Worst Geocaching Injury

8.4k · November 7, 2008

That happened on the way to my regular Monday event that I host. Some lady ran a red light and we met the hard way.

I'm bruised and hurtin', but I'm mostly okay.

19k · November 7, 2008

That happened on the way to my regular Monday event that I host. Some lady ran a red light and we met the hard way.

I'm bruised and hurtin', but I'm mostly okay.

OMG! Glad to hear that you're alright. That looks serious.

So, how's the lady that ran the red light? Moreover, how did her cellphone hold up?

19k · November 7, 2008

The happened to me when I tripped on some underwater branches while "guiding" a group of friends on a kayak caching trip down the Cannon River in Minnesota. The huge bump eventually infected, requiring major surgery and two months of healing. Didn't stop me from caching, though... I was caching within two days of getting home from the hospital!

(The cache)

November 7, 2008

Nothing as fun as some of you others, just poison ivy on the arms. Hope thats it for me.

November 7, 2008

well, i recently ended up with two (very!) black eyes and a large bump on my head after a geocaching mishap: my foot got caught in some dune grass and i did a face plant onto a log. how my glasses didn't get smashed i'll never know, but i got off with only a bent ear piece and totally flattened nose pads. later i figured out i didn't need to be there in the first place, so i learned a lot about what is and is not level two terrain. can you tell i'm still new at this? and after all that i didn't find the last of a multi-cache... (but i'm very grateful it wasn't a rock!)

November 7, 2008

sorry, my last post somehow got duplicated and i can't figure out how to delete this one...!

Edited November 7, 2008 by mdelgatt

November 8, 2008

Sprained ankle last weekend. Just walking down a wet, grassy slope, and WHEEEE! Grass let go, foot shot straight out, ankle bent the wrong way, and I went for a slide.

Oops.

Now I'm sitting here with an ankle brace searching for park and grabs ...

7.9k · November 8, 2008

I think a cholla-ball (a segment of very spiniferous cactus) to the leg has been the worst so far...but this has happened more than once. Part of the risk of living in the deserts of Arizona.

2.5k · November 8, 2008

I killed my caching companion, Charlie, while looking for a cache. Impaled him on a tree branch.

:blink:

You see, Charlie is what I call my Garmin Oregon. Actually, Charles II. His predecessor, Charles I, was a Legend HCx with the street maps loaded. Whenever he'd try to take me down the wrong road, I'd say, hearkening back to the tuna commercial, "Sorry, Charlie!"

The nice touch screen on the Oregons? It's nowhere's near as tough as the screens on the other Garmins I've seen, which simply have a plastic shield protecting the delicate parts from things like sticks and stones. Charlie never had a chance in that thicket of trees...

Thankfully, after a trip to Garmin, Charlie has been resurrected. He's been joined by Charles III, a Nuvi. He goes by "Chuck," mostly 'cause I think that's what my wife would like to do with him, right out the window.

November 8, 2008

My wife has the honor of the worst injuries in our geocaching lives. First, she caught a branch into the side of her left calf that sliced her open for about 8-10 inches.

Then, soon after that, she was walking down a trail and rolled her ankle (so we thought). She rested it during the week, but we always go out on Monday, and, being the trooper she is, she always goes with us. We try try to keep it on the trails, but its just not always possible. After a month, she finally went to the doctor and find out she has a fractured ankle. Does that stop her? No, she just puts on her air cast and Soldiers on.

This is her near the end of our 4+ mile hike for a cache in the mountains, showing off her air cast. Nothing keeps her down.

There was another time when we almost had a MUCH worse experience. We were climbing with the kids up some loose rock when a boulder the size of an old CRT monitor broke loose and tried to crush my wife and one of the kids climbing up the slope. It was a steep slope and the rock picked up speed on the way down. I watched in horror as it bounced by me and headed straight towards my wife and daughter. It bounced back and forth, seeming to match their efforts to get out of the way. I thought for sure someone was going to die. At the last moment, my wife grabbed our daughter and managed to dive out of the way as the boulder hurtled past. No harm except a few scratches as the boulder scraped her arm flying by. THAT was scary. But, we did get to the top and found the cache.

November 8, 2008

Got my worst injury this week. I combine my 2 favorite hobbies, geocaching and motorcycles. Was going after a cache, pulled off the road in an area that had lots of loose gravel. I was only going 5 MPH but did something very foolish. Used the front brake(that is a no no in loose gravel). Front wheel locked up and threw the bike down. Pinned me face down on the gravel. My foot went into the ground toe first and the bike landed on top. I literaly couldn't move my foot the way it was wedged in. So I'm laying on the ground flopping around trying to figure out how to get out. By this time the adrenaline was wearing off and it was starting to hurt like hell. Fortunately, a couple of good Samaritans came along. A guy with his arm in a cast lifted the bike enough that I could slide out. A lady called 911. Good thing I wasn't on a back road. I tried to stand up and couldn't so I knew it wasn't going to be good. I had the presence of mind to take my boot off before it started swelling. When I got the boot off, I saw that my toes where at all kinds of weird angles that they normally don't go to. Got my first ambulance ride at age 46. Turns out that I had just dislocated my big toe and strained some ligaments. Thank goodness for boots or my foot would have been crushed. I've got to wear one of those velcro boot thingies for the next couple of weeks, but should be okay. I'll definely be using my truck on the rural caches from now on.

November 8, 2008

i nearly busted my wrist when camera i had around my neck caused my to fall face first onto the ground - luckily the camera survived :blink:

November 9, 2008

I got Poison oak on my junk. at We Love Highway 70 (see log July 08, 2005)

Sorry, no pics

November 9, 2008

I got Poison oak on my junk. at We Love Highway 70 (see log July 08, 2005)

Sorry, no pics

i guess the ladies will just have to keep there eye sight then

November 9, 2008

Poison ivy twice. Now I wear long pants no matter how hot it is.

I stepped on a nest of little red ants in Florida. The bites didn't seem that bad but took Forever to heal.

November 12, 2008

My black and white male Springer Beau has been treated for lyme and just last week stepped on an old wine bottle 1.5 miles from the truck and almost blead out. He is still with stiches and no caching for a while. The bottle was in a very old dump site 30's or so. Will get back and police it. Oh yah I had to take off one of stockings and make a turnicate and carry him out of the woods. I never knew 46lbs was so heavy. Cladius.

:unsure: I was out caching with my 2 1/2 year old son and our germanshorthair pointer, my son and I were down on hands and knees reaching into a big hollow stump when the dog crash landed on top of the stump we were reaching into.. I thought what the @#$% is she doing. Figured out the terrain was uneven and she was running back to find us and thought we were farther away. Anyhow did not think to look her over. The next night I went to put my son to bed and his bed had blood all over it, The dog had impalled herself on that stump and had a big hole in her brisket area, and it was 2 days from bird season opening. Took her to the vet and he gave us antibiotics for her and said go hunt with her, the hole will eventually heal. She still has a small oozing hole but it is not like it was, and it does not bother her.

November 13, 2008

I was caching near Biggs in Oregon along the Columbia River. My GPS showed the cache

at the top of a high slide area. I got to the top and my GPS showed it down on the bottom.

I did both twice then climbed up the slide. When I got about half way up I kinda lost my balance

and grabbed a rock sticking out. It immediately came loose. It was about the size of a

soccar/basketball. It hit me in the shinn, luckilly I had lifted my foot or it would have knocked me

down the area, that really would have hurt. I had two large abrasions which were fairly deep

and bleeding. I cleaned them up and (without a whimper, of course) spread some neosporin on

them and a 4x4 dressing on each. Still have some serious scars. After I got home I went to

log a DNF and found that the cache had been shut down over a year before.

November 13, 2008

I think a cholla-ball (a segment of very spiniferous cactus) to the leg has been the worst so far...but this has happened more than once. Part of the risk of living in the deserts of Arizona.

Note to self - transfer hemostat from camping supplies to caching backpack.

November 13, 2008

Three hundred and thirty two ticks (yes, I counted) from one trip into the forest near Jordan Lake (NC), the little tiny, almost impossible to see ones.

November 13, 2008

I drove my kids to a holiday camp and did some caching on the way home. At the Brochterbeck-cache, I didn't see a crevice, while i was descending by rope. My leg was stucked and I had some problems getting it out. Fortunately it wasn't broken.

Brochterbeck

And the worst. It was a DNF and my wife was not amused when she saw my leg at home!

Udo

3.6k · November 13, 2008

We were looking for the final of a multi located on a steep cliff and rock ledge. The terrain was slippery because of loose pea-sized gravel and sand in spots. I jumped down about 2 feet to a lower level that I thought was safe, but my feet went out from under me. By instinct, I put out my hands to stop my fall, and my hand landed on a sharp jagged piece of rock, gashing the fleshy part of my hand.

Blood started squirting all over. We really wanted to find the cache, but it wouldn't stop bleeding, and I had nothing to stop it, so we walked back to the car and drove home, which was only a few miles away. I cleaned the cut, put on a bandage, went back and found the cache and then went to the hospital where I got a bunch of stitches.

November 13, 2008

Wow, there are quite a few serious injuries listed here. So far, the only injury I have received would be minor cuts and scratches going into the woods. I just got stung my a wasp yesterday too.

November 13, 2008

There were two of us caching out in Indiana when were attacked by a wild dog. Broody ended up with 24 stitches and for three days he received anti-rabies shots. He is good now, we never found the cache, but left one heck of a blood trail.

Don't ask about the dog, it was him or us. Let's just say I brought my boom stick with me.

November 14, 2008

I got a few bad ones in the space of a week.............deer tick bite (quick trip to the hospital as it was a Saturday....one antibiotic was all they give when they catch it that soon.....still itches like hell over a month later) Red ring was very dramatic! ANother tick bite on the neck which still itches........

3 Fractured ribs...........just bending down to look at a cache - waist band caught under ribs...........

eek.

Frances still in pain 3 weeks after the rib incident. By the way, i thought at the time "Sheesh, here I am alone in the woods and I just did something really really bad to my ribs....can I walk....can I yell..." I was actually very close to civilisation and on a much used trail and could walk easily anyway, but it hurt so much when it happened that I thought i was going to fall over.

November 15, 2008

We were looking for a cache at a park sign in Marin County. Didn't notice the yellow jacket nest in the ground at the very large stone sign. :laughing: Fortunately, I was only stung once, but it was the first cache of the day, so I cached with a sore waist the rest of the day. Ice from our water bottles helped. :anibad:

November 17, 2008

This may be an old topic but the last couple days made me wonder how other geo-cachers may have hurt themselves.

I was Geocaching alone for a cache hidden along a creek bed. It was warm weather and I was wearing shorts, a tee shirt and sneakers. I was making my way along the edge of the creek trying to keep dry as possible by walking on the flag stones that lined the creek. I was taking my time because it was obvious that some of the stones were covered with algae, which is extremely slippery when wet. I stepped on one stone and before I knew it, I was airborne and landed on my right side on the rocks. Didn't break anything, but I sure bruised my right arm and leg. Then I thought to myself, "What would have happened if I had hit my head or broke my leg?" :laughing: Be careful when GeoCaching alone! Take a cellphone with you or let someone know where you are going.

November 17, 2008

We don't have any bad ones, but wev'e been stung by bees and once when we were coming back from a cache (it was dark) in Seattle while visiting our relatives and i banged my head on their mailbox making a huge dent in the side and a big freakin lump on my head.

November 17, 2008

Not too bad for me--Just a sprained knee going for a FTF. A local cacher had just released a whole slew of caches that day and they were all close to me. Tragically I was only on my 2nd cache when I sprained my knee. I went home, rested it and then got bored so I went to the drugstore and bought a brace and headed (or rather hobled) out again! Since it didn't get any better that night I went to the doctor and got the official diagnosis. That was back in Feb and I still don't trust the strength of my knee yet

Edited November 17, 2008 by blackfishorca

November 17, 2008

We have been stupidly lucky so far. Sore muscles, poison oak and some nasty scratches rummaging along a fenceline. Nothing a few asprin and some ice won't fix.

Does extreme rattlesnake-avoidance count?

Clearly we are not doing anough terrible hikes or there would be a lot more biffage.

November 18, 2008

This may be an old topic but the last couple days made me wonder how other geo-cachers may have hurt themselves.

My wife and I have been pretty fortunate until this morning (I'll get to that in a minute) but the dog had taken a few hits. Saturday we were hiking up to the Lair (a nice cache located in a cave on the bluffs of the Mississippi) and as we were cutting across a farm field we watched Seamus (our dog) go face first into a barb wire fence at nearly full speed. It shook him up a bit and gave him a small cut above his eye but no real harm done. In the past we've seen him do cartwheels, amass loads of pickers, and a few slip and falls but unbelieveably no broken bones or serious lacerations.

I, on the other hand, woke up this morning and thought that I got a good jab from a stick when I was doing some bushwacking yesterday morning. Didn't remember any sharp pokes so upon further inspection I discovered I had a tick lodged deep into my torso. So I grabbed the rubbing alcohol and caught the wife before she left for work. Sure enough there was a bright red ring around the bite and the tick was quite small. As it turns out I was bitten by a female deertick and am now on antibiotics for the next 3 weeks. Not a huge deal but a story worth mentioning. If you get bit by a tick and notice a bright red ring I cannot stress enough that you should immediatly see your doctor and get some meds. I'll be fine but the complications of leaving Lyme Disease untreated would be far worse.

Anyhow, I'm just curious if there are other stories of carnage on the trail.

Funinthealps

Just out of curiosity, could you link that cache along the Mississippi?

November 18, 2008

A freind of ours was out caching and as he reached for the container next to an old log. Wham Rattler bit him I think almost 2 weeks in hospital, I almost quit doing foothill caches after that but decided it was really rare and he just startled the snake or it would have let him know.

As for my Bunch just a bunch of Bruised egos from DNf's nothing too bad.

1.6k · November 18, 2008

I took my 3-yr-old for some 5-star terrain caches (we rode took a water taxi to an island in a river). Unfortunately, the island was covered with massive poison ivy vines. I thought I had kept him away from them, but he developed rashes over most of his body to the point where we took him to his pediatrician, where he had to get a steroid shot.

I guess I've been pretty lucky. Other than seriously sore feet and way too many chigger and tick bites to count, I've been pretty injury free. And now I've jinxed myself so I'll wind up with a broken leg somewhere in the backwoods of Mississippi next week.

November 19, 2008

A freind of ours was out caching and as he reached for the container next to an old log. Wham Rattler bit him I think almost 2 weeks in hospital, I almost quit doing foothill caches after that but decided it was really rare and he just startled the snake or it would have let him know.

As for my Bunch just a bunch of Bruised egos from DNf's nothing too bad.

Never, ever, step or reach over a log or a pile of rocks without looking at the other side first. The snake won't always hear you coming and give you a warning.

November 19, 2008

Just a funny note. In our area we had such a rash of caching injuries that one of our locals minted a Geo-caching Injury trackable coin featuring a purple heart. I had to get one.

November 20, 2008

My worst accident was when I was putting a rock back over the cache the rock slipped and landed on my thumb. Swelled up pretty fast. Two days later I lost the nail on my thumb.

9.5k · November 24, 2008

My worse injury was on yesterday's hike. The fractured fibula is my first injury to a bone in my 50 years.

Edited November 24, 2008 by TotemLake

November 24, 2008

actually today we were on a geocaching hunt in sunset park in the world famous las vegas nevada.we were going to the first cache when a tight squeeze came along and my dad couldnt make it through.he tried but there were thorns.lol.he got all messed up.cut his arm his back his other arm and i think his leg.the funny thing is, is that the cache wasnt through that tight squeeze

Worst Geocaching Injury

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