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Hey everyone, i'm new here but figured i'd dive right in to the forums  . I remember about a month ago, my friend and I decided to drive out to Morristown and explore an old college campus that was closed down. Apparently pigeons have been nesting up inside the roofs in all the buildings, and decided "Hey, lets scare the crap out of these people" and proceeded to zip right by our heads. slipping on a piece of wood + startled by birds = nice piece of glass in the hand and injured pride lol.
"Go forth and explore" | |
Really bad poison ivy...
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I've been quite lucky and never had anything truly major, obviously had cuts from broken glass etc but my worst (and coincidentally my luckiest escape from serious injury) was climbing into an old boiler house at the huge RAF base near me a few years ago.
The fire escape ladder up to the POE was of the caged variety with the cage beginning about eight feet off the ground. In order to stop people climbing it, security had put metal planks over the bottom rungs up to the caged part and cleverly placed a circular 'no entry' sign over the opening made by the caged portion, and left part of the sign post sticking out with a sharpened tip a good foot or so from the ladder. The whole set up, ladder, planks and sign was covered in anti-climb paint too.
Basically to get up the ladder you had to grab onto the side of the ladder where the rungs are attached (dunno the technical term), 'spiderman' up the side and then enter the caged section of the ladder above where the sign was fixed. On my first attempt up, as I was wearing crummy shoes my feet slipped on the anti-climb paint and my body swung round, straight into the sharpened end of the metal sign post. The spike hit my thigh, and I was both incredibly lucky that I didn't let go, but doubly lucky that the thick jeans I was wearing stopped it breaking the skin. I ended up with a massive bruise on my thigh where it had hit but other than that, was fine...
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Posted by Katharsys
How to maim or injure yourself by acting like a jack-ass for self portraits in five easy steps
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This was hilarious to read. Glad you could take it with stride!
Youtube.com/JKuhnss | |
So today, I was up on a 6ft ladder, working on a 2nd story window someone threw a rock through. The window was about 9-10ft off the ground and I was knocking and pulling out sharp shards of glass, in hopes of giving myself a safe entrance.
Well while I happened to be standing on the very top of the ladder AKA the part above the step you aren't suppose to step on, a random huge gust of wind starts blowing. I don't have the chance to step down, and couldn't jump off given the massive amount of glass on the ground, so I just braced and covered my face.
I was too late, and caught a whole load of glass shards to the face. One of them caught me in the eye and I felt like i had something caught in my eye and rinsed heavy duty and idk if anything actually ever was in there but after visiting MedExpress they said I had scraped my eyeball but that it should heal up fine. I got super lucky it wasn't alot worse. Still super scary moment, especially given that eyes make me extremely squeaminsh.
The Artisan Pizza Blood Line
http://www.flickr....yathomedefenseman/ | |
I had just finished exploring/photographing the interior of an old derelict house in Ontario at night. Vandals had made a mess of the hallway leading to the POE. There were chairs, nightstands and a large old wooden wardrobe partially blocking the hallway that had to be climbed over whether entering or exiting. I made it in just fine. When leaving and getting one foot on a small table I raised my other leg to get over (staddle) this huge wardrobe. My leg never made it over as I lost my footing on the little table and started to fall. My raised leg came down on a sharp edge of the wardrobe, splitting open my shin and fracturing it. The pain made me see white. As my other foot continued to slide off the little table I crashed down on the leg that I had just bashed, breaking the ankle.
Once the stars in my head went away I realized that I was on my back. Major bruises to the the backs of my arms, elbows and my butt. Luckily, my head didn't hit anything and was intact, lol. The pain in my leg was incredible and I could feel the blood soaking my jeans and boot but after about 5 minutes I was able to eventually get up and climb (actually crawled) over the wardrobe, exit thru the POE and get to my car.
The only other injury was when I was exploring a run-down church in the
Scottish highlands. Being Scottish and all, I had me kilt on. The middle of nowhere and I had to wee real bad. So I went over to some bushes and gave them a watering. What I didn't know was that I was standing in a sea of poison ivy. Sorry, no photos of the experience, lol.
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Posted by Isaac Stewart
I decided to do a spontaneous roof climb of an elementary school about a month and a half back. I stepped onto a metal fence post to reach the roof, and upon pulling myself up, slipped on the roof because it was raining. I immediately fell back down and onto the pole that I used to pull myself up, impaling myself. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks. Had 9 surgeries. Aaaaaaand hopefully will be healed soon! Good advice for anyone: do not climb when there is sharp shit below you. EVER.
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hows your anus now?
~ Would you hold my dug up frozen corpse in your arms right now? | |
I've been lucky thus far, although I did run full force into a hanging light fixture the last time I was out. Super dark inside the building and I guess I just didn't see it.
Could've sworn I had another concussion but the headaches leveled off after a day or two. Left a gnarly bruise though.
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Reading through this tread makes me realize my crew and me are really, really lucky. We've mostly had a few cuts and bruises, the worst thing that's happened is I gave myself a concussion while running through a drain after one of the people with me decided to be an idiot. Long story short he popped a manhole and there was a cop about a block down the road and two guys I merged from the manhole. We heard the cover close then thought another had opened so we took off and being 6'3 my head found the top of the drain pretty hard.
"Live out your imagination, not your history." ~ Stephen Covey | |
I'm always slamming my head into pipes or whatever it is at head level. Gotten quite a few gashes and bumps on my head. I always watch my feet and never step on anything or bump into anything body level... but i can never seem to watch my head!
Recently went to duck under some vents on a cross walk and after crouch walking out from under neath it, it seemed okay to stand up.... well there was a metal bar up higher, hidden on the other side of the vent and i practically jumped headfirst into it.... brought me right back down flat on my back.... and my keys, flashlight, and knife went sailing down below me to the floor 30 feet down....
I just decided i'd lay there for a while....
AAAAAAAAAAAADVENTURE TIME!!!! | |
Worst was a concussion, two bruised ribs, and two broken fingers from falling three stories off a roof. Landed on an industrial air conditioner which took most of the energy out of the impact.
Had another concussion when I smashed my head on a valve while tunnel running; that one wasn't fun.
Abandoned UE - http://www.abandonedue.com
"We live in a twilight world... and there are no friends at dusk." | |
Well, after this past weekend, i've come here to update my worst exploring injury..
Although, it wasn't directly exploring related, it did occur while i was exploring..
In a very popular, giant mine in the underground exploring capitol of the U.S., dozens of explorers were gathered to celebrate the largest, longest-running annual meet-up in the U.S. Actually, it was the evening before opening night, but that's beyond the point. I make the journey every year for such fun times, and i think it was my 5th or 6th time at this particular location.
Well, it was decided that an epic firework war would take place in the mine, between two towers, which were built at one point to be part of a haunted house (or tunnel, if you will) but of course long abandoned along with the rest of the mine and its contents.
I was armed with roman candles and took cover on the second-to-top floor of one of the towers. The war began, and soon hundreds of bottle rockets, roman candles and other exploding things were flying through the air in every direction.
After a while, i decided to climb down and out of the tower, to sneak away, as it was getting a bit too smokey for my liking, and i had almost spilled my beer on a few occasions. That's never okay.
After slamming the rest of my beer, cracking another and catching what fresh air i could, i decided i'd sneak towards the other tower, to have a better chance of destroying the other team.
This was a bad idea. I was between the two towers, off to one side and behind cover, of course.. I had just lit a roman candle, when i see a large sparking object land only a couple feet away. This wasn't a bottle rocket i soon realized. It was a mortar shell.
There was a bright flash of light, and i went deaf. Next, i felt a very sharp sting in my eye. Ow. Ow. OW!
I blindly made my way back to safety, trying not to spill my beer.
Not sure what it was, but something decided to take a vacation inside of my left eyeball. I have a ~7mm laceration, and my eye has been watering ever since. It's quite annoying. I have very little vision in my left eye (very blurry), i can barely open it, and you better believe there's some pain. This just about ruined the rest of my experience during the weekend, but i tried to enjoy everything the best i could.
I'm hoping i don't lose any vision, but chances are i will. Damn it.
No lesson learned, i'm sure, but i would definitely suggest wearing safety goggles if exploring in this particular city. I know i will be next year.
"When it rains, just find bigger drains." | |
I slipped in a drain and twisted my shoulder trying to keep myself from falling. It's nothing compared to some of the stuff on here and i'm crossing my fingers I never have anything worse
”It’s strange, isn’t it. You stand in the middle of a library and go aaaaagghhhh’ and everyone just stares at you. But you do the same thing on an aeroplane, and everyone joins in.” - Tommy Cooper | |
Apart from hundreds of scratches everywhere I've never had anything to cause profuse bleeding or anything. But it's bound to happen because I like to walk across rotted wood beams or rusted steel beams across buildings with the chance of being impaled.
My friend manhandled me up a roof once. | |
I've been pretty lucky, and have never had an accident that drew blood. However, I have gotten in a bit of mild trouble with chemicals before.
The chemical in question is some variation of lime (a base in powdered form) used in paper mills, like the one I was scouting. To put it simply, I greatly underestimated both its ability to cover every surface, and how caustic it is when it gets moist, like say, from sweaty palms.
I jumped in my car and floored it all the way home, where I dunked my hands in vinegar to neutralize it. Nothing more than irritation and maybe some very mild first degree chemical burns on my palms, but it wasn't fun.
And that's why I always wear gloves when exploring.
[last edit 6/12/2015 3:21 AM by Aran - edited 1 times]
"Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there.
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Got lucky the other day, fell into a drain which thankfully wasn't more than a few feet deep or full of water or both - didn't even see it in the long grass I was walking through so it came as a bit of a shock to suddenly find myself falling downwards and getting a face full of weeds. Luckily nothing hurt except my pride.
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Only two minor things. Last summer, I was more-or-less removing pieces of a window so we could climb through it. (And of course, it was the only way in.) Stupidly, I had my gloves in my back pocket, and proceeded to pull the few remaining shards out. Sometime between the time I did that and started on the next shard, my friend pointed out I had a large cut on my hand. Didn't even realize I essentially cut my hand open seeing as it never hurt. Our POE ended up getting cut short as soon as I realized just how much I was bleeding, and spent a good 15 minutes cuddling my hand with a towel my friend had.
The other was my last outing, trying to fit through a window half the size of me. There was already a ladder propped up from someone else, so as I was turning around to step down, I managed to grab a loose piece of window pane. The part of the pane I grabbed of course ended up having glass in it and I cut my left index finger pretty nicely. I got blood all over my phone and didn't realize it wasn't dirt until we got back outside.
[last edit 6/14/2015 12:54 AM by DundahMifflin - edited 1 times]
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I was in an old tower trying to climb up a floor. I had actually done it before in the past, and my brother had just went up. We were climb an old pole attached the side of the building. It was maybe an inch thick, if I had to guess it would be an old electrical application. I climbed up and right as I got to the top it broke off the wall. I feel down around 10 or 12 feet. The floor was a mix of concrete, old wire and glass, and dirt portions. I was incredibly lucky and landed sort of in the fetal position, curled around a big piece of concrete and hitting the dirt area. I fractured a bone in my wrist and got really scraped up, but it ended so much better than it could have if I landed somewhere else.
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Found an old "haunted" house and went in. Creepy as shit, old kids photos on the wall and all that. Climbed the staircase and about two steps in the floor gave out and I fell to my ribs and broke two of them. Being pulled up hurt worse than anything.
Samurai ability to enter any establishment...thanks grandpa for all the training. | |
The worst injury? Uhm. That would have to go to J. (my exploring partner). Hands down.
I was born a mutant freak, and am not allergic to poison ivy and oak. Due to this, I just... well. For a long time I thought I was queen of the woods and just super duper careful and awesome. It was after this experience that I realized I was not allergic. My dad wasn't either, so there's a genetic tie in there I think.
J. on the other hand has been burned by the plant sisters multiple times throughout his life. This time was the worst.
This one abandonment. We had to climb up a rain gutter to an open window.
Me being me, just went for it. Ta-da!
J., a great climber, shimmied up even better than I!
About 20 minutes into the explore, however, he broke out in rashes.
Within the day there were blistering sores and hot rashes all over the poor boy's body.
We filled up the tub with calamine and soaked him in there for an entire day - it was the only thing that would bring any kind of relief.
Curse the wicked plant.
[Though, now that I've spent time in Alaska, I'm dying for the poison ivy/oak/sumac over the terrifying hogsweed. Luckily, I've never had to test my immunity to that sucker, hope I never do.]
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