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BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Posted by Annie_qld QLDAust (My Page) on Sat, Jun 25, 05 at 18:27
Talking to a lady the other day who has a very badly broken leg and a broken arm as well.
During the course of the conversation, I asked how she had done it....
she did it while GARDENING!!!!!
how on earth did you manage that? I ask.
She was positioning the drip lines on her irrigation system, stepped back not realizing how close she was to the edge of the retaining wall and went backwards off the wall!
You have been warned!!
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Yes, it doesn't take much does it. My DH says it's only a matter of time before I take a step back when hanging out the washing and end up in the pond...lucky for me it's a tiny one...:)
I hope the breaks heal without complications. Cheryl. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| and one of our posters from central qld stubbed her toe on a stump in her garden and broke the toe. mmm yup guess even the safest looking exploits aren't without some risk. hey cheryl a pair of water wings might add to the safety factor hey lol. len |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Yes well I have a black toe from dropping would you believe a rake on my foot last week,
and I had my leather boots on. Then there is the redback spider bite I got on my arm when pulling weeds, and the stings from the hornets
when I invaded their honeysuckle while pruning it, and thats only a couple of my gardening incidents. Yes Gardening is dangerous, but thats life and still worth it.....MM |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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- Posted by ashmeri Cent. Qld.Aust. (My Page) on
Sun, Jun 26, 05 at 3:22
Sure is. I pulled a Bromeliad out of it's pot to repot it and out came a 2 foot snake, up over my arm, round my neck and then it just sat and stared at me for disturbing it, Huh !!!!
And the dive bombing Kookaburra who sits and waits for some choice morsel to be turned up, DH has been hit in the face a few times by his wings. Hope the injuries are healing for your friend.
Marion |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Well . Various stings and bites. The blood-losses after using the seccateurs on my fingers instead of the intended branch. Digging out a stump near a fence (and getting a bit tired) I put both the crowbar and my fist into a timber cross-rail and the crowbar survived but was in plaster 6 weeks. Do you know how difficult it is for a right-hander to open a tin with their left-hand. Esp if its a tin of cat-food and one demanding moggie!
My condolances to all who have suffered in the name of gardening. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Maybe the waterwings would cushion the fall a bit Len...hm Ouch Alison, and Marion....I gasped when I read that. MM...did the Redback bite really hurt, I have heard it is very painful. Cheryl. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Yes it sure did I spent the weekend with a ice wrapped around my arm till I got to a doctors on the Monday to be told there is nothing he could do about it. But he did give me some of his local anesthetic gel and that numbed the pain for fours days by then the pain had gone and then the itch started...MM |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Len! Alison, could you come and crowbar the stump out please?
Well, there's a rock retaining wall the Lola pup and I take short cuts over. She's got 4WD but I definitely haven't.....sliding down on the backside probably a good idea. Love those Blundstones, especially good for kicking stroppy trollies safely around the supermarket (is shopping more dangerous than gardening??) Cooking's dangerous, the last cut with the chopper made SMSing very awkward :))
Gardening by the stars......are there days when we should wrap up in cotton wool and not move?
Rose |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| I have an interesting zig zag pattern on my forehead from the blade impact from my pruning saw. The doctor thought it very amusing. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Marion,I gather the snake didn't turn out to be anything tooooo nasty?
Does anyone remember when THAT man (the crocodile person) got bitten on the nose by that frilly he was molesting?
That HAD to have been the funniest thing on that program.
I knew a lady years ago who got bitten by a red-back (the old shoe-left-on-the-verandah trick).
When they got her to hospital, she was told that the anti-venien (?) was really only for children, older people or people with some sort of medical condition.
So they stuck her in a bed with morphine and that was that.
She told me that the pain was just awful...way worse than childbirth. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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- Posted by deejaus Melb.Vic. Aust (My Page) on
Sun, Jun 26, 05 at 20:13
Ouch to all of the above! The snake one freaks me out a bit! I think if you haven't suffered at least a minor injury, you're not doing enough gardening! Perhaps it is the price we pay for the pleasure received! I'm nursing a sore knee from a fall in the garden yesterday evening. My husband said "Not again!" I guess that says it all. Lol.
Cheers,
Dee. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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No, Rose, I am not coming to crow-bar out your stump. The final stump removal required a variety of things (why didn't I think of using one finger to phone a professional)including an axe and some other implement I cannot even put a name to. I think I went into a sort of trance about the third hour and kept repeatedly humming that song about the little ant who had high hopes of moving a rubber tree plant.
Perhaps the problem is that we tend to regard "gardening" as some type of refined leisure activity or "hobby". When of course the PROFESSIONALS are all about workplace health and safety and they will probably live a lot longer (or have less scars)
I cut back my one climbing rose the other day and I must have said "ouch" 20 times, but do you think I went and simply found a pair of gloves? |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Oh Alison, you did make me chuckle with the last comment. That just sounded like me! My husband says he can't decide if I'm stubborn or I'm just too lazy! I think it's a horrible combination of the two!
Cheers,
Dee. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| No, Alison, because you knew the gloves would snag on the thorns and cause you great frustration. And, I have dug out my own stump, managing to remain injury free but leaving a neat hole in which to trap the person who left the stump in the first place. He felt quite embarrassed when he heard it was an easy job. But the hole is really remaining in case I can find the perfect low thing to put in it in the next ?week. BTW: it's raining here, shone the torch on the gauge which is showing about 7 ml.
Rose |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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- Posted by ashmeri Cent. Qld.Aust. (My Page) on
Mon, Jun 27, 05 at 5:36
Annie, I should have said the snake was just a tree snake but he really frightened the dickens out of me, can still feel the cold slithery thing round my neck.
Don't know who got the biggest fright. Glad you got the stump out, Rose, and you are such a little person too to be swinging on a crowbar. Red Backs are nasty ,sneaky little things, have heard that the Daddy Long Legs help to keep them under control. Marion |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Reading all these reminded me of the day many years ago when my mother was watering plants in her back yard. She doesn't know quite how it happened but one minute she was on her feet, then suddenly she slipped on the wet grass - while standing still - and broke her ankle. We (Dad, sis and myself) had to carry her to the house, then get her to the hospital. As if that wasn't bad enough, the ankle was so badly broken that it required two screws to be inserted. That meant surgery. To top that off, the second screw was out of stock, so the doctors operated with the one screw they had, ordered the second screw, kept mum in hospital for a week until the second screw arrived, then operated a second time (ouch!) to put the second screw in. Mum felt ill after the first lot of surgery, but was far worse following the second. It turns out she was allergic to the anaesthetic and had had a heart attack while in the hospital. The nurses hadn't noticed, but her doctor called in to see her and noticed things were not as they should be. The most innocent actions (like watering) can be VERY dangerous! |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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It's just as well then, that we can't water too much, I guess.
Did your mum's ankle recover properly? |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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- Posted by dnnaa Illawarra NSW (My Page) on
Mon, Aug 1, 05 at 22:25
| Dangerous. You bet. Uncle Remiggio was attacked by a group of yowies once. They pounded him mercilessly for at least half an hour. Although we laugh at him about it now, he was hurt pretty bad at the time. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| a group of............."yowies"???????????? |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Distantly related to Big Foot in the US, and the yeti, or abominable snowman, and also a distant cousin on the much smaller and less troublesome bunyip. I think they are the reason DNA doesn't grow roses - the yowies tend to eat them faster than they grow. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Hi Annie and All, I'm new to this game, but I nearly fell off my chair (another accident) laughing at all of your antics in the garden , or not as the case may be. Does anyone know why my sweet peas are not flowering??? Source of much frustration, plants are healthy but NO FLOWERS!!!! I may end up hitting my head on the wall!!!!!! Another accident!!!! |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Hi everyone - well I laughed too but also felt shivers up my spine - snakes - red backs - diving kookaburras -falling into things - aaarrgh! My tale is simple - my teenage grandson weeded the back garden and while I was showing him how and where and what, I caught my foot in weeds, kept the momentum going forward expecting the weed to snap, and fell flat on my face with my hands outstretched, breaking my right wrist. Staggering to my feet, we got to the doctor's where he put on a huge plaster, without straightening the break, mentioning that he thought I was too old to bother over that - what did he mean? Two hours later, back to his surgery in intense pain as the plaster was too tight and the break had swollen up. He cut it off, snarling. Came the morning and off we went to the local casualty ward where they were glad to see me as they could use me as a model to illustrate the straightening broken wrist method to a troupe of visiting Turkish doctors, which meant lots of painkiller and vigorous pulling by the doctor, to all round cheers, even from me. Best yet, my insurance company paid out enough for the weedy backyard to be paved over, with beds set in , no weeds, as I was employed by me to work in my garden. It was a hard way to get some paving and not to be recommended, but as you all say, gardening is dangerous. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Glad to hear that it turned out a bonus for you Fairy,
Sorry about all the pains you had to go through.
Cheers...MM |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Ouch!!! At least something good came from something bad, Fairy. I'm glad you ended up getting the arm set properly. It's always a good idea to get a second opinion or try elsewhere if you're not happy with the result. I wish I did a couple of years ago when my son had his arm in plaster (right through Xmas school holidays during heat wave) for 10 weeks, from what started out as a simple break that didn't require setting to having to be re-broken and pinned, when a Dr was rough with it and moved it out of place. It's a long story and too detailed to go into it here but I was not happy! |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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- Posted by ashmeri Cent. Qld.Aust. (My Page) on
Wed, Aug 17, 05 at 0:24
| I am glad all turned out well in the end for you Fairy and all is now healing well and painlessly . talk about a "comedy of errors " for you. It could nearly have been written by a script writer for a black comedy script. I imagine you have now changed your Doctor .
Marion |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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| Thankyou all for your good wishes, Misty Morn, Goldhills and Marion - I can't tell looking at them which one was broken so the casualty doctor was marvelous - a new plaster every day until the swelling settled - and no, I never went back to the first doctor, who was probably a little rusty. You are right - get a second opinion always. I think you're right - it could be made into a black comedy script, in fact all our stories could be used. Again, thankyou for your good wishes, and I haven't stopped gardening. |
RE: BEWARE! Gardening can be dangerous!
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Well after reading all these stories (and having a chuckle at the funny ones) I am thinking maybe gardening isnt as relaxing as it is made out to be!
But then I recall how, whilst living in the city I decided to make a garden in our very small yard and planted sunflowers ... as they grew we smiled with delight and they kept growing.. when the flowers opened in all their glory they stood well over our 6ft fence.. they flowered for a long time but as is their want they past their used by date and it was time for them to go..
For weeks after total stranges came up to me (as I sat out the front relaxing) and told me how wonderful they were and how happy they made them feel in a dreary world on the cycle to work and home.. It really did make it all worth while. Needless to say we continued to plant sunflower.. not just for our pleasure but for that of the total strangers they brough happiness to! On a less joyful note.. I recall a garden I spent all summer making.. I was in a heavy clay area and had a bobcat come in to dig through the clay to make the soil better for all concerned.. all was going well as the garden grew. We had not seen rain in many months so when a sprinkle started I was so happy.. however by the 6th day of rain I noticed the garden had filled with water.. my plants were swimming.. I spent hours making drains out of the garden to release the build up.. (we were on a slight slope) The garden didnt recover that year.. hasnt happened since.. but oh what a LOT of work and so very sad.
To get the amount of rain in perspective.. a few days later our very large gum tree fell (taking out the front fence) roots and all.. I think that year I worked harder than I ever have and I wasnt working!!
And yet Im soon to start it all again.. I cant wait to get back into the garden.. My friends always say I happiest elbow deep in manure (though those arnt the words they use ) Happy gardening! |
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