • one person checked on me to see what the bang was
  • another person joined us
  • and another. One called health and safety (and rightly so)
  • one insisted I sat down to recover (no Injury, remember?)
  • later into afternoon three separate people came over to say 'sorry to hear you hurt yourself, your chair collapsed didn't it?'

I'm not that bloody heavy that the non-existent chair collapsed. I was rather put out !
(Nice caring colleagues though, can't fault them...)
Grin

StormyLovesOdd · 25/08/2021 17:21

At home not at work but a few weeks ago I was sneakily trying to grab some crisps off a really high shelf in our kitchen. I hurt my neck trying to reach too far and I've had headaches and neck pain every day since. I keep telling my DH that I don't know what I've done but really it's because of greed.

Snowpatrolling · 25/08/2021 17:38

Walked into a door on a double up call in a service users, instant black eye where my glasses smashed into my face (the glasses were fine!)

A clumsy carer run over my toe with a hoist. I’d told her 5 seconds earlier don’t move yet! Broke my toe! Yes I was wearing suitable shoes!

Got my finger stuck in a hospital bed, god knows how!!!

JudgeRindersMinder · 25/08/2021 17:39

Not an actual accident but I discovered my until then unknown intolerance of chillis in anything other than their natural form when I was eating my tea at my desk (ridiculously busy and couldn’t get away for longer than it took to heat it in the microwave) I was tucking into my delicious home made pasta arabiatta, which I made using a jar of “lazy” chillis. Within 2 minutes I was throwing it up all over my desk. I couldn’t stop throwing up to even get to a bin or other container….absolutely mortified!
(It’s since happened with other foods with processed chilli in, but not fresh so pretty sure it’s some kind of sensitivity rather than allergy

Mumoblue · 25/08/2021 17:45

When I was a waitress someone let their little darling throw grapes all over the floor. Because this was behind a sort of half-wall partition, and I was carrying a tray, I didn’t see the floor was covered in grapes. Stepped on one, slipped, front leg went forward and landed heavily on my knee of my back leg.

I was really embarrassed because it must have looked ridiculous but my manager was more concerned by the fact I could have broken my leg. Blush
I ended up with a truly enormous bruise.

Harlequin1088 · 25/08/2021 17:52

Used to work in a police station. Came out of the side door into the yard one day to walk into town on my lunch break. Forgot the metal step was always slippy in the rain, tripped head first out the door in front of the Superintendent who was politely waiting to come in, landed smack on my knees, ripping my tights in the process, and the pain was so bad I retched onto his shoes.

Beautiful 😂

PineapplePanda · 25/08/2021 18:02

Whilst driving to my first day at a job I went to take a sip of my coffee from my flask and it was absolutely boiling, I screamed and spat it out and it went down my chin.

I turned up on my first day with a scalded chin and coffee all down my white shirt. My chin blistered later that week and my skin came off. Envy

Not mine and not an injury as such- but got in a lift at work with another colleague and there was muck all over the lift floor. We both looked puzzlingly at each other and I told him it looked like dog poo but why would so much dog poo be smeared all over the floor?! He bent down to sniff it (don't ask me why). An hour later we found out somebody on our floor had gotten diarrhoea that morning and didn't make it to the toilet in time...

MollysMummy2010 · 25/08/2021 23:18

I emptied a pan of pasta over my foot rather than the sink

amusedbush · 25/08/2021 23:25

I'm dyspraxic so stupid injuries are par for the course with me, though I'm racking my brain and I'm surprised to report that I haven't done anything too bad at work.

My ex boss, however, was running down the stairs when late for a meeting, her arms full of notepads/laptop/folders. She missed a step, fell spectacularly down to the next landing and broke her leg. Ouch.

LooksBetterWithAFaceMask · 25/08/2021 23:41

Bent over to pick something up felt and heart a tearing noise as my Achilles’ tendon almost detached itself where it attaches at the heel.
3 months in a boot and 2 years later still get pain if I over stretch it.

howtodealwithit · 25/08/2021 23:54

I dislocated my knee cap in one of the aisles of the supermarket that I worked in. I sat and cried for my mum (I was only 17!) whilst the paramedics scraped me off the floor BlushGrin

theorangesisters · 26/08/2021 00:30

I used to work in a stationary shop that sold individual A1 and A2 sheets of paper and card - I managed to give myself so many paper cuts and 'card cuts' when I put them through the till. So small but so painful!

MollyBloomYes · 26/08/2021 00:34

Used to teach in a school for children with profound and multiple disabilities. Physical injuries were often par for the course, especially lower down the school where I taught.

School management (none of whom had an SEN background and used to come up with batshit ideas) decided to do an Easter egg parade. It. Was. Chaos. Could see that one child from my class wasn't coping at all so went to go tell him we would go somewhere quiet. Sadly he was so stressed even me coming up to him proved a bit much.

He bit me, hard, square on the boob. The shriek I let out was rather inhuman but I couldn't help it. He didn't let go either, just bit and held firm. My entire nipple and boob were black with bruising. Spent the next week anxiously on bruise watch because my wedding was the following Saturday Grin fortunately it only just spread to where it could be seen in my dress so just adjusted the neckline slightly for photos 😂

Poor kid, wasn't his fault at all, he was stressed, non verbal and that was his only way of communicating his distress at that point. But that was definitely a memorable work injury.

Thinking about it I'm not sure it ever made it into the accident book. Things were a bit lax there. As I found out later when my lack of maternity risk assessment meant I got attacked and kicked in my bump.....Hmm

LoveFall · 26/08/2021 00:42

I slipped on a wet patch on a polished stone floor, wiped out, and fractured my ankle.

Those type of floors are a hazard. After my accident they put a huge carpet in the lobby. My boss referred to it as the "LoveFall Memorial Carpet." For some reason that really annoyed me. I wasn't dead, after all.

StarStarTeachMe · 26/08/2021 00:47

I'm a teacher. Whilst on yard duty at lunch time, a child kicked a hacky-sack beanbaggy thing a bit too forcefully. It sailed straight for me, hit me on the temple. I dropped to the ground, and had to be driven home. Woke up the next day still feeling sick and dazed... turned out I was concussed. I also developed a lovely shiner of a bruise.

Fun times.

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