Ask Lemmy

Minor: on a rough Channel crossing, a friend stepped outside to throw up, but was facing into the wind. Face covered. He looked like the shittest panda ever when he took his specs off.

Medium: back in my university days I hung around with some 13th century reenactment types. One of them was walking up a grass bank and stabbing his broadsword into the ground to give himself something to hold on to as he went. Then he missed the ground and stabbed himself in the foot, right through his boot. He threw the boot away in anger, but one of my housemates rescued it and put it in pride of place on our mantlepiece. The best part was when the guy realised he didn't have any other boots to where so had to come around, ask for the boot back so he could stitch it up and wear it again. AKA the medieval equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot.

Major: I once saw a car ignore the lights and sirens of a fire engine at a crossroads and drive into the side of it at about 40 mph / 65 kph. The fire engine was on its way to a fire so the water tanks would have been full. It barely rocked from the impact but the entire engine compartment of the car displaced into the passenger compartment.

One of the most important verifications before surgery is to make sure the patient didn't eat or drink. We can't just superman-vision into their stomach, so we settle for asking them.

Ya guessed it: one guy lied about not eating breakfast that morning. He aspirated (threw up into his own lungs) shortly after the anesthesia meds kicked in.

The following several minutes were an absolute shit show. He was still alive when they wheeled him out of the OR, but he went straight to ICU, I'm assuming to get him on a vent. Never got an update after that, so no idea if he survived.

If you're gonna get surgery, don't lie to your team.

Alright so at an old job it was pretty windy and I was pulling into the parking lot when a tree branch snapped off and hit a power line, leaving the line on the ground right in the middle of the lot.

I sort of angled my car (a decent ways away from the downed line) to block anyone from driving into/over it and asked to see if the building maintenance guy could put out some cones or barriers or something until the electric company could look at it.

The maintenance guy walks out, sees the downed line, and picks it up. Then proudly proclaims it must not be connected to the grid, otherwise he'd be dead.

About 20 years ago I was working in the produce department of a supermarket, we were selling durians,we had one that had gone rotten and was sitting on the waste trollie, this dumb fuck I worked with looked at it and said " I'm gonna throw a knife at it", I tried to stop him, i warned him its not gonna go the way he thinks, he throws the knife, perfectly stabbing the durian and the second the knife pierced the outer skin, this long thick stream of white foam launched out of it and landed directly in his dumb laughing mouth, he stopped dead still, went green as fuck, legged it to the bathroom and spent the next hour throwing up, I ended up sending him, but not till after I asked, "So, you gonna listen to me from now on?" he mumbled a sheepish yes between throwing up.

He always listened to me from that point on.

Went to pour himself a glass of filtered water, but wasn't sure which side of the tap was for hot water. He didn't want to accidentally pour a glass of boiling water - so he put his hand in it to see if it was scalding hot. It was.

I watched a guy pee on an electric fence! That was a fun day.

Throw a half-eaten pizza onto the floor right next to a bin.

I passive-aggressively bitched about it loudly to my friends and he eventually picked it up and actually put it in the bin.

How you gonna walk right next to a fucking bin and then deliberately not use it.

Looked down the barrel of a loaded gun, then flagged the range master.

Pulled his pants down below his butt because it was 'fashionable' at the time but accidentally pulled his underwear down also. So he was just standing there, in the main hallway of our highschool talking with his friends, mooning everyone behind him.

The class assignment was for each student to hook up their laptop to network equipment and run some diagnostics. I could see my classmate was having issues so after a few minutes I walked over to investigate. I advised him the usb cable will never fit in the ethernet port and that he should try the other 'hole' instead.

Saw a low speed car crash while i ate. So what do they do after they hit the side of a minivan hard enough to leave a hefty dent? Then they Switch drivers in their highly identifiable, heavily decorated car, and drive off. All of this in a highly visible part of a parking lot, under camera, in front of a dozen people.

I saw someone not even slow down for a very obvious near 90 degree turn and just barrel into a tree after driving straight off the road and explode at 50-60MPH. May not have been stupidest mistake of their life, but it was their last.

Held a press conference

This was back at my home dropzone. The DZ owner actually owned the entire airport and the land it sat on. To help offset the cost he rented out the parts of the property to local farmers to grow crops. That year there was corn, really really tall corn as it was a wet year that bordered the north side of the landing area.

Not a big deal as the landing area was very large. Well, one of the local Skygods (idiot that thinks they're cool, but they're just an idiot and has an attitude about it) thought that it would be fun to do a hook turn in to the corn...

For those of you that have been in corn fields, yes you are guessing correctly on what happened next.

You see, do such a low and aggressive turn under a parachute generates a LOT of speed and he generated that speed... So he goes out over the corn, hooks the parachute dives into the corn. Those of us watching were highly entertained seeing a parachute traveling just above the tassels of the corn at a high rate of speed for an impressive distance. The guy burst out of the corn field onto the landing area rolling head over heels and came to a stop in a quivering lump.

He had multiple lacerations, contusions, and his gear was in such bad shape he had to send it back to the respective manufacturers for repair.

He never jumped there again and I'm not sure he ever went back to skydiving. Probably for the best.

laying on a beach in a group and some had some pretty serious fireworks and was watching. So this guy had one of those star burst type firework and he got it in his head that it would go farther if shot from a larger tube. So im sitting there when fireballs blast and com into being in what feels like 6 feet over the ground. I started rolling like crazy to get away and hopefully get it off me if I got hit. They burnt out in what feels like one foot off the ground.

My mom cried in court for a civil lawsuit to "try and win the judge's sympathy" after the judge had already made a decision that she doesn't like.

Like it was literally coincidentally the same day as my birthday¹ when that court day happened (¹at least I think so... I went with her to court several times and its hard to keep track of so thise memories might have blended together), like okay WTF mom. What the fuck are you doing? Literally, the judge already moved on to the next case, shut your crying ass, you're the adult and I'm your child, stop embarassing me.

Literally not even in the courtroom anymore, she cried in front of some court staff, not even the judge.

This isn't China anymore where people could bribe officials and/or sweet talk them or gain an advantage when you befriend an official, this is is America, she has like a very warped worldview on how thing work. Like wtf how is crying gonna change a judges decisions?

(And no we are not part of the 1% so that stuff doesn't work either)

I confronted her about it later and she just scolded me and say "that what people do all the time to gain sympathy"...

🤨

She brought me there to help translate since the doesn't trust the interpreters capabilities, but since I didn't even have much of a chance to speak, so I was like "hey remember that time when it was my fucking birthday and you told me to do your stupid courtroom bullshit, and my mom was like: "so what it wasyour birthday, I did all the work giving birth to you on your day of birth, all you did was be born"

(Before anyone says go "no contact", she also had her good moments so I can't exactly just let go, too emotionally attached)

My wife and I were once in a park and watched an 8 or 9 year old kid push his baby siblings stroller down an embankment into a stream because he thought it would be funny. Fortunately the younger sibling was walking slower holding on to mamas hand. Mom was seething but very collected. Her laptop was in the stroller and most likely ruined. The little shit began crying for real because although mom was upset, she calmly explained that dad was going to be doling out some type of punishment this evening.

in college, a group of sorority girls ran up on this guy's motorcycle and started doing an impromptu pin up girl style photoshoot on it. for the finale she spread her legs out. then they ran off. this was in public.