Childhood Danger

Das Kitty

Kids have no sense of their own or other kids' mortality, I certainly didn't when I was a kid.

My granny used to have a hay shed and in the Autumn the hay would be stacked about 40ft high inside on one side, on the other side there would be straw about 30ft high. There was about a 10ft gap between the two stacks of bails and a concrete floor on the hay shed. We used to take turns leaping from the hay to the straw. When we got bored of that we'd try jumping the other way, grabbing onto the hay and climbing back on top. At one point one of my cousins got stuck, too afraid to climb. We had to get him down because we'd get in trouble if we went to the adults for help. So of course we decided that poking him with the yard brush until he fell off was the way to go. Lucky for him he landed on my brother and not the concrete!

Another memorable moment was when my older brother superglued a penny to my little brother's forhead as a "joke". We had to get if off "before mammy got home" so I used a swiss army knife to dislodge it. He was four at the time and the scar is pretty faint now.

Anybody have any stories of horrific childhood injuries and close calls? The nearer fatal the better.

kev_s88

ah yes the time i slipped while climbing about the roof of my house.

managed just to grab on to the guttering.i was only like 7 at the time and was still light enough for the gutter to hold my weight.was not a fun experience

Unaton

A friend of mine used to live in an apartment block. The building had 6 storeys ( think). So anyway, one day the lads were playing football. Then one of the guys thought they could have a contest, whoever can kick the ball higher. So they take turns and one of the lads kicks the ball so high it lands on this building's roof. The ball belonged to somebody else and it was fairly expensive so this young lad was totally freaked out.

So he goes and gets his older bro for help. The brother, he was 17 at that time, came up with the most idiotic plan ever. They lived on the 5th floor so this brother climbs out of the window, and goes up to the roof brick by brick! He had to climb around 5m. That idiot could have landed on the concrete blocks.

He got the ball though and climbed back down the same way.

Ruu_Old

A friend of mine nearly went down in a slurry pit trying to fetch a football that was sitting on the top of it. Lucky lad as his dad was nearby and we had a plank that he held onto until we pulled him up out of it. I know a number of my friends who live on farms with similar events. Reminds me of those ads that used to be on telly with a child falling into a slurry pit and his friends thinking he is still hiding in their game(think some of the English channels had them)

pd101

Das Kitty wrote: »

Kids have no sense of their own or other kids' mortality, I certainly didn't when I was a kid.

My granny used to have a hay shed and in the Autumn the hay would be stacked about 40ft high inside on one side, on the other side there would be straw about 30ft high. There was about a 10ft gap between the two stacks of bails and a concrete floor on the hay shed. We used to take turns leaping from the hay to the straw. When we got bored of that we'd try jumping the other way, grabbing onto the hay and climbing back on top. At one point one of my cousins got stuck, too afraid to climb. We had to get him down because we'd get in trouble if we went to the adults for help. So of course we decided that poking him with the yard brush until he fell off was the way to go. Lucky for him he landed on my brother and not the concrete!

Something similar, when we were young there were always round bales stacked 4 bales high. There were gaps in between the bales at the corners, and me being the resposible older brother I persuaded my little sister to climb down one of the holes. She ended up getting stuck down at the bottom, about 20ft down. I had no choice but to go get the adults. Big operation trying to pry the bales apart, but I still think it was hilarious.

Das Kitty

Ruu wrote: »

A friend of mine nearly went down in a slurry pit trying to fetch a football that was sitting on the top of it. Lucky lad as his dad was nearby and we had a plank that he held onto until we pulled him up out of it. I know a number of my friends who live on farms with similar events. Reminds me of those ads that used to be on telly with a child falling into a slurry pit and his friends thinking his is still hiding in their game(think some of the English channels had them)

God yeah, that reminds me of a friend of mine who had some towney friends staying over. He told one of them his mam was a "fatso" to get a chase off him. When the towney friend was chasing him he went into the cattle shed and ran up along the side. The friend not knowing that there was a slant in the bottom of the cowshed took the quickest possible route to catch my friend. He ran right up the middle, assuming that the crusted over cow plop was only a couple of cm thick at all points in the shed. He disappeared under it. Was on antibiotics for ages apparently because he took a good big gulp of it out of fright. My friend got a good dose of the wooden spoon that night.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Had some friend's from China when I was growing up. Was dared to eat three spoonfuls of his mother's finest curry. Couldn't taste anything for a week.

Week after that was dared to eat four spoonfuls. You pretty much guess the rest.

stovelid

Probably scutting - sometimes with roller skates.

Senna

they were building a dual-carriageway beside my house, all the diggers and machinery was left open at night and the keys were always left inside, either in the tool box, or under the seat etc.
we (about 7 or 8yrs) used to start them up and move them about, god only knows how we did't kill someone.
It all ended one night when the older fella's got the keys of a digger and bulldozer, one of them started digging a massive hole and the other fella flattened down the soil so the workers couldn't fill in the hole.
from then on the keys were taken away every night.

orestes

Myself and my brothers and cousins used to jump off the roof of the garage on the front of our house onto the lawn, you had to get a good run up though to clear the drive way or you landed on the concrete. Our parents used to sit and watch. Good old fashioned family fun

Vegeta

Every year at halloween we used to build a bonfire near a local factory (which is long gone now) we used to put old matresses (sp?) from beds which we were going to burn near the roof and jump off the roof onto them

All fun of course until it was my cousins go and I decided to pull away the matress while he was in mid air. Ouch

Used to absail a 3 story derelict building with an old rope.

My brother and cousin were scrumping apples once and my cousin nearly got beaten to death by a ram. How we laughed

My brother was play fighting with our neighbour and broke her arm by accident.

Doing tombstones and perfect-plexes on guys in school

Cycle down very steep hills at god know what speed blindly over taking cars. Cousins (same cousin who had ram encounter actually) brakes went on bike head first into a wall and was completely knocked out cold

Sleepy

Similar enough to your own story Das Kitty, my cousins had a farm where we used to think it was great craic to jump off the hay bales into a 'cushion' of a few bales we'd broken apart. Of course I missed the cushion and landed on a round bale that was lying further out in the barn, the bale did a full 360 roll with me on top! At the time I thought it was great craic but looking back it was stupidly dangerous.

Glowing

Senna wrote: »

they were building a dual-carriageway beside my house, all the diggers and machinery was left open at night and the keys were always left inside, either in the tool box, or under the seat etc.
we (about 7 or 8yrs) used to start them up and move them about, god only knows how we did't kill someone.
It all ended one night when the older fella's got the keys of a digger and bulldozer, one of them started digging a massive hole and the other fella flattened down the soil so the workers couldn't fill in the hole.
from then on the keys were taken away every night.

Haha! That's hilarious!

Das Kitty

Vegeta wrote: »

My brother and cousin were scrumping apples once and my cousin nearly got beaten to death by a ram. How we laughed

My cousins were scrumping from one of their neighbours' orchards, the neighbour shot one of them in the ass with a salt pellet. His mam just laughed at him and told him that that's what he gets for robbing and made him go to school the next day even though he couldn't sit down. She did put a plaster on it for him though.

helimachoptor

I gave my brother CPR one day, I was 12 he was 6, I had been watching 999 with Michael Burke. About 5 mins after I stopped giving him CPR the ambulance arrived to actually give CPR as I had seriously impaired his breathing! I did complete a first aid course a few years later!

Another time in Dun Laoghaire pier some of the lads were running and jumping over a boat that was tied to the wall, there were a lot of cables around the mast and a few other bits and self preservation made me not jump as I had images of getting tied up in that stuff and drowning. One of the girls jumped, not high enough tangled up in the stuff and pretty much used her face as a sledgehammer on the boat. Poor girl she's a minger now.

AlmightyCushion

We had massive evergreen trees in my back garden when I was younger, the top of them was higher than the house. We used to climb them everyday. One of the lads used to go to the very top and swing the tree over and back. Was funny but now that I think about it probably very dangerous.

Toto Wolfcastle

We lived in a semi-detached dormer bungalow with velux windows. My neighbour (in a house not attached to ours) used to climb out the velux window and across the roof into our other friend's window. I was too scared to do it though. I was a wuss.

dip

Jumping down stairs

Plan_D

I think us culchie kids had death wishes.

Rolling down a hill in a steel barrel? We actually had the audacity to do it in a field that had a mini ciff about 5 feet high at the end just for the added fun.

None of us lost or legs or broke bones which was kind of nice.

Trees were easy to climb but getting down was another story.

Oral Slang

We used to cut through different peoples fields as shortcuts to get places. My brothers used to cut through this particularly mad farmers field just to get a chase off him and his shotgun!!!
This kid my mam used to mind decided he wanted to chop up wood one day at our house (of course the axe was left out). My brother was walking behind him and got a smack off the back of the axe and got his forehead split open.
We used to regularly make swings really high up with crap rope that would break and you'd fall off with such a bang, you'd think you'd broken something.
I was bouncing on my brothers bed once when I was about three and my dad had left a telly minus the back cover on the floor. Came flying off the bed, landed on the telly & cut open the side of my eye. Can't remember if I needed stitches, but I still have the scar.
Ah the memories!