Oddest injuries, had mine last night

Redd · #1 02-21-2009, 01:28 PM

So i was gigging with my casual group of friends like we do every other weekend or so, just whatever bar will take us

And about half way through the set, it got hairy.

If anyone has played a fender, you know the gear on the tuners is fairly sharp? yeah, it is.

So in the middle of a song, i was just playing, nothing extreme, and the body-end of my strap snapped. (there had been a slit in it, and i figured i could get one more gig out of it since i didn't have time to buy a new one..)

Well, after realizing that for a second i was plucking air, as the neck came flying up. I was wearing my bass really low (inside joke with my friends) and the neck spun up, and the gear on the tuner sliced my lip open, top of the headstock gave my forehead a good beating, and my hands got a little banged up in the process. Wasn't a fun night. Way to much blood

so TB, whats your weirdest injury?

BananaKing · #2 02-21-2009, 01:33 PM

Wow.

I was holding my bass by the neck (not playing, just walking) and the strap got caught on a railing on my way down some stairs.

As I kept walking, the bass was eventually pulled from my hands and the headstock came around and smashed into my knees, actually causing them to swell up.

Dave R · #3 02-21-2009, 01:56 PM

Only 2 injuries in my career.

First is the ubiquitous "played too long on a blister until I got to raw flesh and kept playing anyway." Sprayed blood all over the pickguard. Made my fingertip look like burger meat. Pick players never have to deal with that, huh? Got lots of sympathy from the chicks, though.

2nd was when I tripped while carrying my 60lb. amp in my arms. Tried to cradle it all the way down to the ground. Split my middle finger open to the bone right at the joint. Surprisingly, didn't hurt as much as I thought. I bandaged it up, and played the gig with index and 4th fingers. Got stitched up after the gig. That was a late night.

Earned much respect from the band. No lasting damage to the finger. And chicks did scars...

Vakmere · #4 02-21-2009, 02:02 PM

Years ago, Playing ice hockey, took a puck off the left thumb at the nuckle. Swelled up, no fracture, couldnt bend it for a couple days. Played 2 nights on it and managed to find a technique for not using my thumb as a pivot. Bought better hockey gloves after that.

karatone · #5 02-21-2009, 02:14 PM

I was painting a large piece of furniture the other day mainly using my left index finger to press the cap, as i mentioned this was a very large piece so I found myself holding that buttom down near 30 minutes , after i was through painting I went in to play my bass only to find I could not use my index finger as it had tightened up and would not bend. I took a few hours for it to regain feeling again. If any of you are planning any large paint projects be sure to alternate between hands and possibly fingers, better yet purchase one of those plastic handles that attach to the spray can. I laugh about now ,but if I had to play later that evening it would have been a struggle

uglymutt · #6 02-21-2009, 05:31 PM

i was going crazy as we were playing a double speed paranoid (black sabbath) and started swinging my bass around, all of a sudden i feel this pain, i hit my temple with one of the tuners (i was using a 3/4 scale at the time). Any time i tilted my head during the next week i would feel this pain where i had hit myself, needless to say i won't do it again.

texasgreg · #7 02-21-2009, 06:44 PM

I was playing a drum gig about 25 years ago at a private party. Cover band. We had been going all night. Starting off the last set, we raved it up with the Who's My Generation. As I was going on the sort of drum solo/outro at the end of the song, I felt something snap like a big rubber band inside my right hand.

I immediately lost the ability to grip a stick, or anything. Intense immediate pain, like I had broken my hand. A big golf ball sized swelling immediately arose on the top of my hand between the thumb and index finger. It hurt so bad I couldn't do anything with the hand.

Luckily the singer was also a drummer and so the band got to finish the show. While they played the last set, I had the hand immersed in the ice around the keg. I also partook heavily of the keg at this point, since I had a friend who had ridden to the gig with me to drive me home.

Doc xrayed it, not broken, said it was the most severe case of tendonitis he had ever seen. Because it had the huge golfball sized knot on it, all the medical folks assumed it was broken until they saw the xray. Back then, Ibuprofen was prescription, and that's what they gave me, along with some pain killers. In a month or so, after total non-use of the hand, I was back to normal. Never happened again.

xgator4u · #8 02-21-2009, 06:49 PM

Many years ago when strings were all of a lighter gauge, I snapped an E string, somehow I managed to get it wrapped around my thumb, and in a whip like fashion it split my chin WIDE open. blood every where. I taped it up redneck style with paper towels and duct tape (tough guy huh), finished playing, then went for stitches. 17 of them. I carry the scar to this day.

SmittyG · #9 02-22-2009, 09:07 AM

Mine isn't as "rock-n-roll" as some. I was doing an outdoor gig and wearing shorts and scraped my leg on the corner of the monitor while trying to climb up on the flat-bed trailer that was the stage. A few weeks later, I'm in the hospital for ten days of IV treatments to fight off a raging staph infection.

bassman03 · #10 02-22-2009, 01:47 PM

The way my bass is shaped, the part of the body that sticks out underneath the neck (i think you know what i'm talking about) is rather short, so one time i just goofing off, and somehow i ended up racking myself with it... and we didn't start playing for 15 more minutes: 5 so i could regain feeling, and 10 because the other 4 guys that were there couldn't stop laughing.

IconBasser · #11 02-22-2009, 07:18 PM

all these injuries with strings make me wonder how many people have lost eyes because of them.

*shudders* seems too horrible to contemplate...

cumquott · #12 02-22-2009, 08:08 PM

Well, I didn't have any injuries while playing (well, the usual blisters when drumming), but these two certainly had the potential to slow me down...

Enjoy (especially if you're a bloodthirsty creep!)

http://www.mannure.org/BadFinger/BadFinger.html

Honestly, the band saw bite photo doesn't do the injury justice. I was seriously upset about my playing (and I don't mean jingle bells) but it healed fine and I'm cool. It's a little numb on part of the tip but it doesn't affect my playing at all.

lespaulmarshall · #13 02-22-2009, 08:41 PM

Epic fingers haha ^

distrot · #14 02-22-2009, 08:52 PM

stuck my thumb in my eye when playing...i cant tell you how it happened but it hurt so much i was worried.
I went to the ER and turns out i actully cut a flap on my eye. had a patch for about 3 weeks
but the worst part was that they had to flush my eye so it wouldn't get infected.

basically they make you put in a contact lens with a tube on it connected to a bag of saline solution but it was sooooo cold it gave me a terrible head freeze for like 45 minutes that was terrible.

I slept for 2 days after that

bigcatJC · #15 02-22-2009, 10:00 PM

I've told this story on TalkBass before, but it's a good one.

Back in my high school days, the band I was in was playing a New Year's party. Just at a friend's house, 50-60 people, no big deal. But we were getting paid for the first time, so we were thrilled. Anyhow, we were playing on a rented PA. I was the only one who sang back-up. First chorus of the first song rolls around, and I step up to the mic...BLAMMO!!!

The rented PA had a grounding "issue". Me playing my bass grounded everything once I was close enough to the microphone. A little blue lightning bolt shot from the mic to my upper lip, knocked me backwards, and blew every fuse in the PA and the house. Luckily, I suffered no permanent damage, and one of our friends was studying to be an electrician. He fixed everything in the PA and replaced the fuses in 1/2 an hour. Once I shook the cobwebs clear, we kept playing.

But I did walk around with a little black burn mark on my lip for a couple of weeks!

Diogenes · #16 02-22-2009, 10:25 PM

I had one back around 2001 that put a damper on my playing for a few years. At that time in my life I was still roadracing motorcycles and doing an event at Roebling Road Raceway near Savannah Georgia. A little mishap during one of my heats got the tips of my pinky and ringfinger partly torn off and somewhat mangled just above the nail bed on my fretting hand. Here's a link to a pic I took after reconstructive surgery.
http://jz63coma.ipower.com//XS650/images/zzz.jpg

ceedj · #17 02-22-2009, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigcatJC

A little blue lightning bolt shot from the mic to my upper lip...

Wow, I had something similar happen about 15 years ago, my first REAL band, rehearsing in the old Asylum in Kenmore (WNYers know the place). Anyway, the singer had a metal filling in his front tooth, but the enamel had chipped off. I had cheapo gear. We decided to be cute, so he brought his mic over and "shared" it with me. Well, I played a chord, and a little bolt went from his tooth to the mic and bounced off my forehead. Wild stuff.

katri · #18 02-23-2009, 09:48 AM

No pic no injury

brachal · #19 02-23-2009, 07:54 PM

I once dropped a 4x10 hartke combo on the middle finger of my fretting hand while loading up after a gig. Split the end of the finger open. I patched it up with a bar napkin and some tape. Took a look at it in the morning and went straight to the ER ... five stitches.

Godbody · #20 02-24-2009, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xgator4u

Many years ago when strings were all of a lighter gauge, I snapped an E string, somehow I managed to get it wrapped around my thumb, and in a whip like fashion it split my chin WIDE open. blood every where. I taped it up redneck style with paper towels and duct tape (tough guy huh), finished playing, then went for stitches. 17 of them. I carry the scar to this day.

I snapped my E a few weeks back during a vicious basement freakout. I use DRs, and the solid core came back to bite me. The string broke right at the bridge saddle and bit deep into my right hand. That solid wire sliced me up in a few places; weird how that happens sometimes. It broke and cut me in about five spots in just a spilt second.

Still, I've got worse scars on my hands from Absinthe binges