What's Your Dumbest "Climbing" Injury?

A guy at the climbing gym broke his toe recently when he stubbed it running up the stairs to the cafe, after being offered some free salsa by one of the workers. I thought that was pretty silly, but ...

Yesterday when I was trying on climbing shoes at the store I crimped the top of a door frame in order to test a foot jam between the wall and some ski machine thing (?). The foot jam slipped and I weighted the crimp hard, injuring my finger.

Life is hard.

Bouldering, drunk. A finger injury and rolled ankle, separate occasions. I don’t boulder anymore. Still drink though, but never when I’m on the end of a rope.

Fell on a V3 or a V4 and sprained my ankle. Kept climbing, then ran 2 miles home. Couldn't really walk the next day. Took basically a year off from running/cycling.

 It's been three years and it still hurts. Every day. Without respite.

Nearly broke my thumb trying to throw to the next hold because my other hand was on top of my thumb with all my weight on it. Couldn’t use the thumb much for a few weeks.

OK less melodramatic more dumber:

I have a pretty good knack for hitting my knee, just below the kneecap. It's a very sensitive area and makes a nice, "THWACK" sound on the wall I'm climbing. Slab, overhanging: doesn't matter - I can hit that damn knee right in the perfect place. Hurts like a Mother - usually leaves me in the fetal position, crying. But just for about 5 minutes, and then I'm alright. Except for a slight limp.

Fell while dry tooling in a gym, landed directly on my butt on pads from 4 feet up, for a compression fracture on my T12 vertebrae. Turns out I break bones easily.

took a whipper and got my junk caught in the leg strap.....though it wasnt as bad as getting it caught in the legstrap of my skydiving rig when i had a hard opening.....my junk was black and blue for a week and a half from that one....

Getting ready to climb some peaks early one morning a few years ago, I walked to the staircase without turning the hall lights on. At the top of the stairway, I realized that I'd left the kitchen light on overnight. Annoyed at my negligence, I decided to that as "punishment", I would not turn the staircase light on, even though the stairs were completely dark. Midway down the stairs, I tripped over a box that, for unknown reasons, I'd left on the stairs the night before; this resulted in a completely unexpected headfirst plunge down to the landing below the stairs. I reflexively threw my hands out to protect my face and caught the full force of the fall on my right ring finger.  The finger felt pretty damaged but I kept moving, ignored the injury and continued on to my peaks. I never got around to seeking medical treatment for this injury and subsequent research indicates I'd detached some ligaments or tendons from the finger which is now permanently deformed and doesn't fit in purple Camalot sized cracks.

A buddy and I were going to do some sport cragging and while walking up a muddy bank next to a creek we just crossed, a dog came around the corner and nearly hit me. I anticipated and was wearing flip flops, my feet slide out from under me and I went to catch myself and landed straight down on one of my middle fingers. Was pretty positive I broke it, regardless.. surely should not have climbed on it... but it was my first day off in a while. Buddy taped it and hopped on my techy project. Definitely let out a big ol fuckkkkkkk while looking at the owner of the dog, she didn’t even say sorry. Buddy taped for a month and slowly got back to my grade. And then once I got short roped but that was my own fault. I was cruxing out and yelled falling without letting go and my buddy sat in his harness and pulled me into the wall. Something popped in my ankle but never got it checked out. Kids, get health insurance, or stfu and rub some mud on it!

In the first two hours of a 4 day climbing trip, I broke my 5th metatarsal while walking along the base of a crag.  I was looking up at routes and stepped on an egg sized rock, rolled my foot/ankle, and snap.  The hour hike back to camp sucked.  I should've been watching my path.

Hiking up to snow Creek Wall on a gorgeous April morning to climb in the refreshing sun, stubbed my foot on a tree root  I fell Superman style onto a rock on the trail, leaving me with a couple fractured ribs.  That was a month's long rehab.

All my worst "climbing" injuries have been the result of walking to go climbing.  Once I put my shoes and harness on, then I'm solid.

First day at Smith, doing the "approach" .  Just crossed the bridge and am walking up the fairly nice trail towards the Dihedrals.  Look up at the wall for one second, stumble on a  step, fall and jam my middle finger while catching myself.  Was on the hand were I've already got a busted ring A2 .  Didn't kill the trip, but climbing would have been a lot easier if I could have bent that finger.  

I have a ganglion cyst on my wrist that magically appeared during a warm up bouldering session and then got worse on a 5.8 while barely weighted... Climbing + autoimmune disease = weird body stuff, I guess.

Long Ranger wrote: Fell on a V3 or a V4 and sprained my ankle. Kept climbing, then ran 2 miles home. Couldn't really walk the next day. Took basically a year off from running/cycling.

 It's been three years and it still hurts. Every day. Without respite.

Go see P.T.  I had similar issue and they cleared it up super quick.  My calf had actually shortened from when the sprain was healing, but then without proper P.T. it never got better!

Dry tooling a tree, popped a tool and received 10 stiches in my head- expensive ER visit.

And buildering while wasted always seems to get me in trouble as well.

On the 12 hour drive for a week long trip we stopped at a small spot to boulder. I topped out a climb that was about 8 feet tall. Instead of taking the easy ramp walk off I jumped off the boulder in my excitement and rolled my ankle.

A few months ago I was being sun smart and applying a sunscreen before climbing the Ancient Mariner at Lumpy. It was one of those banana boat rub-on sunscreen sticks that is just like a stick of deodorant complete with the little clear plastic "fresh" cover thing under the cap. When I pulled the cap off, the clear plastic cover thing got stuck inside the cap such that I couldn't replace the cap. Well I just so happened to have a folding knife with me so I open the knife and and attempt to pry that stubborn piece of plastic out of the cap with the blade. Predictably, the cap cracks in half and I stick the blade right into the palm of my hand. It starts pouring blood all over the ground and I'm cursing like a sailor but the bleeding stopped surprisingly fast and miraculously I missed all the tendons and important bits. So I wrapped my hand in tape and a torn shirt and climbed the route.

Vaughn wrote: A few months ago I was being sun smart and applying a sunscreen before climbing the Ancient Mariner at Lumpy. It was one of those banana boat rub-on sunscreen sticks that is just like a stick of deodorant complete with the little clear plastic "fresh" cover thing under the cap. When I pulled the cap off, the clear plastic cover thing got stuck inside the cap such that I couldn't replace the cap. Well I just so happened to have a folding knife with me so I open the knife and and attempt to pry that stubborn piece of plastic out of the cap with the blade. Predictably, the cap cracks in half and I stick the blade right into the palm of my hand. It starts pouring blood all over the ground and I'm cursing like a sailor but the bleeding stopped surprisingly fast and miraculously I missed all the tendons and important bits. So I wrapped my hand in tape and a torn shirt and climbed the route.

Did something similar with a tuna can. Didn’t have a can opener and sliced my finger opening it with pliers or something weird. Day one of a trip before climbing started...

Sitting on a ledge (5ish feet off the ground) at the crag. Turned my head to watch the climber, slipped off the ledge, and landed on my outstretched arm. Tore a bicep tendon. Yikes. 

Following my friend up my first warm up of the day,  he started talking about these bald faced wasps being on top of the boulder I was about to climb. As I was climbing, he was discussing how they have the most painful sting of any wasps.  Assuming that he knew what he was talking about because he actually knew the species name of these wasps, I was a tad overly conscious of their presence. I topped out the boulder and, of course, a wasp came at me. Instead of staying calm and ignoring it, I panicked and started walking down the back of the boulder hoping to get away. My foot slipped on some pine needles, I fell to my ass on the boulder, and slipped off the back. When I landed, my hand felt hot and I looked down to see my ring finger dislocated and pointing at a 90 degree angle off of my A3. I quickly snapped it back into place, taped a brush to it, and found a way to remain helpful for the rest of the day.  All of that and the wasp didn’t even sting me

We used to have a bolt drilled into the ceiling just to practice rodeo clips (the ladies love it). And for some reason we were weighting the bolt with an aid ladder, and i was able to body weight the piece. But when my buddy hopped on the "A0 Garage Pitch"  it pulled. He took the whip... Right on to an extension cord, right to his lower back. He couldnt walk right for 3 weeks... Super bummer.