Share your biggest injury while recreating.

Lot's of miscellaneous small wounds but nothing too thrilling (a few stitches, burns, here and there). I jabbed my cornea with a branch while hiking off-trail. I did the same thing with a metal pole while car camping and sliced the entire eye. That one ended up much worse. I've hiked with a few folk that have come out with broken bones.

I've had one injury with the lasting effects, and another that was memorable. The first was a meniscus tear in my right knee when I stood up from a crouch with a backpack on. There was a loud pop, and it hurt for a few minutes, but subsided quickly and I continued. The next day I was pretty lame, and I hobbled out eight miles in a snowstorm. The pain got progressively worse until six weeks later I could barely walk. It ended my running career, but physical therapy got me back on the trail, and I have no more than a bit of occasional minor soreness.

Though less consequential, the other injury was more spectacular. I accidentally demonstrated why certain agaves are commonly called shin daggers. A little late and a bit off course, I was moving fast and thinking hard when I felt a sharp jab high on my shin. I stepped back and looked down. After determining that there wasn't even a hole in my pants or a missing tip on the agave, I thanked my good luck and moved on. Half a minute later, I looked down again and noticed that whole lower third of my pant leg was dark. I instantly dropped my pack and my pants, grabbed the first aid kit, and applied a splash of water and firm pressure to where the blood was pumping out in big spurts. Amazingly, after two minutes it was so completely sealed that I could have hiked on without even a bandage. I rested for half an hour, drank a quart of Gatorade and moved on with no ill effects. I'm pretty sure it had penetrated the bone, so I did go back and take an even closer look at the plant to be sure that no foreign matter would be in the wound. For the next few weeks I worried about possible infection, but I never had the slightest discomfort after the initial poke.

Nothing major...

hurt my tailbone while playing volleyball in the 5th grade - it still aches if I sit on it wrong

sprained fingers multiple times catching footballs

while hiking in the Mineral King area of SEKI I fell crossing a small stream, a sharp rock or stick impaled my leg, but I hauled myself out and hiked the rest of the way - got some first aid at the ranger station, then drove into Visalia and got some stitches

I suspect that my "injury" is sometime in the future. "Yet to come...", sayeth he who can only speak sooth.

I have been really lucky. Everyone around me seems to get injured while I steam on.

OTOH, I did drop my bike once while pretending to be in a motorcycle race on a series of badly surfaced roads that loop around the tiny burg of Creedmoor, south of Austin. Ripped off most of the skin on my left hand and leg and had to drive the bike home with one hand. I should have taken warning when I overshot a turn for the third time and used a barditch as a "runout". But, no, I continued on and finally found the end of a paved stretch that made a hard, 90 degree left turn - onto gravel. That one got me.

I stepped on a rock on a Halloween night in my pasture and severely sprained my ankle. I had to hop back to the house (1/4 mile) until Carol heard me yelling and came out to help me the rest of the way in. They put me in a cast for a week, then a walking cast for 4 weeks and I've not had any problems for the last 30 years with that ankle.

Here are a few.

1. This past January. Bike wrecked when my pedal struck the curve and I went down. Woke up in the Emergency Room with half my face skinned up. The broken helmet indicated what could have happened to my head. Final bill including ambulance ride was about 22,000 dollars. My payout was 250 dollars.

2. Backpacking last year I slightly felt my left foot twist into a depression. Didn't feel a thing and kept going. That night, when I took off my boots, I had to most excruciating pain ever as my foot ballooned up from intense swelling. I only had aspirin and ate three. It took 45 minutes for the swelling to go down a little and the pain to become bearable. I had to walk 8 miles the next day to get to the bailout point.

3. A few years ago while participating in a charitable event called the Bisbee 1000 where you climb a 1000 steps over a 4 mile course along the streets and hillsides of Bisbee, Arizona. These steps are up to 100 years old and not always "standard". On the last leg, I was on steps that were about 6 inches tall and three feet long. In the large crowd I had a hard time getting a rhythm and fell. I stopped my fall with the palm of my hand landing on the edge of the step in front. I broke my wrist. (First bone ever broken.) Because my job entails having to use my hands I went on 4 months of short-term disability and got full pay for sitting around the house.

Nothing too serious, thankfully.

When I first started my foray into mountaineering I was hiking up some local slopes, scrambling some small cliff bands. One night after work and with some fresh snowfall I hit up a familiar trail, one the hardest/grindiest that can be found out here. Left my axe at home and was wearing awfully slick shoes, relying mostly on clever footing rather than normal self-belay one would do with their axe. Around 3/4 of the way up, standing on a 45 degree slope four steps from a level section at the base of cliff band #2 my clever footing wasn't clever enough. I slid around 10' down the slope, careened off the 8' cliff band #1 landed hard on my side and kept sliding until I lodged between a tree and the rock. Just sort of laid there for a couple minutes recounting what just happened. When I worked up the nerve I started a self-assessment: wiggling my fingers and toes, feeling around for punctures, lacerations, broken bones. Satisfied that I was mostly in one piece I sat up and was suddenly reminded of the 40' sheer drop that runs parallel to and about 6' from the trail. It could have been a lot worse if I'd tumbled differently. From there I butt-glissed down the remainder and hobbled back along the approach to my car. A full sweep of the body back home showed torn up hands (from trying to grab at anything I could hold during the initial slide), major bruising up the length of one leg and all along the side I landed on, and two scoops of small cuts and abrasions for good measure. I did a stupid thing and paid a price.

More recently, I've developed stress fractures in both my tibiae. I've always hated running, but over the past couple years have found a certain enjoyment in trail running. I've never had any issues, not a shin-splint, nothing. Starting to feel competent and confident lately, I somehow managed to double my distance in a little over a week. however, continuing to push this distance has not fared well for my shins, which now plague me with sharp concentrated pain where they are fractured should I attempt to run at all. Slower hiking is still okay and my swimming is unaffected, but just when I was really starting to find my groove with the running...

I've got friends who've done a lot worse than I, snowboarding off cliffs or into trees. Another who broke her leg x-country skiing on the Antarctic peninsula.