Our gardening injuries

I had the blackthorn in the knee which resulted in four days in hospital in 2011 (lesson......don't ignore swelling), but I also poked myself in the face with a bamboo cane once.Leaning over to deadhaead another plant.Lesson....put something soft/round on top of canes
A few years ago at a customer's garden , I was pruning a copper beech tree in late winter/early spring and I cut a small whispy branch, and let it fall but it got stuck in the tree so I pulled it out and as I did , one of the new growth buds caught my eye. I was a bit concerned as my sight went very blurry. I walked , or maybe jogged, to my van and looked in the wing mirror......the blurry eas was now explained, I had actually cut my eyeball but, fortunately , only the White, not the iris. but, my customer was very worried and drove me to the local hospital with blood pouring from it. I was given antibiotic ointment so no infection got in but, I was very lucky and no damage done.It healed very quickly.Lesson....where goggles but, they steam up so, I hardly ever do.
I also, once, cut the tip off my thumb with secateurs but, although very sore and an awful lot of blood, not enough to be stitched back on.The top of my left thumb is still, very very slightly flatter than the right.lesson ...where gardening gloves (but I still hardly ever do)
Oh, and I also strimmed my legs once. I had shorts on and put my strimmer on the ground whilst still spinning. I walked too close and ended up with multiple whip marks on my calf! Lesson...never where shorts when gardening!

So you did do this blog. Knew you would be better at it as I've been lucky. Mine have been rather boring cuts and scratches. My hubby once swam with the fishes. :-). Our last house had a big pond which he did all the looking after. I was in front garden when my daughter came running through the house shouting just that dad needed me. I went through to back door to find him standing on patio in only his boxers. He had been cleaning the pond kneeling down and trying to put pump back in when started to slide in head first. Couldn't stop himself. Had to be deepest end of pond that my daughter said she ended up only seeing his feet as his slip on shoes floated off. Once I picked myself up from laughing, I got him a towel and fished his shoes out. No harm done to fish or pond.

By the way he didn't do the pond norally in only his boxers :-).As soon as he pulled himself out he striped off all his pond smelly cloths. Lucky we had a very private back garden or think neighbours would have probably got worried seeing him only in boxers. Sorry got grin on my face remembering the sight of him and his shoes floating.

Oooooo some nasty accidents there Stera and Paul :-(
Had to laugh at your hubby Jen , sorry, that's going to happen to me one day lol we have a large pond with grass round the edge that I have to get on my hands and knees to cut :-)
I had a nearly nasty accident with a new garden fork on the allotment with no one about , as I was digging the shaft broke in half luckily I fell to the side and not onto it ,it was like a spear !!, daren't think what could have happened . Also had a similar thing with a wasp nest but not in the garden ,our lab decided to cock his leg in the hedge right on a wasp nest they chased us all the way home I was fine but poor Fudge had multiple stings one very close to his eye , took him to the vet but by the time we got there they looked much better due to the Anti inflammatory's he was on for arthritis the vet said !!

Only "liked" this because it's made me think, Stera. Some of these stories make me wince! I've had a couple of near misses, but I've been lucky on the whole. I have bare feet in the house most of the time. I am strict with myself about wearing shoes when I'm gardening, though.

My hands are bleeding every time I touch my rose bushes, either for pruning or weeding. I never wear gloves. No serious injuries so far. Careful? Rather lucky.

Stera your blog as certainly made me think - we do all take risks in the garden I think - because we are so involved with what we are doing that we throw caution to the wind - my worst one I think was a broken wrist - OH was laying a new pathway and it was very muddy - he put a piece of plastic sheeting down and never told me - I turned the corner straight onto the sheeting and well you can guess the rest !!

Seems as though a First Aid Kit in the house for gardeners and dogs is very necessary. Containing anti-sting gel, reminded me to put it on the shopping list. Thanks.

Oh dear, we've all been injured, lol Kathy, I can picture you and Fudge running with the wasps following.
Well, my top 3 are: taking the huge fig pot out of the greenhouse after over wintering on the sack barrow and bang, dropping it on my big toe, nail ruined lol, nail came off, then awful ingrowing toe nail and now years later left with a fungy nail. So always wear steel toe caps.
2: helping Oh to move old railway sleepers around, was holding one upright and a good sized chunk fell off the top, scraped down my nose, skinned it, I was fainting from the bash lol, 2 black eyes later and also a couple of days before Christmas. Nice white scar now.
1: the snail larvae incident. Went in the pond in wellies and shorts as I couldn't find my waders, just let the wellies fill with water. Later, legs itching like crazy, absolutely covered in bites like swellings, two weeks of anti biotics etc. After speaking to Lori, it appears it was water snails burrowing into my legs. Lesson, always wear waders.

Oooer Dawn. never knew they did that - they are surely vegetarians? Could it have been leeches?

What an accident prone lot we seem to be - thank you all for sharing your horror stories! I'm sure we do all have a first aid box Diane but even that can't give us tetanus injections or plaster casts - and two of us have had very near misses with our eyes too. Fortunately I haven't fallen in the pond yet but its early days...

Thanks Jen for inspiring the blog!

I don't know Stera. I was pulling reeds up and carrying them. It was Lori in Canada who told me over there that swimmers in rivers get 'swimmers Itch's from he snails. I will never go in again with bare skin.
I've fallen in the brook a few times and got wasp stings when disturbing nests on the banks, not when falling in lol, on separate occasions.

Whatever it was you won't want to repeat it!

Well I don't know whether to describe you lot as accident prone, lucky (it wasn't worse) or both lol.

The worst I've done is drop a hand trowel on my toe, had a nice scrape from that one. Should know better than to garden in flip flops lol - still not learnt was doing the same today lol, at least I didn't drop the trowel today though.

Its surprising where things take us, from talking about Blackthorn to injuries. As a former nurse I've seen and treated a lots over the years but for the love of our gardens we still carry on. Whats the saying, KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON GARDENING :-)

Years ago I had an awful ingrowing toenail. Had to have
it removed. My GP did it, gave the toe an injection and
seemed thrilled to be doing a bit of surgery for a change
to prescriptions. The new nail grew quite normally. I
have forgotten now which one it was.

They do hurt Diane, dont they, I had to have antibiotics to take the swelling down and remove the infection, then the Podiatrist took over but unfortunataely the nail has never grown properly again, I must have damaged the nail bed.

One day several years ago, I stood on a wall to cut back a shrub, but the hem of my jeans had come loose and my foot caught in it. I fell off the wall on to a flower pot and had to be taken to hospital by a neighbour, to have 8 stitches in my leg.
While I was in the A&E my neighbour's wife (also my neighbour lol) threw the broken bits of pot away :( I could have used those for drainage when repotting things ... but my neighbours are not gardeners and don't think like I do :(
They are very kind though.

Oh Hywel that was nasty. Only a true gardener would remember the broken pot being thrown away in the same breath as the eight stitches...
its nice to know you have helpful neighbours all the same even it they don't understand about crocks!

dare I say so far so good. except as a child I was pushed into a nettle patch by my brother and I was in my swim suit.

I have seen nasty eye incidents due to canes so I am always careful.

That is such a true remark, Steragram! I wanted to laugh when I read Hywel's tale. Not about the injury, of course - that must have been most unpleasant, but at the regret over the broken shards!

I'm trying hard not to laugh at your misfortune Hywel!!

LOL Laugh away both of you. I did. I didn't realise I had a cut until I saw blood coming through my jeans and wondered where it was coming from lol, then I realised I must have had a cut :D

Oh dear Hywel but I would have been looking for the broken crocks too ..... in your case, not every cloud has a silver lining.
Ouch Seaburn, I can just imagine those itchy, sore, white nettle marks all over your, I hope you got your brother back ;-)

Three years ago I had to separate my two cats who were fighting. I grabbed Horace by the scruff of the neck and his weight pulled me over. I fell and hit the edge of my right eyebrow on the corner of an old wooden picnic table my OH used for potting etc so it was covered in soil.

I didn't feel a thing so I was very surprised when I touched my head to find a river of blood pouring down my arm and dripping on to the floor.

At the cottage hospital they were very kind but couldn't put in stitches as I was a "bleeder" (aspirin-taker). They had to glue the cut.

Not sure if this counts as a "gardening" injury as I wasn't working ,not even weeding!