Not for the sqeamish.
Back in the heady days of adolescence, something happened to one of my friends that has gone down in infamy and still to this day causes me to squirm. It was during the summer holidays, and I shall begin the tale by relaying the message to you as I got it. Imagine I had just knocked on your door.

"Charlie's sat on a spike!"

This was as much information as I had, apart from that he had been rushed to hospital. My youthful imagination filled with images of my mate impaled on a 6 foot rusty metal spear, then cleared to the realisation that it was probably just a slight bum-meets-pin accident and he needed tetanus shots.

The reality was worse than anything.

It turns out that, whilst playing with my other friend, he had attempted a maneuver that was, at best, risky. He tried to leap, Indiana Jones style, from the top of a garage, grab a tree branch and swing gracefully over a fence. The planning had been less than meticulous as is the way of youngsters, and disaster struck. The branch broke.

It was one of those spiky wooden affairs held together with wire, the kind you rarely see nowadays. He had landed full force from a height of about 10 feet up onto the sharpest stake on the whole fence. According to my mate, he had to lift himself off it. But we were a hardy bunch in those days, and there were no tears, just a worried "I need to go home". My mate was worried, so went with him. The odd thing was that the only symptom from what looked like a catastrophic injury was a sudden desire to pee, so he immediately rushed to the bogs when he got home..... ten seconds later, a worried "M..m....MUUUUM!" rang out. He was pissing blood. Not blood-laced urine, not red piss.... thick red blood.

The spike had pierced his.... I don't know if it's still called the urethra by the time it's that far in, but it had pierced it. He was rushed to hospital and unfortunately gave us all the details later, like taking an unwanted erection when the nurse examined him and having his winky frozen with jabs.

We laughed like lunatics at him for months. It's absolutely amazing to think of it now how we could laugh at such a horrendous injury!

But we did.

*shudder*
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Fri 8 Aug 2008, 14:55, Reply)