The funny and the idiotic mistakes

[MrEd]

A few years ago me and the now-wife were camping out by Loch Doon in Ayrshire - morning comes, woken up by some free-roaming sheep bleating past the tent at 7am. So I decide that I'll make the wife a brew and some breakfast. I get out my knife to make a pan-hook/hanger - make a cross cut, then cut the end off. At this point I realise that I shouyldn't have trimmed the end yet, and I go "Ahhh, I'll be fine cutting towards me" :togo:

A few seconds later I ask my wife to pass me the bottle of water, and she calls me lazy for not getting it myself. She looks around and sees blood pouring from my left hand and goes white.

I cleaned it up, nice sharp razor-style cut (benefits of a sharp knife) when the wife says "What's that white thing sticking out of it?"

I opened my first aid kit, got out a pair of tweezers and decided to find out myself (my pride was hurt!).

Every time I pulled on the white thing, my finger jerked. At that point the wife whipped me down to A&E to get it looked at properly!

Luckily it turned out to just be a bit of skin rather than a tendon, but I did get to look at my own tendon when the doctor was patching me back up!

i once cut a tendon in my hand on a slicing machine when i worked in a butchers. it was a neat cut and didnt bleed much but for the life of me i couldnt work out why 3 of my fingers worked and 1 didnt lol. had to have a bit of a sew job to sort that one out, the local a+e sent me to a special plastics unit lol

 

[bushcraft_lad]

Hehe so good so far At Altcar training camp in 09 one of the cadet's didn't bother to check the floor for blank round's and set his Hexi burner up Few minute's later BANG followed by the most blood curdelling scream Turn's out he has his burner over a blank round with has been embedded into the ground when the training was going on earlier in the day No serious damage but he didn't eat his rat pack after that!

 

[hairyhippy]

I was camping in the Lakes with a couple of friends. We had a few beers. We went to bed. My friend got up in the night to go to the loo which was just across the stream from us. He couldn't find the bridge and so, in his infinite wisdom decided to wade across the stream. Half way across he banged his head on the bridge. Amazingly, in the morning only one of his boots had gotten wet. Even more amazingly, so had one of mine.

 

[axemangler]

As a young bushcrafter 13-15 years old I aquired some dry cleaning fluid which I took with me to our usual derelict mill in Thorner Leeds we lit our fire and promptly started to cook our Baked potato's and tickled trout (I kid you not) I thought it would be a laugh to throw the fluid on the fire as I though it would burst into flames....it did not...my friend was down wind of the cloud of steamy looking gas and took the full brunt, collapsing to the ground....I thought I had killed him and threw water over him and shook him but he still remained unconcious for about ten minutes, when he came round he threw up and was poorley for about a week....Sorry David, my best mate....I never did anything so stupid again.

 

[Damascus]

Double muppet, I have just gone and cut one side to the sheath left handed again the other right, I think some one is telling me not to continue with this knife. ha ha

 

[locum76]

I love this thread for its honesty and its ability to make me giggle. We still haven't heard from the old timers yet, maybe they've forgotten their past mistakes....

 

[Miyagi]

I love this thread for its honesty and its ability to make me giggle. We still haven't heard from the old timers yet, maybe they've forgotten their past mistakes....

Nope not forgotten, more a case of we'd rather not remember - we'd fill the thread up.

Ok, here goes...

Many, many moons ago on exercise I at last managed to get into my 58 sleeping bag. I'd been lugging it around for long enough and was fed up with the green maggot bouncing off the back of my tin lid every time I stepped/stumbled etc.

I was cold, wet, knackered, my ears were killing me, my feet and hands were numb and there was an icy wind blowing. I was getting grumpy and very close to being "over tired"...

Having fashioned some scrim net into a "headscarf" and tied it under my chin, I decided to zip the mummy bag all the way up, I was sheltered from the weather in my poncho shellscrape and it was bliss. I was asleep in an instant.

I woke up at dark o'clock needing a peee.

I tried to sit up.
I tried to turn around.
I tried to "move".

I went ballistic in an instant in a wave of claustraphobia and panic - being a skinny laddie (at that time) and just over 9 stones, I'd managed to get twisted in the bag, waking up face down with the scrim net "headscarf" acting like a mummies bandages.

It took four of my mates to hold the thrashing sleeping bag down only to discover the zip was jammed on a bit of scrim net. They slashed the zip open and I exploded from it like a Geordie escaping a spelling test. Thankfully I still needed to go for a peee.

I spent the remaining exercise with a 58 bag that didn't close and got called everything you can imagine and more.

Envelope style sleeping bags have gotten my vote ever since...

 

[woodspirits]

hmm, well a few years ago me and mine were backpacking up along the west coast of scotland by arisaig,

tramping along i noticed a big rock in a dry stone wall was hanging out precariously right alongside the road, 'this is dangerous' i said 'it could fall into the road' so i went to push it back in, it was heavy, it slipped i slipped and it broke my foot!

she found it hilarious as i was hobbling around the highlands, didnt want to take my boot off convinced it was full of blood (it wasnt)

 

[Sanji]

When i was a wee boy. On guy fawkes night, with many bonfire's going, like ya do in a built up council estate. i was throwing what i could into the fire (mainly from the refuse sacks in the bin area lol) i noticed this long item in the fire, so i decided to pick it out, well i screamed n let go very quickly. Turned out to be a long steel rod, well i now still have a lined scar going across the inside of my 4 fingers on right hand lol (Never pick anything out of a fire lol)

 

[JonathanD]

When i was a wee boy. On guy fawkes night, with many bonfire's going, like ya do in a built up council estate. i was throwing what i could into the fire (mainly from the refuse sacks in the bin area lol) i noticed this long item in the fire, so i decided to pick it out, well i screamed n let go very quickly. Turned out to be a long steel rod, well i now still have a lined scar going across the inside of my 4 fingers on right hand lol (Never pick anything out of a fire lol)

I did the same thing with a small Beswick ceramic owl someone had thrown into the bonfire the night before. Everything else was cool, but that little thing was as hot as the coals of hell.

 

[tinkerer]

not really bushcraft related but when i was training( im a plumber) on a few occasions i have unscrewed the trap from under a sink ,then look around for somewhere to pour the usually smelly bit of water left in the trap .....and poured it in the sink. this is especially spectacular if you happen to still be lying under the sink. lol and the amount of times i've picked up a piece of copper that i have just soldered you wouldnt believe.

 

[Biker]

not really bushcraft related but when i was training( im a plumber) on a few occasions i have unscrewed the trap from under a sink ,then look around for somewhere to pour the usually smelly bit of water left in the trap .....and poured it in the sink. this is especially spectacular if you happen to still be lying under the sink.

I saw one of the plumbers do the same thing while I was fitting new locks to a public toilet door. Only he wasn't working under a sink but the urinal! :yikes:

Great stories here. Has anyone read the similar thread over at British Blades Mr Clumsy thread or something like that? Some of those stories will make you wince, in fact most of them will.

Right my little story. Camping in the New Forest with wife and two young kids and a few friends. "Ooh this looks like a nice place." says I pointing at the lovely flat bowl. We pitch up.

Started getting dinner ready and one of our girl friends had her own tent but had forgot her torch, so she lit her gaz stove to illuminate the inside of the tent. Somehow she managed to unscrew the burner and the butane escaped and caught fire. She had flash burns on her face but managed to kick this burning ball of fire out of her tent. I saw it and rushed to kick it further away ... straight under the fly sheet of my own tent.

I was never any good at football. :togo: Luckily my second kick got it out before it did any damage.

So wife takes Samantha to A&E for her flash burns and the rest of us settle down for the night. About 1am in comes the heavy rain and that lovely flat bowl we'd camped in turned out to be a dried up pond which soon filled up again.

That was a long night sleeping with two ratty kids on a picnic bench waiting for the car to come back to drive home to Kent. The rest of our friends weren't happy about my camp site choice either

The end of it was Samanatha's face was so sore couldn't wear her motorbike helmet so I had to ride her BSA A10 180 miles wearing a crash helmet 2 sizes too small.

Ahhhhh Memories :vio:

 

[TJRoots]

The end of it was Samanatha's face was so sore couldn't wear her motorbike helmet so I had to ride her BSA A10 180 miles wearing a crash helmet 2 sizes too small.

i feel for ya man

TJ

 

[Biker]

i feel for ya man

TJ

I shouldn't snigger but I bet you do after your run in with cupboards during the middle of the night. Always wondered what an "I can't believe that happened." expression looked like, as that first picture of you shows.

Hope the headache's gone now.

Added to wearing a helmet 2 sizes too small that old Beezer was a bone-shaker too, right hand gear change etc. My feet were numb after a while riding it it vibrated so much.

There's a limit to how much nostalgia I'd want from a motorcycle. Give me a Jap bike any day.

Yes I remembered to wipe up the oil stain whenever I stopped.

Excuse the thread hijack. I'll get back to my Betty drawing now.

 

[Peter_t]

just thought of another one,
was cooking breakfast and was waiting for the frying pan to heat up. i check if the oil was hot enough by poking it and succeeded in cooking the tip of my finger not one of my best moves lol



pete

 

[Glydr]

Just last night I attempted to cook some lamb chops on my log fireplace on top of a semi circular grill mesh, they tasted ok but were in hindsight a bit undercooked.
"What the hell" I thought. "If bear grills can eat raw zebra that he found, I'm sure I can manage some very rare lamb chops".
A few hours later the trouble started, it felt like really severe trapped wind and stomach cramps, then my eyes felt like they rolled back in my head, felt all dizzy, all the colour dained from my face and I started sweating buckets, had to lie down for bout 20 minutes and sweat it out, then another 20 minutes or so sat on the bog not really with it.
Lesson learned, cook lamb properly

 

[Biker]

Lamb's supposed to be cooked? Really?

That explains a lot. :togo:

All this time ...... I thought it was an allergy to it that gave me guts ache.

Hope you're feeling better now, ya gotta

 

[MrEd]

ok this isnt bushcraft related but it involves a tent. secondly it didnt happen to me but one of my best frineds when he was in iraq with the army.

ok its well known that soldiers overseas can sometimes get 'sticky brown leg disease' well my friend was in his tent with his mate watching other soldiers who had said infliction running out of their tent to the communal bogs some distance away. they were having jolly japes seeing who made it and who didnt. anyway they got bored after a while and went to bed. In the early hours of the morning my friend woke up with that 'unsettled' feeling in his stomach - knowing what was going to happen he got up and went straight for the bog at a run. now it was dark so he couldnt see that well, and the tents all had large metal storm pegs at about shin height for the guy ropes.

so anyway my mate ran to the loo trying not to s**t himself, on the way in the dark he ran into a storm peg and cut his shin, he pitched forward in the dark and caught the guyrope under his nose giving himself a comedy hitler style friction burn mustache, he then found himself laying on the floor bleeding with a sore lip and sh** in his pants.

guess that karma for you.......

as for things i have done

- rolled over in my hamock to reach out and get my water bottle and been dumped on my face

- kicked over a lit meths stove

- set out for the day and left the meths and water bottles on the side at home

- tied my hammock up, did a good knot at one end and a temp knot on the other end whilst i adjusted the other side. forgot about temp knot, jumped in and got dumped on the floor. i use a different system now

- made a debris shelter with a less than sturdy standing dead branch - i got in it and 'crack' the lot nearly crunched my bonce.

 

[helixpteron]

ok here's a fresh one, happened last night. not exactly funny or idiotic, but rather ironic. as bushcrafters we all use sharp tools alot, so you'd think if any of us had to go to hospital to get stitches it would be due to an accident with something sharp, or at least from doing something bushcrafty, but not me, i managedto cut my head open in my sleep whilst doing nothing but sleeping, here's how it happened.
above my bed i have a big wall mounted cabinet full of gubbins, yesteray evening when getting a lighter out of it i noticed it was starting to come loose on the wall, so i took out the heavier stuff thinking "it'll be fine till the morning then i can re-mount it". boy was i wrong, at 1am last night when i was sound asleep, it fell off the wall and straight onto my head, cutting my head open right by my left eye, i awoke in a pool of my own blood buried beneath this rather heavy cabinet. one ambulance ride down the hospital later (i was too concussed to get there any other way) i have 6 stitches, 4 steri-strips and one half of my face is considerably larger than the other. here's some pics:

at the hospital

when i'd gotten home from the hospital 6 hours later

rather ironic that with all the stupid stuff i do my worst injury to date happened to me whilst i was sleeping. and i'll tell you this for nothing, its not a nice way to be woken up, not at all!

ATB
TJ

This is simply outstanding!

 

[Harvestman]

Mine isn't very funny. Spur of the moment decision to go walking when the wife was away. Got up at stupid o'clock, drove to mid wales, arrived before a september sunrise. No-one knew where I was. Walked too far, ran out of energy, food and water. Made a navigation error and lost an awful lot of height on my route, and then realised how tired i was when I had to start climbing again, into a stiff headwind. So tired I could only walk about 20 yards at a time, and dehydrated, so I couldn't add up the four coins in my wallet. Lost the path. No mobile phone signal of course. Made it back to the car as the sun set, and got safely home.

I learned a lot of things that day. Mainly about what not to do.

I'm a much better outdoorsman now as a result of that day.