What's Your Worst Geo-injury

[+Niss Feiner]

Thought it was more polite than balls, nuts, wang, tube steak, trouser snake, purple helmet warrior....did i miss any?

Edited July 7, 2004 by Niss Feiner

[+planetrobert]

only my pride has been injured

[+Xavier961]

My story is more of a comedy than anything else. My head, back and bum were sore for a couple days but nothing else. Glad I was alone for this one. I did a cache after work 'Farnum Hill #2 (GCHRZJ)'. I had been up this hill before getting the 'Farnum Hill #1' cache so decided to hike it up to this one. Once at the cache, I decided to bush wack out to the trail closer to the truck since I hadn't waypointed the truck I just panned the gps and marked a waypoint on what I thought to be the road I walked in on. (Scene setting), misty rain, thick hemlock/pine woods, steep slopes, lots of hemlock and pine needles and low branches. I'm 6'6" tall and 360lbs, like a moose crashing through the woods. Off I go. I got to one particular spot on the slope and figured I could squeeze through a thicket of branches to a small clearning on the other side. Well I grabbed the branches to move them out of the way, stepped through, released the branches and was rudely thwapped in the back by the same branch I was moving past. This in turn knocked me forward and as I stumbled into the next set of branches throwing me off balance, I slipped on the slippery ground cover and wham.. on my butt. As I sat there for a minute collecting my thoughts I proceeded to stand and slipped again only this time traveling down the slope very un-gracefully. I stood up and cursed all the places I had pine needles sticking out. I had to laugh because I was no more than .1 miles from my truck. All for the love of the game slipped I.

[+fly46]

I got a blister on Sunday, and that's the worst injury I've ever gotten. Although I've been told that SerenityNow took pictures of me falling into the river at Woodstock. Nothing hurt there.. Ten other people at least fell in.

 

At Geo-Woodstock saturday, though, some guy brought his cousin, who slipped and fell on a mossy step during the poker run and we sat there and watched him get 6 stitches at the pavillian we were at.

[+n5psp]

Worst geo-injury so far - was on hands and knees for several minutes fishing a cache out of its hiding place, shifted, and felt this sharp stinging on the calf of the leg. Stood up and this huge scorpion fell out of my pants leg. Fortunately the species around here (West Texas) is the fairly low toxicity c.vitattus and not the similar looking more notorious species found in Arizona.

 

One afternoon I got tangled in barbed wire once, and once had a bird decide to deliver its load of precision guided munitions in an aerial bombardment.

 

When the cache page says bring a pokin' stick, it means don't stick your hands in there without making sure there is nothing coiled up on the cache with fangs and rattles escaping the desert heat or winter cold. Of course there wasn't a spare change of underwear for at least 60 miles :-)

[+clearpath]

...and once had a bird decide to deliver its load of precision guided munitions in an aerial bombardment.

 

hehehe, glad I'm not the only one thats had the distinct pleasure of cleaning 'precision guided munitions' off my person. The smell is enough to make you hurl.

[+n5psp]

hehehe,  glad I'm not the only one thats had the distinct pleasure of cleaning 'precision guided munitions' off my person.  The smell is enough to make you hurl. 

Here's another harmless but creepy looking geocache buddy that is looking for love in all the wrong places this time of year in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.

 

Then there was the cache that had some feral kittens living beside it.

[Pipanella]

Here's another harmless but creepy looking geocache buddy that is looking for love in all the wrong places this time of year in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico.

 

Awwww, it's LuLu's sister!!!!!

 

[+n5psp]

Awwww, it's LuLu's sister!!!!!

 

I think Lulu's legs may be a bit shorter, though. :-)

[Pipanella]

I don't know, you could be right. Those are some long legs yours has on it! It could be the angle of the picture and the position LuLu is in. Here she is, right before I gathered her up, in Arkansas, to take her to her new home here in Ohio:

 

Edited July 7, 2004 by Pipanella

[+n5psp]

I don't know, you could be right. Those are some long legs yours has on it! It could be the angle of the picture and the position LuLu is in. Here she is, right before I gathered her up, in Arkansas, to take her to her new home here in Ohio:

 

Yep, I think her legs are a little shorter compared to body size, even when found in the wild.

 

We let the one we found at Field Day loose where it could mosey along looking for love in all the wrong places :-)

 

Any spiderlings yet, or no boyfriend for her?

 

Gee - we hijacked the thread I think.. Wonder if someone has started a thread on interesting critters encountered while geocaching...

 

So far I think the most interesting thing were the wild or maybe abandoned kittens living in some thick bushes that also housed a well camouflaged geocache. That was in a city park though, with a bunch of houses right across an adjacent alley, and they weren't as wild as some I've encountered in oil fields. One of the kittens actually gave away the geocache because it was hanging from a branch deep inside a bush, and he was swatting at it as it swung back and forth.

 

And on a night cache we stumbled upon a family of rather bold raccoons that stayed maybe 10 feet away and begged like they were accustomed to people throwing them food.

[shadango]

All it would take would be one injured moron to decide that he wasn't adequately warned on the website, and he could sue Jeremy, the cache hider, or both. It doesn't matter if they're right or not, or whether they would win or not. The cost of fighting it in court could easily bankrupt someone if they don't have adequate insurance.

 

Ya know, you have a point, and that is a sad commentary on today's society.

 

I got a major injury about 10 years ago while riding my ATV (not geocaching)......9 breaks in my ankle, and broke my lower leg bone..also dislocated the same ankle.

 

Ouch.

 

Had to have surgery to have a plate and screws added. Over $15k out of pocket, still paying off. (No insurance at the time).

 

The first thing one lady at work said to me when I got back was "So, are you going to sue?" SUE WHO!?!? I said.....She said "The land owner."

 

Unbelieveable.

 

When will folks udnerstand that we have a certain amount of liability for ourselves?? If we choose to engage in like ATVing or yes, even Geocaching, that have some danger involved, we are responsible for putting ourselves into that danger.

 

Sheesh.

 

I hope that no one would ever do that here (sue, I mean).

 

So far, I have suffered minor scrapes, scratches and bug bites, even while using the OFF with DEET.

 

I *did* do a face first gainer a couple weekends back while on the "grand theft auto" cache....I was with my 5 year old....I started thinking about what I would do if I got really hurt while out there with him......not a good scenario.

 

Shadango

Edited July 8, 2004 by shadango

[+Nero]

Once, i was caching in sandals. Wouldn't ya know it, i dropped my GPSr on my big toe. Boy did it smart.

did you break the gpsr?

[+Nero]

Luckily I have not been hurt/injured at all. however..

 

weekend before last i was out on a cache adventure with my 2 boys, 9 and 4, we scored 2 and were on our third for the day which we found the area ok and started up the trail just to see another cacher coming down the trail. seeing he also had a gpsr in hand we started talking and identified ourselves and such and were conversing when i hear my youngest son screaming he hurt his head. at first im thinking he fell except i see him and he is holding his head and blood is gushing out of it. so i get him back to my car and the other casher who i was talking goes back to his car and gets some first aid supplies and we clean him up (lots of blood) and use antiseptic wipes and such and get the bleeding to stop and find out theres a quarter inch hole in my sons head thats pretty deep.

 

wound up my oldest son slipped on a rock and got mad so he picked it up and chucked it, his younger brother just happened to be in the way. 4 hours in the emergency room and 3 stiches later all was well. suposedly an accident, but we wonder, you know how kids are...

 

and yes we went back and scored the cache.

[+Ambrosia]

Two years ago I scraped my leg very badly on a rock at an *un-named* horrible cache in Portland, Maine, that I couldn't even find. The wound took forever to heal, and I still have the scar.

[+Mustard Devil]

Minor cuts, scrapes and scratches, skeeter bites and that Sunday in Nashville when all those ....wasps got me Then there was the caching trip to Arkansas when I locked my keys in the car and had to break a window to get back inside That really injured my wallet!

[+Colorado Cacher]

july 1. 2004 I was the lucky recipient of a double inguinal hernia four weeks later I am now feeling good and just about redy to go hiking again.

[+Swifteroo]

One of my more recent caches allowed me to sit right down on an old dead stump to sign the log. only about 30 seconds to sign the log but I was overcome by a full community of some variety of red ants. They got me real good. nothing like stripping down on the edge of a golf course and doing the "Ant Dance" in your gotchies.. I think about it now and I still itch. That has been the worst yet.

 

Have also had some good frostbite after fording a 20M wide river in November in northern Ontario without shoes, socks, or pants. Sheesh.. some of the fun things we do. Must be a fun pasttime or somethin!

[+DavidMac]

My worst injury so far just happened to be at a 1/1 micro at a bus stop... in view of our hotel room. I had noticed that there was a cache right in front of the hotel and had run down to grab it. 30 feet from the cache, I ran into a sharp piece of protruding metal. Ended up slicing open a gash in my shin several inches across and almost to the bone. I still continued onward to the cache before running back into the hotel bleeding like mad. Even funnier, it just happened to be Oct 31, and while on my way to the restroom to clean up, I got more than one comment about how realistic my 'costume' was. Of course, I still went out caching the next day.

[+Kordite]

In this first story, I fell about twenty feet with a number of abrupt halts along the way. I only had the wind knocked out of me but had I fallen a foot to the right I would have been seriously impailed.

 

Kordite's log for Foreign Finance Fund 2 (GCGBJ7)

 

The second story is much like Geo-Ho's encounter with a rock earlier in this topic.

 

Kordite's log for Rocky Riffles (GCGVXZ)

 

[Blazer2]

Wife and I geocache together, on one such outing she slipped on some rocks and twisted her ankle, or so we thought. After a few months and several twisted ankles, we discovered that she had over extended the ligaments in her ankle when she first hurt it. After four months in an air cast, surgery to tighten the ligaments, and then most of last summer in the air cast, she is able to join me again..... now we just need to get our newly adopted greyhounds familiar with some geocaching and we will be set to go.

[+Centex Trekker]

I 've been very lucky so far. I've been caching since 01/03.

 

Mostly I get my ankles scratched up from briar vines. I don't seem to be allergic to PI yet, but I know I've been through lots of it.

 

Once I sat on a rotten Willow log to log the cache and got up with dozens of wood ants all over my legs. I'm glad I was alone in the woods. ("Mommy, why does that man have his shorts down and why is he slapping himself"?) I must have had 50 welts the next day.

 

I poked myself in the eye with cedar branches, but luckily no damage.

 

Did you folks have lots of accidents before you started caching?

[+2qwerqE]

2 weeks ago(Sat), caching in a flood plain, looking for a new cache that was placed in a mound of deadfall and driftwood that was all deposited by floodwaters, I stepped up onto a log and it disintegrated beneath my feet. I was immediately swarmed by hundreds if not thousands of small termite-looking bugs, gray bodies, small white wings, and they proceeded to bite the hell out of my feet. Danced the bug boogie while I stripped off my trail runners and socks, shook off and pulled off the blighters, and then went back to looking for the cache (DNF, by the way, and it turned out to have gone missing.) The bites hurt, and itched, but it took them about 20 minutes to truely blossom into full fledged fire. More than 60 bites, and my feet became so hot and inflamed the only thing that made them shut up was a long soak in my friend's swimming pool. AHHHHHhhhhhhhh! I swear they sizzled when they hit the cool water. Did 5 miles of caching the next day, and ended up on steroids to reduce the swelling and fire after I saw the doctor on Monday.

 

Two weeks later, my feet still aren't pretty, but at least they shut up and let me sleep now.

[+fly46]

My worst caching injury was pretty lame. I, too, am one of the lucky ones that's escaped every cache I've ever been to with no more than a bug bite somewhere.

[habercacher]

bruised ego