Welcome to Blood Week. We put out the call last week for your tales of of blood, violence, gruesome injuries, near-death experiences, mayhem, and blood. Many of you came through with submissions, which we'll be posting throughout the week. If you have a story and/or photos to share, email [email protected], with Blood Week in the subject line.
The image above is of CB's wife's ankle. The actual photo here, and there's another view here. This is how it happened:
My wife and I play in a rec softball league. We take it seriously in that we like to win, but we're also out there enjoying some ice cold frosties which the park serves in half-gallon milk jugs. The league is pretty competitive and you have plenty of your "typical softball guy" dudes out there. Carrying three bats, use a different glove for playing third base or shortstop, wear camo baseball pants and either a visor or a bandana. I'm sure you know the type. Well anyway, my wife's covering home on a play at the plate and "softball guy" decides to slide. Well she's a tough cookie so she doesn't budge and he ends up cleat first right into her ankle, breaking it in 3 places. I was so concerned about her that I didn't think about turning his face into a Blood Week story. Anway, x-ray and scar pics attached. Needless to say, the guy no longer plays in our league and my wife's been riding around on a scooter for a month and a half now.
I made that story up. She was walking in heels and slipped on a wet floor in the bar. But it could have happened playing softball.
Howard S., whose disgusting-looking knee injury was featured in a previous Blood Week post, has another one for us. This time, it involves his shin, and this what it looked like. So what happened?
It's a short story, really. I was doing box jumps at CrossFit.
The box won.
And ps - the white you see there is exactly what you might be thinking. Bone.
What's with people being clumsy at CrossFit? Jordan L. had his own disaster there, and this is what became of his knee as a result. So what did he do to it?
Last April (the day before a big job interview) I was at a CrossFit gym pretending that I was some kind of athlete. I was pulling a weighted sled over an asphalt parking lot when I got my center of gravity too far forward. I fell forward and landed directly on my right kneecap, causing it to shatter into 7 or 8 pieces. The piece that was attached to my lower patellar tendon was pulled down into my upper shin area and the upper part still attached to my quadriceps tendon was pulled a few inches upward into my thigh.
I had to wait a week before I could have surgery and it was a week of total agony. Every time I changed positions or, god forbid, go the the bathroom brought on bouts of pain-induced nausea. They had to make a 8 inch incision along the top of my knee in order to retrieve all the shards of kneecap. Two titanium pins and a few yards of baling wire now hold my kneecap together. Six months of excruciating rehab has allowed me to walk without a noticeable limp and get up and down stairs, but I don't foresee ever being able to jog / squat / kick ever again.
To make all of this even worse, a few weeks before I blew up my knee up, I tore the glenohumeral ligament in my left (dominant) shoulder. It was a full avulsion, meaning that my left arm fell out of socket under minimal strain. Anyway, the 12 weeks I was on crutches after my knee surgery saw my shoulder pop out of socket more times than I could count. I had surgery on my shoulder once the surgeon felt I was far enough along in my from my first surgery that I could safely undergo a second procedure. Suffice it to say that 2011 was a miserable year for me.
Michael F. got his face bloodied pretty badly, which you can view here. It, too, is a rather short story.
The ol' Miller High Life bottle to the head.