An old college friend was missing half his middle finger. Whenever he told the story of how he lost it, he would start by saying-
"You know those sharp edges on water fountains?"
I never did figure out what kind of Hellraiser-esque water fountain he was drinking from.
Broken wrist from the monkey bars. Actually my 6 year old flirt trick was to pretend I wasn’t interested in playing, catch the eye of the boy I liked, and then go sit by a tree looking at rocks until he came over. This plan rarely failed for some reason
Growing up so many kids broke their arms falling off playground equipment. I definitely got my share of bumps and bruises playing on them. I have taken that springy toy in the first page to the nuts and face as a young boy, puked from the merry go round and damn near broke my neck hanging upside down off the monkey bars.
I once slipped off of a jungle gym and had a couple feet of free fall before I grabbed the bar on the way down. Unfortunately I grabbed it with my mouth. Goodbye baby teeth, I hardly knew ye.
The best part? It was my birthday.
I still have little pitted scars on my chin from missing the landing off the monkey bars during a penny drop gone wrong. Brushed it off, tried again with blood running down my face. Nailed it. This was maybe 3rd or 4th grade.
In kindergarten or 1st grade, I was playing on one of the "big toys." Wooden and metal monstrosity on the playground. Unbeknownst to me, wasps had made their home near the top. Stuck my hand in their home. That was an ER visit, more from the many MANY stings than the fall though.
1984. August. Teeter totter, fifth birthday party. Two kids on either end, four total. I'm behind one & definitely not holding on. Other side came down hard; I flew off and land on the top of my head hard. Almost certainly got a concussion. Fairly certain I lost consciousness briefly. Once it was declared I was "fine," we went on with the party. I definitely held on next time I was on the teeter totter.
Facts. You weren't "one of the guys" unless you took your turn getting launched at max-speed off that crazy thing. You got extra points if you got injured.
Hell yeah! Being thrown off a merry-go-round was the closest to flying we could get and always came back for more. The goal of course was to see who could hang on the longest without puking.
Second closest to flying was jumping from the swing at it's highest peak.
I don't even know what that second image is. We never had one of those anywhere I've lived.
Oh yeah, but I gotta admit, I wasn't *that* brave. I tried jumping off standing at a low height and somehow my foot got caught the chain. I faceplanted, stood up then got knocked back down by the returning swing slamming me in the back. Good times.
No worries. I was crying then laughing after the swing knocked me down. Of course, my friends... they were briefly concerned then quickly burst into fall on the ground laughter.
I look back terrified at the tricks my mates and I used to pull. One was standing on the swing, then kick into a 'back flip' off i.e. you let the swing carry on it's rotation above your head.
Then as if that wasn't crazy enough we decided to up the anti by having another person attached to the underside of the swing seat whilst the person standing would power it up. Then both try to exit safely as in the person underneath first. We were like circus acts because we were so fearless by the time we were late teens!
I have kids now and I'm petrified if the floor isn't appropriately cushioned 🤣
Those tricks sound really crazy. I get it with the kids though. My kids (6 & 8) just seem so fragile to me right now. I don't go to any safety extremes, but I do make them wear helmets when riding their bikes -- something my parents never enforced with me at those ages. My kids aren't quite to the point of jumping dirt hills or homemade ramps yet, but I still comfort them when they fall. But eventually, I gotta give them a chance to do dumb and crazy things so they, too, can reminisce about the dumb crazy things they did as kids, too.
Ours wasn't close to that high but we did jump off about a 15ft one and quickly learned that you won't just float to the ground like a skydiver if you use just a large trash bag as a parachute. How none of us broke any bones is really short of a miracle.
Witches hat. Super fun. But also a very heavy object that if you fell off and it swung back as you sat up, it was right at head/neck level.
I only saw a few people get knocked out! Everyone learned to hang on better!
My dad would take us to McDonald's when they had the astroturfed playground and spin us as fast as he could. The winner stayed on and the loser received friction burns from being flung off.
We got pushed super fast on the merry go round as kids and I was getting dizzy so I got off and took my toddler sister to sit on my lap on a swing. I totally blacked out and fell backwards, with her hard little head hitting my mouth. This caused my top teeth to gouge out a small piece of my top lip. So yeah, merry go round for me.
I loved that thing. Used to get it going so fast you were hanging on for dear life and your hands were the only parts of your body touching anything. It was glorious
I decided to play prone on the spinning merry go round, basically be a human radius. As the fixture spun faster, everything flew out of my pockets (including candy and coins) and eventually I flew straight into the mud. Fun times!
My dad pushed the merry go round super fast and I flew through the air and landed in the grass. One of my sisters barfed in the car. I barfed immediately when we got home. Mother not amused.
I just remember a small merry go round where someone had vomited Apple Jacks or Fruit Loops cereal on it. No one was going to wipe it off, so it remained unused and no one wanted to go near it.
Photo 8/10? That sucker launched me a dozen times or so when at the park with my older brother and his friends. It’s a miracle I was never seriously injured. 😂
Monkey bars- fell and landed on my back and it knocked the air out of me. Teacher was there to help bend at the waist and get air back in my lungs
The wheelie go round flung me off. Avoided it like the plague after that
I got my pinky finger stuck in an empty screw hole in the metal stagecoach during recess one early spring when I was in 1st frade. Everybody went inside after the bell rang and I sat out in the cold until my teacher noticed I was missing and came out with a recess monitor and some dish soap. I was sure I was going to freeze to death.
We had these on so many playgrounds in my area
https://preview.redd.it/yrwn3id9s82f1.jpeg?width=260&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=977633230672ea654f547e8881890d75b54b504b
It was a lot of fun - monkey bars on top, hiding places below the seats, and those metal horses on springs on front. We had all sorts of different kinds of adventures on that thing.
I got my finger stuck in a peg hole in one of the cafeteria tables! The lunch lady tried using oil, but it didn't work, so the fire department had to come cut a chunk out of the table to free me.
https://preview.redd.it/dz9ct943u82f1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=ccf3ff9cfa94b9f12b8e00bb5afce7c9a9eae719
We had a kid break his arm after he fell from the top. They took them away the very next day. RIP flesh ripper
Ours had a bar just under the top (for extra support, I guess?). When I was 6 I decided to hang from it in the dead of winter. My hands slipped off the ice and I fell on my back, knocking the wind out of myself. I remember lying there thinking, "Oh, I'm not breathing. I must be dead "
I fell from the top of a slide when I was 6 and landed face first on the stepping stone at the bottom. Lost four teeth. It took another kid falling off of it to get them to take the slide down.
This slide in the winter was the fastest thing ever. Ours was at the very top of a hill, too, so if you rode it in snow pants on an icy day it shout you an extra 100 feet easy down the hill.
At our afterschool daycare, the big kids would get a running start to run up the slide and jump off the sides. I remember vividly one day every kid lining up against the farthest back fence (to get the most speed) and one by one going up the slide and jumping. One of the high school kids that was watching us must have helped to organize this event, because it was the entire play yard queued up and no one dissuading us. Well one girl ran, jumped, and landed weird and didn't get up. Suddenly the entire line of waiting kids was being walked past this heap of an unconscious kid and into one of the classrooms. I remember seeing firefighters and us speculating if the girl was dead. She came back to daycare a few days later with both arms in casts. I don't recall anyone getting in trouble for encouraging this, only being told no more jumping off the slide.
That metal was hotter than the surface of the sun some days. And not always slippery, so you'd try to slide and go juddering down it while your ass sizzled like friggin bacon... and have to use your hands on this hotplate from hell to shove your burned bottom the rest of the way down... good times.
Our elementary school swing was over asphalt. One day before school I was on there and the rubber seat broke in half on the way back. I remember screaming and face planting.
They asked if I wanted to go home and my dumbass said no.
We had the 20 foot tall slide with the bar at the top for flipping over. It was prolly meant to make you duck before you went down but we always did a flip over it then slid down
One time I flipped over the bar and missed the slide
Fell 15-20 feet on my back
Could have been paralyzed
Those slides were...something. Looking back, I just have to wonder if the adults just really didn't like the kids of our generation lol.
I never fell off, but I donated a lot of skin from the back of my thighs to that flaming hot metal or inevitably rough spot either at the top or along one of the hilariously low side retaining walls.
I remember smaller kids falling just going up the stairs and then it was 6-8 feet of metal steps to break the fall.
In the summer, you could literally cook on these things
Hang on to the rail of the merry go round and then have a very irresponsible adult or older kid spin it so fast that you're suspended vertically in the air and holding on by your fingertips. Then fly off and land in the sand or, in my case, against a chain link fence.
The swing sets with the rubber seats kinda like pic 6/10. 4th grade me was swinging as high as I could. You know, the point where the chains briefly go slack at the top. I was giving it the beans on my front swing trying for more when the hook tore out of the seat as the chain snapped tight again. As I recall my launch angle was all wrong causing me to crash land on my hands and knees and that is how I broke both of my wrists at once.
The swings were premium playtime. I stood in line to get the next available. Pretty sure I saw the underside of Jesus’ sandals when I got ejected.
Thankfully both wrists healed fine. What really sucked about it was the plaster casts. That’s a whole different set of stories.
My friend got smacked hard with a metal swing and fell backwards . We were told not to bother our parents unless someone was bleeding but it was like more of a concussion. We eventually decided to get our parents and we still kind of got yelled at for letting her whack her head
Of all the lethal things at my local park, my worst injury was from mistiming a jump from the swings.
I was hoping for distance and waited too long and got height instead. Bellyflopped probably from twelve feet or so right onto the sand. Turns out sand can crack ribs.
Pic 2. They are on it backwards. Legs on the outside. We had this one and a standing version with just the bar and it work like a merry go round /seesaw that you hung onto. Get running and pick up your feet. Last one still holding on wins
Our elementary school had those monkey bars in pic 3, but we called them Rainbow Bars. And about 10 feet to the side were the swings. Every single day, we would jump off the swings to fly and land inches away from the metal legs of the rainbow bars. Amazing that I never saw anyone actually hit them.
Me and a friend were by the monkey bars in kindergarten. he was like "I can pick you up" and he did. Then I was like oh yeah? bet I can pick you up! he was like no you can't. well I tried anyway and somehow dropped him on his head and knocked him out cold. I didn't know what to do so I ran and hid. I guess someone else found him and thought he had just fallen off the monkey bars himself. I felt so bad I guess I blocked out that memory till many years later he brought it up, "remember that time you dropped me on my head?" he told me he had to have stitches and everything. I felt horrible. but in my defense I was only 5 at the time.
Was on a seesaw. The person pushing me up and down pushed me up really fast all of a sudden, I slid forward hard into the handle, and there was a lot of pain. I’m pretty sure things were torn such that some people would consider me no longer a virgin at the ripe old age of 4.
My arm got caught half way down the tube slide at McDonald’s. The rest of me continued. Another kid tried to fix it by coming down on top if me and putting all tgeir weight on that shoulder. I was screaming for a while before someone realized I was actually stuck and not just being weird.
I was swinging off the top of the ladder of the monkey bars with the ring on a chain. Went for the wide swing and the rusted chain broke and I landed on my face! Bit right through my bottom lip and got 5 stitches. I was 10 and still have the scar.
Jumped off the playset my elementary school had. There was on one bar across the bridge part until after I jumped off it. Then they added a few more so kids couldn't jump.
Gave the teachers a heart attack. I had a few scrapes.
In my 20’s, my boyfriend at the time and I were at a park and we thought it would be fun to get on the seesaw. His side was down and I was all the way up and he wouldn’t let me down, I lost my balance on the little seat and couldn’t hold on, I fell flat on my back. That knocked the wind out of me and had me in pain for dayyyyyys.
When I was 5 years old, a girl on the playground cracked her skull on the metal AF merry-go-round. There was a blood trail from the playground to where she was carried to get into an ambulance.
My elementary school playground had some uneven bars. We had a new kid who could spin around the bars. Well I took gymnastics and was a daredevil so I tried it. Pulled myself up, grasped the bar at thigh level and threw myself forward. I spun around the bar, all right, spun forward, hands slipped off the bar, flipped in the air and landed flat on my back with the wind completely knocked out of me. A boy in my class came running over, bent down near my face, then yelled 'Coach! I think she's dead!'
I wasn't dead but man I hurt for a few days. It's a miracle I wasn't seriously hurt. Man I was a dumbass.
There was a lake my mom used to take us to a lot with a big playground, they had a couple of these things that looked like big caterpillars and the "back" of them was all rollers. Basically impossible to stand or do anything on and very easy to pinch fingers. It looked like head trauma waiting to happen.
Oh, hell yeah. I had a good one. Remember those dome-shaped monkey bars things? I slipped upside down and smashed the back of my head against it. Hard. I literally think I damaged something. I had crippling headaches for a year. We didn't have insurance so we didn't get it looked at.
Not even on the equipment, just running around the playground when I tripped and fell chest-first onto a metal bar between two pieces of equipment. Knocked the wind out of myself.
Didn't almost die but still feel the second degree burns from the metal slides..especially if your sweaty shorts or bathing suit felt like stopping you mid slide
https://preview.redd.it/9ozd76eppd2f1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b082d6644e6edcbb566eca7a601867a330b1f44
This crazy spinny helicopter of death we had at the local playground was pretty gnarly, it was pretty high up on the ground the thing would spin around and kids would jump off.
I rode my bike down a hill and grabbed the chin up bars. I went around 3 times till my grip gave way, thought I broke my neck. I couldn't breathe for what seemed like an eternity. Ended up in a neck brace for 2 weeks.
I broke my arm on the gymnast rings when I was 5.
I was too short to reach them, and hopping wasn't helping... so I found a thick (but rotten) tree branch laying off to the side and used that to boost myself to grab the rings.
And then I had the idea that I was going to do this cool move I saw older kids doing-- where they would do a backflip with the rings, then they'd let go of the rings, but their backward momentum allowed them to complete the flip and land on their feet.
Me, being 5, and not understanding momentum or the hazard I placed underneath my feet-- I barely get a flip going (after a few tries swinging back and forth) and when I got upside down I let go of the rings, dropped like a rock, and my arm chopped the rotten limb in half-- but it ended up breaking my arm in two places in the process.
I remember holding my limp arm while running over to my mom and then passing out from shock in the back of the car.
The 4-person swing with chairs facing each other. I got caught under it as it was going fast, scraped my back and threw me, landing on my head. 15 stitches.
My daycare had two big piles of mulch delivered. We had people stand between them. They were alligators. Then other people had to jump from one to the other while the alligators tried to grab them and pull them down. Then the person from the middle could climb to the top. I don’t know how we didn’t get splinters.
I broke/fractured my back and didn't know it until I was in my 30s that showed in an x-ray (so about 10 years ago). I have no idea what you would even call this thing, but it was as high up as monkey bars but had handles for both hands and you kind of ziplined across. But it was more of a ball bearing contraption instead of a zipline. I lost grip and fell. HARD. I was alone (of course, 80s) and just sat there, stunned, for a good 10 minutes. Add to it, the inevitable injury from using the seesaw with some asshole kid. Honorable mention for the merry-go-round and the near vomiting.
Some kids would hang onto the chain after pushing and spinning the tire real good. So they would be spinning around, legs flailing, hanging on for dear life. One time I saw a kid lose his grip and fly through the air face first into a wooden pole. We got banned from the tire swings for a bit after that.
Oh those boy bikes!! I’ve hurt myself that way on those too but not so bad . I actually just avoided them after a few injuries.
Major bike injury: when i was 5 i was riding the handlebars on my big sister’s friends bike and either I was barefoot or wearing flipflops and my foot got caught in the tire spokes and it slices half way through my heel.
My big bike injury was when I wanted to ride down the big hill like my neighbors brother, and just ended up sliding down on my face. I couldn't see because of all the blood pouring into my eyes
We used to hang upside down from the monkey bars, with the bar in the bend of our knees. Sometimes we would let go with our hands and literally just hang.
When I was about 7, I did this on a super hot day when the backs of my knees were sweaty, and fell down into the wood chips, landing right on my neck. Felt like hours before I was able to open my eyes though I’m sure it was seconds.
When I did so, there were no adults anywhere. Just two friends my age. Nobody really making sure I was okay. Lolol. I have neck issues to this day!
We had one of the dome kind and it just had hard dirt and rocks under it. I loved riding at it full speed on my bicycle and jumping off to grab the bars as I went underneath.
I was always afraid to try it but lotsa kids, mostly girls would do a “cherry drop” of the bar. From 3rd grade and on (I remember specifically 3rd, cause a moved to a new school that grade and was amazed at kids doing this lol).
https://i.redd.it/zg750p4k892f1.gif
I tried this move and hit my head so bad on the ground they sent me home. If it was today, I would have been sent to the hospital because I’m pretty sure I had a concussion. Lesson learned though as I never played on the bars again.
I did this repetitively during recess, we had uneven parallel bars too so I could do a double drop even. I swear that's the only reason our PE coach gave me a special athletics achievement medal at our fifth grade awards ceremony, because I sure as shit couldn't run or play any sports.
We did this and then swung ourselves forward and back for momentum, until we jumped off, did a flip and landed on our feet. We called them “cherry bombs” and the school outlawed them but they also didn’t set anyone to watch us at recess so we just kept doing it. Amazingly no one broke their neck.
We had a couple gymnastic bars beside the monkey bars and my friends were showing off that they could do forward and back flips on them. I wanted to prove I would as well. I'll never know for sure how long I was unconscious since all the kids yelled different numbers, but when I opened my eyes somebody had already grabbed one of the adults.
We used to play chicken on the monkey bars where you try to knock people off American Gladiators style. I never saw anything bad happen though, just kids getting kicked in the stomach a lot.
It was late 80s. I was about 6. I was playing at my school’s playground. My mom called for me saying it was time to leave. I ran away from her yelling “5 more minutes!” I was looking behind me as I ran away and as I turned back around, I hit the monkey bars head first. This was when monkey bars were made from metal piping. My forehead split open and before I could utter a word, I was covered in blood. I thought I was going to die. It looked worse than it was though, I now have a scar on my forehead that you can’t really see but can feel.
I’m pretty sure everyone had that swingset that wasn’t properly anchored and whenever you swung really high, you were on the verge of it tipping over but kept right on swinging anyway yea?
We were always trying to max out on the swings and then jump off from the top to get maximum air, ankles be damned.
One day the kid next to me goes flying but hung on to the chain too long, and the swing recoils back and starts thrashing around. The chain whipped me right in the face *POW!* It stung, but I didn't think too much of it. I just held my chin where it hurt.
Recess was ending so I started walking back with everyone else. Pretty soon other kids started staring it me and saying "oh my god what happened??" Then I teacher stopped me so I knew something was wrong.
I looked at my hand, it was covered in blood, and dripping onto the ground. The skin on my chin was split open about an inch.
It looked a lot worse then it felt. They called my parents. My dad took me to the hospital for a couple stitches, and then some ice cream.
Pretty good day all in all!
Bonus points for getting the swing set to rock back and forth by standing and aggressively surfing on that see-saw swing thing that was always rusty and extremely good at squishing your fingers.
Learning your limits (within a reasonable level of risk) and how NOT to get hurt is an important part of growing up, which seems to be slipping away.
My 9 & 13 yr olds seem quite scared of doing anything which could physically harm them and my wife tends to coddle and let them get away without even trying… 🤦🏼♂️
Teaching them just how to ride a bike without training wheels was such a chore due to their trepidation.
I’m always a bit sad when I see old playground equipment being removed from public parks. The monkey bars and swings I played on as a kid were ripped out in favor of one of those plastic play sets. I took some pictures knowing that it wasn’t going to last (the slide, merry go round and springy animals were long removed). Circa 1984 this was the epicenter for kids in the neighborhood to play. Now it’s a ghost town.
https://preview.redd.it/knft3e2dhc2f1.jpeg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=45fe71dab1a2a5e6aabf74b4a974e6b60356e800
We used to swing so high on those rubber swings that centrifugal force stopped working for a fraction of a second, and then jump off the swing. No one broke any bones that I saw, but one kid did a toes-knees-nose landing and bled a lot. The swings at the school playground were supervised after that.
Ah yeah we would launch ourselves and somehow straighten out and land on our feet. I messed it up one time and got a very real concussion. My parents just sort of watched me and put ice on my head lol.
I decided to jump off the swing when I was as high as I could go. Did not go as planned, landed bad on my stomach, knocked the wind out of me, proceeded to feel like I was dying, while being scared my mom would find me and yell at me.
I had one of the corkscrew animals break while I was on it. I fell over with the massive thing on me and had to have help getting it off of me.
My neighbors had a swing set and one day I ran past a screw that had lost its protective cap and got a gnarly cut from it.
I’m also old enough to have played on a McDonald’s playground. I have no idea how I fit inside the hamburglar’s little burger prison.
>knocked the wind out of me, proceeded to feel like I was dying
Right??? I had no idea what it was when I did it (at like 10) just literally thought I was going to die.
> I’m also old enough to have played on a McDonald’s playground. I have no idea how I fit inside the hamburglar’s little burger prison.
Just thinking about this is giving me major claustrophobia vibes. I remember feeling that I was too big for it the last time that I went in one.
This is exactly how I sprained my arm at age 11. Except it was in our backyard, and my parents were at a football game. Since we didn’t have cell phones in those days, I just had to wait a few hours until they got home to take me to the hospital. Because leaving your 11 year old home alone for an evening was somehow okay in those days.
Karate/kung fu were major themes in movies back then so we’d do flip offs into karate poses. Same deal with the increased supervision. Looking back I’m like, why the hell weren’t you watching us in the first place?
I few kids were pulling back on the spring ride trying to get the back to touch the ground. One kid that tried to help was up front pushing.
They lost their grip and the kid got hammered in the chest and slammed into the ground. It broke his arm, ribs and cracked his skull. He wasn’t moving or breathing for a few seconds and when he started he sounded like someone had run over a goose and it hadn’t died yet.
I have passed out on and been flung clean off of number 8 more times than I’d like to admit. Apparently when your body goes ragdoll you’re less likely to be hurt. I can attest to this. Multiple high speed flingings and never a broken bone. Concussions are different story.
Thar merry go around was so much fun. My cousins husband would spin me and my friends so fast that we would flyvoff, crash and say faster! And he my parents merely laughed.
Yes! Looking at each of these images, I immediately recall how fucking hot each of them would get, and the burning on my skin as I desperately tried to play on them.
Not me. I went to elementary school in the UP of Michigan. I was too little to reach the trapeze on the swingset ordinarily but it was the middle of winter and had enough packed snow so I could jump up and grab it. I saw something on the bar and soon realized that it was tongue and lip skin and blood. Someone had pulled themselves up and put their mouth on the frozen bar.
We had this giant steel thing the kids called the eagles nest, and it kind of looked like a football from the side. If you positioned yourself right you could hang upside down from your legs.
I figured out how to hang from my legs before I figured out how to unhang, and I spent 20 minutes of recess stuck because no one was around to help me
I was swinging on my swing set and fell backwards. I hit my head on the pole and blacked out for a moment. Ended up getting a sprained elbow. I had to wear a sling.
1. Got kicked in the face walking past the swings
2. Stuck my hand inside the mouth of a toucan teeter totter (like the seahorse in the first pic) and came out with a whole nest of wasps, the multiple of stings landed me in the ER overnight
3. Flew off the spinning wheel of death
Lost my two front teeth on a set like in picture 5. Also - the see saw. I have memories of being up in the sky looking down and my brother(s) and knowing they were gonna bail and pancake my ass all the way down to the ground. It’s amazing my tailbone is still intact.
They removed the SeeSaw at my elementary school because it was too dangerous, but they left the middle steel balance beam. Me and the kids would wrap our arms around it and do flips. I let go too early once and cracked my school open on the concrete foundation. Hospital and 12 stitches to the head.
I didn't nearly die, nor was it playground equipment but...
I did manage to get my head stuck in a pool table when I was about 6.
I was trying to figure out how they worked and decided to put my head in the ball return slot... It wouldn't fit coming out.
I remember my dad and some other blokes trying to maneuver me out like I was a stuck cork, lots of butter, my mum shrieking 'Don't break his neck!' in the background.
Same holiday my brother got stung by a jellyfish. Then we made friends with a millionaire's kid and got to ride around in a limo for a few days. Went to see Pirates (the show). Pretty sure it was Majorca.
Remember how gym class would have a rope hanging from their 3 story tall ceiling, and then put down a single 1 inch thick worn out mat on the concrete floor in case you fell...
Do they still do that?
We made a game of jumping off the highest thing we could then that one kid broke his arm. Same kid did that a year before jumping off swings.
Terry just had weak bones despite all the milk they forced on us.
Second picture: the Witch's Wheel.
I was visiting family in a small town in Nebraska and the park in the town square still had an old witch's wheel similar to the one featured in the OP, but it was a hexagon and there were horizontal poles between the corners of the bench and the center pole.
So the Witch's wheel was slightly off kilter and I noticed that if you sat on the high end it would automatically spin. I got a great idea to stand up and walk in place, spinning the wheel with my weight as I walked. It didn't take long before it was spinning fast enough that I was running in space with no chance of slowing down. I tried to jump off but the wheel just spun underneath me, and I fell forward. My knee hit a diagonal pole that was spinning toward me. Then I fell to the ground underneath it with the most excruciating pain I'd ever experienced, sure that I busted my knee-cap or broke my leg. I had to lay still while it spun over me because if I sat up, the horizontal poles would have hit me in the head until they quit spinning.
Even worse, my entire extended family was picnicking in the park and witnessed the whole thing. I think I was somewhere between the age of 14-16 at the time.
I ended up being okay but I can still remember the pain and embarrassment thirty years later.
Definitely not dying, but one time on a seesaw I was at the top and the other kid hopped off. Well my feet were under me and I was a pretty chubby kid. I landed on my own ankles and thought they were broken. I couldn’t stand for at least 10 mins.
Oh yeah my school was built in the 60s and we had tons of old playground equipment that caused so many injuries lol. We had huge metal slides which scorched our asses all year long (grew up in the tropics) as well as swings which we often got our arms caught in. The swings were held up with giant metal interlocking rings. I remember getting caught it in once and cried until another student helped me get untangled.
But the worst of all was a merry go around in a shape like your second photo (all sharp angles). I fell off once with my back facing the merry go around. All those sharp corners. Kids were still playing on it so every time an angle went behind me it was smashing me in the back of the head repeatedly. I remember how much it hurt but I felt paralyzed and couldnt move. Had to wait until the whole thing stopped. It was a very nasty (head) wound at the tender age of 8.
The Merry-Go-Round got my ass real good at the park one day.
All of us kids (of course) was spinning the merry-go-round as fast as we could, as is the childhood tradition.
I tried jumping off, the hand rail caught my foot, the rest of me went flipping and flying through the air, land on back and gets the wind knocked out of me, struggles to breathe....ok breathing again. That sucked, never did that one again.
A good one that didn't nearly kill you, unless you fell from the top. The good ole tall metal slides, with the slide part being all polished metal. Remember that skin melting hot metal? Mmmmmmmmm, I can hear the screeching sound of bare skin + speed now like it was yesterday. Gotta love the tiny shorts from the mid/late 80s early 90s we wore, 60% of your legs are now burning.
Wouldn't trade any of it for a second.
My first elementary school had one that smelled like pee everywhere because homeless people lived in it. It was still fun af and I was mad when they replaced it after one kid got a huge splinter up half his arm.
We had one of those merry go rounds that had two pumps on it. That thing would go so fast we would all vomit if you weren’t yeeted into space. Nope.
I’m sure I left a ton of thigh skin on plenty of slides.
Was doing “Superman” on the tire swing, let go at the perfect moment to fly sideways into one of the support beams. I fractured my hip and passed out. I chose not to wear underwear that day and it got awkward when they went to cut my pants off before the X-ray. That day in 3rd grade is the last time I free-balled, just in case.
I was dragged for quite a while on something that was like 8, but you sat down on it? I’m not sure how long we kept spinning and I’d forgotten it until today. I do remember just being dragged in the gravel/on the ground for a little while.
I also had my nail ripped on the giant parachute.
Hang on what is that saftey version of the merry-go-round? I almost died because I was in the middle pushing and I fell. I laid there so still as the bottom bars whooshed past my face and tried not to get stepped on by other pushers all while the back of my head bled because the rail behind cracked my skull as I fell.
Didn't happen to me, but I have to give a shout out to the sheet danger that was these... so many injuries. I can't imagine why with all that nice soft bouncy bark underneath....
https://preview.redd.it/uvc655j6ta2f1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f48dc78f8e6fcf7b52c5af46c077d1ee497739c9
Found out I was claustrophobic by getting stuck in one of these
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I can't remember what the technical name was for the equipment. We just called them bars. They were about 3 or 4 feet off the ground, and you'd either swing a leg over, then wrap your arms around your leg and propel yourself forward or backward, spinning. You could also sit on it hands on the bar at your sides and propel fwd or bckwrd. I was really good and could even go with no hands in both directions.
When summer was over and going into fifth grade, first recess I ran for the bars and flung myself bkwrd. I smacked myself on the back of my head so hard I knocked myself out. No mats underneath yet (they put those in AFTER, because of me) because this was the 70's. Luckily, there was a taller one I could switch to. I just didn't know I grew! One of the many things I'm not sure how I survived. Couldn't kill us Gen X kids with playground equipment!
Burning my hands on the monkey bars. Almost ripping my fingers off on the swings. Fallin inside the tire and scrapping my but on the tanbark as my friends pushed my higher and higher.
I don’t even know what type of death contraption photo 2 is but damn do I want test my inner 7-year old immortality on that.
My long hair got stuck in the bottom of a spinny thing. It had 4 seats and a wheel in the middle you hold to make it go round. My shoe fell off, when I leaned down to get it my brother started us spinning and my hair got wrapped into the mechanism.
He stopped before he scalped me, mum had to run home for scissors and I made it to my friends birthday with most of my hair hacked off.
I pulled a muscle in my back on a trampoline at the after school care center I was going to (I was about 9) and it hurt so bad I couldn't get off of the trampoline. I thought I was going to die on there.
I usually don't get to drawn in by these early nostalgic posts, but that cast-iron sea horse bolted to a coil spring kicked off my flight or flight for a moment. got a little sweaty and everything.
don't recall any incidents, must've blocked that one out
Fell about 18 feet off a Zipline. Landed flat on my back. Knocked the wind out of me so bad it took a good half hour to recover, but I was fine - didn't break a thing.
There was a slide, built kinda like a watchtower. A square platform, fenced and roofed, with a slide exiting one side. The center was a steel tube, with metal ladder rungs. So you climb up the center, and look around, and slide down.
Well, the top of the ladder is just a circular hole in the center of the floor that you climb out of...
Yeah, I was looking around, hanging out up top, and stepped backwards into the ladder hole, falling straight to the bottom and banging my head on several steel ladder rungs on the way down.
Ah - there was one at a local park that sounds exactly the same. Everyone would crowd up at the top. It was there before me obviously but this was like 85-87 ish.
the swingset in pic 7 has one. it was a 2 person swing kind of like a teeter totter; you faced each other and I was on it by myself. slipped off the back then slammed me in the chin. #memories.
Oh, my bad. Ok, yeah, I can see that. I never saw those at any parks, and I never had my own swingset, but that thing looks like injuries just waiting to happen. Whose bright idea was that?
Never came that close. But I did fall really hard on my coccyx. I don't recall why.
It may have been the swings? I had a penchant for going as High as I could but didn't always have the momentum or the method down. So sometimes I would go up, catch a lot of slack and get jerked on the way down, almost slammed down.
Bonked my head pretty hard on the post holding up the parallel bars because I was too short to reach the first rung so I had to jump to get it - and that one time, I missed. Had to go to the ER and it turned out I had a concussion.
Oh God, this makes me think about how my wife felt when she had to move from the wealthy, DC suburb of Silver Spring, MD down to my country-ass rural shithole in North Alabama when she was six. She said that her school up in Maryland had a nice playground with all new equipment, but when she saw all the rusty, old, red clay stained lawsuit bait on the playground at our elementary school here she knew she was in for a long series of sucky culture shocks.
Lost the skin on the side of the tip of both my pinky’s when I got them caught in the chain on the swing as I jumped off when I was really high up trying to see how far I could jump out
We had a giant wooden hamster wheel thing that I caught so many fingers in and when you caught a finger, it would propel you into the bottom of it or out completely.
Ever swing high enough that the chain on the swing started getting slack at the high points of your swinging, resulting in little death drops every time you start to descend... then get your arm skin pinched in the chain?
It feels like death would be almost pleasant by comparison. At least to a child it does.
Four: The tire swing by "winding up" so high that it got caught in knots and eventually just started being insanely jumpy and knocking me into the pole. Eight: The murder-go-round, by laying down with your head sticking over the edge and the ground being more elevated on one side.
Our tire swing was in a swivel. I could pivot my foot so fast that kids would hold the chain and would go completely horizontal. Nobody ever lost their grip and went flying though.
I know exactly what you’re talking about. There was one at our park. My mom would safety pin a towel around my neck like I was Superman. She didn’t know I’d go take flying leaps of that thing.
So, I grew up in central AZ during the 80s and 90s. The playground equipment (metal slides) would give us 1st degree burns on the way down. Not terrible, but hot enough to remind us to not ride the gd slide from May-September. Parks be damned here.
A lot of playgrounds were closed (including McDonald’s and Burger King) during the summer. In the olden days they were outside playgrounds here. Later in my childhood they were closed during the summer to protect us, finally.
Hello there fellow AZ playground burn friend.
Since you grew up here, did you school ever take a field trip to Pioneer Park? It was the cool-ass park with the old jet plane and a full sized abandoned train car full of insect casings in all the working parts. That park was the greatest thing to do after a full day of going to museums back then.
Not me exactly, but once when I was in McDonaldland and inside this burger thing, a kid climbed up the side and got his head stuck in those bars with his whole body hanging outside. He was choke-screaming while parents pushed up on his body as another kid and me inside the burger shoved his head back out through the bars. The sound of his screams alternating into panicked honks while his chin and neck were caught on the bars will be with me till I'm cold and dead. Still, I miss the old McDonaldlands lol.
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Fell straight down onto my back from the top middle of the spiderweb jungle gym thing during PE class in 3rd or 4th grade. Knocked the wind out of me :(
Fell off the high monkey bars onto a bollard, hit it dead in the center of my back and knocked myself clean out. The monkey bars straddled a culvert, and by the time I came to I'd rolled down into the culvert which luckily was dried out haha.
Side note - I never told my parents. I had already been knocked unconscious, and I didn't want to get yelled at as well. Classic 80s childhood.
I always had to go to daycare and they took us to play at the park in the afternoons. I was running and looked behind me and ran into the corner of those metal/iron? bbq grills. I suddenly couldn’t breathe like I had the wind not out of me. I started to panic and went to the counselor and told her I can’t breathe. I guess I could somehow but it felt like I couldn’t catch my breath. They were very unworried and I felt like I was dying unable to breathe but luckily it went away in some time.
I slipped and went face first into the monkey bars and knocked my bottom teeth crooked in 4 th grade. I hit between my lip and chin and must’ve moved the roots around. I also bit the inside corners of my bottom lip off too but it wasn’t that much. Didn’t lose any teeth at least.
In hindsight, the girth of those springs should have signaled “industrial-strength torque” to the designers of those horses.
But I don’t see a problem with the rest of it.
We used to get sheets of wax paper to sit on and slide down those super tall, metal slides. 😂 No idea how we didn't end up injured, but damn was it fun.
I was on the monkey bars in kindergarten. Had a kid coming the other way. I had started before him, but he didn’t want to wait. So when we got close, he kicked me in the nuts. He won the game of chicken.
There was this park , pretty close or maybe right in the Sugar mill area of Homossassa Florida where I was a kid. It had this yellow giant lion head water fountain to drink from. And 2 slides. One regular steel kind that would burn your butt and legs on hot days. So being Florida, pretty much always. But the other one was so tall I would have to bend my head and neck back to see up to the top. And it was glorious!
Until the day I got pushed off the top platform by another kid and fell to the ground. I was so young I don't remember much except pain, feeling my chest, shoulder and whole arm explode with pain, and crying until an ambulance showed up because the sirens were so loud.
The nice paramedics putting that thing around my neck, and on that board with those Velcro staps. I think I went to sleep on the way to 7 Rivers Hospital.
I know that 7 months from a broken collar bone, and recovering from a collapsed lung all because of a slide really sucked. I was kind of sad when my sister told me that the old slide was being torn down and replaced a few years ago. But honestly. That thing really was a death trap.
We would stop up the curly slide, and slide down the support poles to the ground to stay out of the puddle at the bottom. I reached out and up to stop and my index finger slipped up and underneath the stainless steel plates and took all the skin off of my knuckle. I wasn't a bitch so I quietly bled out for the rest of recess so we didn't get in trouble for jumping to our deaths.
The puddles at the end! You rarely see those these days. Most of the slides are now on rubberized surfaces or wood chips rather than just dirt.
Slide as fast as you can and then put on the brakes to hop off at the end!
I didn’t almost die but got injured. In 3rd grade I slipped off the monkey bars and landed on the gravel below. Thing is my right arm had gotten trapped between my body and the gravel. Snapped my right wrist clean in two.
I wore a cast for months, all through spring and summer and had to learn to write with my left hand. Getting it set and having to lug that heavy ass cast around when I was a scrawny little thing was brutal. Never went near monkey bars again.
Same! Worst injury I ever suffered was an occasional skinned knee. Those were the days, lol. Being tiny and springy was so fun. I would definitely break my ass if I tried that now.
There was a swing in a Salvation Army church playground that I kept swinging higher and higher on. After getting way too high up in the air, I jumped off the swing and went flying through the air.
Next thing I know Im inside the church being tended to. Apparently I knocked myself unconscious from the fall.
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I was about 5 or 6 and hanging on the underside with my feet and hands hooked. Lost my grip and felt flat onto my stomach. Knocked the wind out of me and I got a mouthful of sand. I’m sure my dad thought I died lol
I leaned too far back on a swing trying to go higher. My head hit the concrete under the swing and I fell off. I died, but was revived by walking it off.
I'm not kidding about the 'walking it off' part...
In kindergarten, I was on top of the monkey bars. My hand slipped and I took a header, landing on my nose. Broke it real good. Have dealt with the repercussions of that for over 40 yrs now.
Zip line. I was too big to go on it (age 8) thought I was gonna die from blood loss. So much dirty gravel embedded in my knee. My mom came to the park to retrieve me after some kids went and got her explaining I had minutes to live.
When she arrived she simply said “Get up!” . She made me feel like a doily collared fancy boy. It really wasn’t that bad but I was a huge pussy at that stage!
Used two outdoor volleyball polls cemented in tires in a playground as a slingshot when in 4th grade. Flew a long way the first few times. Last time broke my wrist in three places. Bad last day of school before summer vacation.
Oh boy that’s a long answer that crosses into addiction, death, suicidal adjacent behavior and ultimately sobriety.
But I am proud I never hurt anyone else or myself after that bike accident. That’s my lottery win in life.
Oh man, there was an aqueduct in my town and we all used to use it kind of like a bike trail, except there was one part that was a giant hill - my friend hit a bump and slammed her face into her handlebars while going down said hill. Kudos to the lady who was totally unfazed when two blood-covered 12-yo girls showed up at her door asking to use the phone.
In 1st grade there was a tower, perhaps 15ft tall. A few girls decided I wasn't allowed to go on it and would lie to the teachers that I'd cuss at them when I went on it. Thus I got hit in the side of the head with a rock and belly flopped into the gravel. Despite having a bleeding head wound I once again was told that I'm the liar, as "girls don't do that".
We had a thing we called a maypole which was basically a ring about 6 feet off the ground around a pole that everyone hung off while someone in the middle pushed until we were swinging faster and faster until we flew off onto the concrete. If you’ve ever seen one of those bird feeders with the squirrel rings that spin the squirrel off, basically the same thing. We all had a healthy fear of the maypole but we all loved it. To be fair, you had to be at least on 5th grade to use the maypole. Because safety.
Not me, but a kid in my class, around maybe second or third grade. We had a playground structure at my school we called The Red Bars. It was like two of photo five, joined by a large castle-like structure in the center, and it was painted red, yellow and white. As many of us did, the kid attempted to walk across the bars on one of the sides, slipped, and hit his head on one of the bars. It was a very dramatic and bloody situation for us kids to observe, as an ambulance came to the school and the rest of us kids were escorted off the playground. He ended up being okay in the end. In fact, I believe he grew up to be a doctor. But it was a very scary situation, and the class stuck to safer playground shenanigans, like jumping off swings, flipping upside down on the rings, and skipping bars while crossing the monkey bars going forward.
Was once playing soccer on an uneven field. Playing defensive position and tried sending the ball down field. Wound up kicking the divot below the ball - basically just kicking the planet like a soccer ball. Luckily dint break anything but the pain was nearly unbearable.
At my after school daycare, we had a guy who would do "alley-oops" to kids on the swings. Basically, if you asked, he would just *throw* you. It was super fun.
Except one day, he's going down the line of swings, throwing kids one by one. I was last, I wasn't asking for one, and I wasn't prepared. And since I wasn't prepared, I didn't lean against the throw and he ended up almost throwing me over the bar.
I panicked and on the second swing forward, I jumped from the swing. Musta been a solid fifteen feet in the air (it was a tall swing set), and I just plummeted into the bark. I was fine, but the daycare guy was scared shitless. He thought I'd fallen out of the swing.
He was much more careful about alley-oops after that.
Had a balance beam above hard packed dirt.
Wore flipflops to school one day and slipped off the top and fell face first onto the ground.
When my nose wouldn't stop bleeding, my mom picked me up and took me to the ER. Not broken, just really bruised.
I was a teeny tiny kid and got picked on a lot. My elementary school had this four-way seesaw thing, and I was the only one sitting on it. The biggest kid in the class (at least twice my weight) came over and jumped on the opposite side as hard as he could so I’d go flying off. I flew up in the air like a cartoon and landed on my back. It knocked the wind out of me and I couldn’t breathe for about a minute. Teacher told me to just brush it off.
We also had a set of monkey bars that crosses over a few different levels of ground, like super wide steps. made out of mulch and railroad ties. A girl fell and her arm landed right on a railroad tie. We could see the bone poking through the skin. Still the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.
Missed my next bar on the monkey bars and landed flat on my back. First time I had the wind knocked out of me. I didn’t think I was ever going to breathe
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Either smacking my head on the back chain or smacking my face on the front bar from wayyyy over swinging these things.
Doing genies (where you hang upside down by your knees, swing back and forth to gain momentum, then let go and land on your feet) on the bars in my primary school playground.
Landed on my head or back a few times. Luckily just winded myself, which was pretty scary at the time, but could have been a lot worse.
My third birthday. All of the older kids are on the merry-go-round going hella fast. My mom wouldn’t let me go on. When she turned her back, I dove for it. Banged the fuck out of my head. I still have the lump. I guess I blacked out for like 5 minutes. I haven’t touched a merry-go-round since.
Climbing up one of those ladders that were made of chains covered with metal tubing. My feet slipped off and I bashed my face into one of the rungs. Chipped off the bottom of an adult front tooth that had just come in earlier that year. Parents were not happy with me.
A memory has stirred in my head. I would have been 4 or so, I think, and being pushed by my dad on a swing. He got distracted, talking to my mum, and pushed me too hard and I went flying off the swing. Landed in some grass. Probably cried.
There was also this wooden jungle gym (or whatever it is called) at my preschool. I fell off that. Cried. Got a heart sticker!!! Stopped crying.
Halloween 3rd grade I was a vampire. Big ol long cape. After lunch at recess, we ran to the swings as normal to play our jumping off the swings at the highest point game. I jump off, the cape catches in the chains and fully clotheslines me 360 and I land on my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I remember trying to walk to help, gasping for air with the cape drooped over my head and I couldn't see anything. Ambulance came, full immobilization. The school called my mom and told her I hung myself, so she's thinking I actually hung myself in like a closet or something.
Everything was ok and I still went trick or treating, but I still remember that entire incident vividly.
I can’t remember what you call that spinning wheel of death on the 8th slide, but I remember seeing a little kid at the drive-in get their head smashed by that thing spinning around
I tried hanging upside down on the jungle gym like all the other kids. The moment I let my hands go, it was like my legs were useless to hold me up, and I crashed down on my head. I could have broken my neck! Instead, my head just hurt for the foreseeable future.
I had a mean girl go on the seesaw with me in like 3rd grade. She thought it would be funny to just abruptly get off with me way at the top so I came crashing down and everybody laughed at me :(
I remember the boys jumping from swings when they were WAY high , one boy would do flips off the swing too. I don’t remember anyone getting seriously injured though
1) That sweet skin burn that only comes from vintage metal playground. We all probably have some random scar on our body from one of those babies. 2) The butt whap you got from landing from top height when your partner jumps suddenly off the teeter totter. 3) That I’m gonna die feeling when you pushed those springs past to the point where you start truly battling physics. Ah, childhood…
That double seater swing in pic 7, the one the girls aren't on, came down on my head as I was walking past it when I was 5. I remember when I was getting stitches, the nurse commented that she could see skull.
Dunno if everyone had these, as I only saw them at my elementary school, but I got injured on the rings. You swung around from ring to ring. It was a lot of fun, but not so much if you missed a ring.
You know that trick where you push someone on a swing really high and then run under them? I thought it’d be fun to do it in reverse (from the front). Only I couldn’t clear my sister’s legs and she hit me squarely in the chest and onto my back. I couldn’t breathe and I thought I was going to die. Never tried that again!
5th pic we would get on stuff like that and do flip n shit, couple guys landed funny and had to go to yhe nurse. Once I flipped but my arm caught so my back hit the bars, i wasn't really hurt just knocked the wind out of me but I was really scared to the point I thought i broke something or was bleeding. I got lucky all the time like that
Only a few mi or things. Once I got hit by a swing playing a real life game of Frogger between the swings. I flew back pretty far and got the breath knocked out of me. About 1992 the elementary school got rid of all the old equipment and put in some “safe” ones. I found it amusing that the first day in the new playground a bunch of people got their inner thighs pinched by this see saw snake thing. The resulting bruise was really gnarly.
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We had this swinging gate on the playground in preschool (found a pic of a similar one online because I started to wonder if maybe I’d dreamt this weird thing up). One day I walked too close while someone was swinging towards me and got a busted lip.
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Fourth or fifth grade. We had a rock structure in a park next to the school. One day I jumped off it and landed in a kind of sitting position. My knees hit my chin which knocked my head back. The teacher on duty watching us heard the "ooh!" from my friends and thought I might have given myself whiplash. Luckily, I didn't.
Anyone have a clown swing??
https://preview.redd.it/u0tpimlcv82f1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=855f8a96559af2d562bc07d3e8c5d6b547d24b72
The cartoon version is much friendlier.
We had some really tall seesaws at school. One day in second grade, I was on one and when I was at the top, the person on the bottom jumped off and I came flying down and got the wind knocked out of me. Absolutely terrified me and I haven’t been on a seesaw since.
Oh those old wooden seesaws! We had some exactly like that on the school playground. Ugh, I always hated the seesaws. If you were at the top and the other kid jumped off, you'd go crashing to the ground. Pretty sure I hurt my rear end more than once doing that. Amazing that I didn't injure my tailbone more seriously.
So! Those things with the spring from the example picture that you sat on and rocked back and forth on? One of those came off the spring base at our neighborhood park and I rode it down the big slide into the sand at the bottom. I'm female and I'm pretty sure I broke my crotch. I tried to walk it off (crying) in front of my friends but HOLY SHIT. It was like getting friggin donkey kicked in the lady bits.
Chipped my front tooth on the monkey bars. I didn’t fall while doing tricks or anything; I just walked into one of the posts.
Also jumped from a swing at its highest point and landed flat on my back - HARD. I couldn’t breathe for what felt like a scarily long time. It wasn’t until a few years later that I encountered the expression “getting the wind knocked out of you” and realized that was what had happened.
My school had an old ass wooden merry go round when I was a kid, like [this one.](https://flic.kr/p/aqiuS2) We used to have one kid stand outside the edge of the merry-go-round and throw rocks in to the middle part because it made loud popping sounds so we called it popcorning.
Some of us were actually on it when the fucking thing finally broke, although thankfully it mostly just slid off its little platform and slowly hit the ground, although it could have been a lot worse.
Oh also one time I was climbing on the outside of one of those wooden bridge things that was pretty high up and another kid pushed me. Still convinced that my back and neck problems starting real young are because of that little shitface.
Picture 7….the multi-person swing. I wasn’t on it but thought it was a good idea to walk behind it when others were on it. It hit me and I wound up with a pretty bloody gash over my eye. I still have a small scar from it.
Also happened to a buddy of mine, when he was a toddler. Myself, younger sister and his older brother were playing and he happened to walk behind the swing set. Not sure if he still has a scar, couldn't tell from his official Air Force photo when he became an officer.
Those witches' hats were the business. They were already deemed unsafe and removed from most playgrounds when I was a kid, but there was one in a playground in a rural town in the middle of nowhere, which we drove through on the 4 hour drive to see my grandparents. We had to stop every time to play on the gloriously unsafe equipment.
The top of a swingset fell directly on my head when the whole thing toppled over.
I think my sister knew it was going to fall on my head.
Apparently I was listening to a Fraggle Rock tape. I could hear my older brother screaming about the swing but all he said was “THE SWING!” and suddenly I felt the pole hit my head.
I ended up with stitches and that was it.
Recently? I shot out of the bottom of a slide going at an appreciable percentage of the speed of sound. Slid about twelve feet through the mulch on my back which smashed up my back and tore up my arms.
The monkey bars at my primary school in 1986 were on concrete.....I fell trying to skip bars swinging, and fell on my head, I remember waking up in the sick bay to my friend saying I dont want to sit here anymore she keeps throwing up.
I did not go to the hospital, or even the doctor, I had headaches on my temple for 6 months after.
Man the 80s in rural New Zealand were wild. Lol
When I was 4, almost 5, I went to a Baptist Kindergarten in southern MS. I was left-handed. One day, playing on that spider web dome-thing, I fell and involuntarily put my hand under me to stop my fall (so I broke that arm). I was right handed after that. They were delighted. I was not.
Falling off the top of the Tire-tanic and waking up in the nurse's office with a concussion. They sent me right back to class when I woke up. Those were the days
I broke my arm on the jungle gym. Right after someone broke their leg trying to stop themselves on a swingset by putting their leg out. And before someone broke their neck falling from the same monkey bars I fell from. Also someone jumped from the sings and broke both wrists. All within a month of each other. We got a talkin’ to about risky behavior.
For a very short time I was a cheerleader, when I was like 8 or 9. Before a game I decided to go down the curly slide in my uniform. The metal slide had a giant piece of metal sticking up and it tore my underwear almost completely off of me. I had to go home. I'm lucky it didn't slice me open. And my dumb ass did it a second time on another day and the same thing happened. I never got on that slide again
Oh, monkey bars. I broke my wrist breaking the fall, otherwise I would’ve smashed my face and likely broken my neck.
I cut the cast off myself 3 weeks later and never looked back.
In 4th grade I laid across two swings and a friend pushed me too hard I went airborne and landed flat backed like 10 feet away.
A friend told me years later they thought I died and was taken away in the ambulance since the class watched from the window.
In reality I was knocked out for a little, came to and overly cautious teachers didn't want me to move in case it was a back injury, I could have bounced back up but they scared the hell out of me. I was just sore and bruised. Mom was terrified. I went to school the next day.
I’ll start. I was going nuts on a spring rider (like the one in the first image). I went over the front, sat up, and saw that big hunk of metal animal coming straight at my face (I think it was a frog). I remember thinking something like “This is why kids die young. My head is about to split open and I’m going to die. Mom’s gonna be pissed.” At the last possible moment, the thing sprung backwards. If this thing was an inch from face, it was a mile. It was that close. I’ve never been so sure I was going to die before that. However, this was not the last time I thought I was about to shed the old mortal coil. I was a very lucky but very dumb boy.
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