Park Life
Probably the stupidest thing I have done to myself, or at least that I can remember...

back in the day when terrorism was something that only existed in Tom Clancy Novels and Christmas wasn't an offensive word I would spend my days after school (or before school, or even during school) in a little park not far from where I lived, it was a fairly basic park, a swing set, a climbing frame, a slide, that sort of thing. Being the age of 16 and so not old enough to do the normal thing and get drunk on white lightning (my family didn't leave that stuff hanging around sadly) the only thing to really do was life risking stunts on the various bits of playground equiptment. The favourite by far was the swing acrobatics, we would go full swing and backflip off (from a seated possition, basicly imagine falling off the swing backwards and going all the way round landing on your feet), pretty impressive at first but once we got that hang of it we needed to step things up, so began backflips standing up where we would hold onto the chain and flip in full swing and land on the seat, but soon even this bored us and the next level was introduced.

standing on the swing holding onto the top bar we attempted to kick the swing over the crossbar and at the same time backflip away from the swing. in theory it was good, so being the pioneer of swing acrobatics I attempt it, stand on swing, hold onto crossbar, start swinging, kick swing back, leg go of crossbar, backflip land safely on my feet... no wait rewind a step... let go of crossbar as i am about horizontal to said crossbar, fall 8 feet to the concrete ground... break arm...

ouch... and you may be thinking, well thats a bit stupid... but the stupidness has yet to even begin, you see not learning from fast mistakes (and infact not knowing my arm was broken and dealing with the pain like a man) a week later I was back in the park and explaining to cohorts why the stunt went wrong and demonstrating how to do it properly... stand on swing, hold onto crossbar, realise left arm hurts too much to hold onto crossbar with, hold onto crossbar with only right arm, start swinging, kick swing back, let go of crossbar backflip and land perfectly... no you guessed it, let go... horizontal. 8 foot fall, floor. ouch... and now I had 2 broken arms...

my mother who had been absent during this time had come back from holiday and dragged me to the hospital to find out that both my wrists were shattered... cue 8 weeks of being unable to wank...

sorry for length, i think it grew in them 8 weeks though
(That Random Guy, Thu 20 Dec 2007, 16:00, Reply)