Injuries Whilst Eating

[tallen]

My first post - and I'm going to admit this

I sprained my tongue on a Champagne bottle.

Doing a silly thing after a few glasses we were playing around and I decided to prove the bottle was empty by trying to suck out the last drop.... well, the vacuum created sucked my tongue into the bottle and formed a perfect seal. We had to break the bottle to get my tongue out. How embarrasing.

I looked like this for a few days

(edited because I can't spell!)

[Rhea_S]

I vote for Tallen's story as most unique and entertaining.

No major eating injuries myself but my mom once had to be brought to emergency due to a fish bone. A large, hooked fish bone lodged into her throat and it wouldn't free itself. She waited in emergency for 2 hours while spitting blood. Doctor finally comes after my dad gets a little angry, he sticks a tongue depressor in Mom's mouth, gag reflex kicks in, she coughs, out flies the fish bone and blood squirts on the doctor's nice white coat.

[Stone]

I was eating a sandwich with flaky-crusted bread whilst home with a bad head cold. Without paying too much attention, I started chewing and had a good hard sniffle at the same time. Sharp, dry crust crumbs (I believe "shrapnel" would be an apt description) shot to the back of my throat causing a large cough/hack/gag/sneeze that resulted in lot of stuff flying out of my mouth/nose/eyes. I've had a similar experience at a restaurant. Not as severe physically, but much more humiliating publically.

[malarkey]

Tallen's story is sooo good. But I like lamb's story too.

back in the days when braces were bands around each individual tooth they cemented on, I managed to un-cement one of them while eating nachos.

Other than biting tongue, cheek or fingers (hasn't everyone done those?) Oh and you are not alone about crusty baguettes leaving one 'mouth-sore'. It doesn't stop me either.

[Varmint]

I burned my uvula on some very hot mozzarella. Yup, that thingy that hangs in the back of your throat. The ENT who looked at my throat told me he had never seen such a large uvula in his life. I no longer have my uvula, as it also caused me to snore like a chainsaw. I miss my uvula. I don't feel complete anymore.

[nightscotsman]

And for the best description of said cereal, and the optimum way to eat it, check out Stephenson's _Cryptonomicon_.

Another great decription is in "Microserfs" by Douglas Coupland. He describes the Cap'n Crunch aftermath as "having raw gobbets of mouth goo hanging from the roof of his mouth" and talking like Cindy Brady for the rest of the day.

I may just be extra sensitive, but whenever I eat too much fresh pineapple (like two spears), my tongue bleeds freely. The acid just eats it away. :-P

[Varmint]

I don't think that's the acid. That's probably due to bromelain, the proteolytic enzyme in pineapple that you'll also find in papaya and (to a lesser extent) figs. This is the enzyme that breaks down the gelatin fibers in Jell-O (thus, the appropriate "do not use pineapple" labels on the Jell-O box).

I guess some people must be more susceptible to the effects of bromelain. Do you also have a problem with papaya?

[201]

I just noticed this thread, but luckily no one's contributed my particular injury: Recently I was eating a particularly nice banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) with very potent hot peppers on it. The juice from these peppers was all over my fingers which I then absent-mindedly happened to use in rubbing my left eye. YOUCH!! And I thought they had a nice kick in my MOUTH! Luckily, this did not occur in public.

Sadly though, it was not the first time I've had that same injury.

[nightscotsman]

I guess some people must be more susceptible to the effects of bromelain. Do you also have a problem with papaya?

I haven't had the problem with other tropical fruit, but I have a couple times with particularly tart apples. That's why I attributed it to the acid.

Wouldn't the bromelain just make my tongue squishy?

[lamb]

I burned my uvula on some very hot mozzarella.  Yup, that thingy that hangs in the back of your throat.  The ENT who looked at my throat told me he had never seen such a large uvula in his life.  I no longer have my uvula, as it also caused me to snore like a chainsaw.  I miss my uvula.  I don't feel complete anymore.    

At first glance I was thinking vulva - and conjuring up all sorts of possible food related scenarios to go with that body part. Of course, I then read further saw your uvula description - that thing in your throat. Whew - I'm relieved. Sorry to hear you miss it, but some things we are just better off without.

[Stone]

I just noticed this thread, but luckily no one's contributed my particular injury:  Recently I was eating a particularly nice banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich) with very potent hot peppers on it.  The juice from these peppers was all over my fingers which I then absent-mindedly happened to use in rubbing my left eye.  YOUCH!!  And I thought they had a nice kick in my MOUTH!  Luckily, this did not occur in public.

Sadly though, it was not the first time I've had that same injury.

I keep a bag of dried peppers in the cabinet near the stove, and usually grab a few to crumble with my fingers into pasta. One night I hadn't washed my hands well before I took out my contact lenses. The pain was literally blinding. And the lenses soaked in the oil from my fingers and had to be thrown away.

(Lamb -- Me too.)

[yvonne johnson]

Tallen's story about the perfect seal reminded me. When I was around 5 years old, I got stuck in a dining room chair. My mum temporarily left the table, and I thought I'd see if I could squeeze my body, head first, through the space between seat and back of the chair. I got stuck half-way. My mother pushed and pulled but I didn't budge. Then she got a hammer out, widened the opening and I was set free. I was very embarrassed. Could've been worse I suppose--to the Emergency Room stuck in a chair.

[chopjwu12]

Kiwi also has that same enzyme so it might do the same thing.

Speaking of hot peppers. My friend at school was cutting jalepinos in class one day and he went to the bathroom. When i saw him right after walking back from class because he had to go to the nurse right away there was tears in his eyes and he had to take a shower right away. I never saw someone walked buckled over in such pain. It was histericall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[torakris]

Hot peppers in the eye, I don't think I can even I can count on one hand anymore how many times I have done that. And wearing contacts makes it worse, beacause you need to get those out of your eye ASAP and your fingers are still "contaminated". My first food in the eye experience was back in high school, I was trying to open one of those mustard packets to smear on my hot dog and the struggle finally ended with a squirt straight to my eye. Pain, absolute pain!

The second worst experience was probably in college. When thinking that my boyfriend was going to be out for the entire evening, I settled into the couch with a good movie and a large bowl of salsa and a bag of tortilla chips. My boyfriend thought it would be funny to jump out from behind the couch and surprise me, not realizing that the surprise would cause the bowl of salsa to become airborn and strike me in the upper arm on its way back down. The bruise lasted for weeks , but it took me months to get that salsa stain off the ceiling!

[MHesse]

Shellfish and crustacean injuries:

Cut fingers and knuckles from unskilled handling of lobsters and crawfish.

Near misses with champagne corks.

Does washing dishes count? (probably not)

15 stitches on palm and pinky finger when a glass broke while washing the inside with a vigorous circular motion.

--mh

[201]

I feel much better knowing I'm not alone in the "hot pepper to the eye" category (and that Mr. Santos gets such joy from seeing such injuries)!

Just remembered a food-related injury from when I was very young (maybe 4 years old). One evening neither my brother nor I would finish our vegetables, so my parents naturally said that we would get no dessert if we didn't clean our plates. Shortly thereafter, my brother quite accidently fell off his chair, hit his head, and began crying. To stop his crying, my parents gave him a bowl of ice cream.

...

Observing this chain of events, I quite blatantly pushed my feet against the table and sent my chair falling backwards to inflict a nice head injury with the hopes of getting some ice cream out of it. Guess who DIDN'T get the ice cream? Well, at least I got a fun story to tell.

Less fun to tell is that my mother spilled a pot of scalding coffee all over me when I was 2-3 years old. It's one of my earliest memories and probably contributes to the fact that I never developed a taste for coffee.

[foodgeek]

You have already mentioned some of mine.

I did destroy dentilwork on a hard pretzel. Plenty of pizza burns on roof of mouth.

Burned (?) the corner of my mouth on fresh pinapple.

Hmmmm...

I got hit in the forehead by som1 else's flying tablespoon. Does it count if it wasn't my spoon?

I cut my tongue so badly on sucking candy that i drew blood.

[Andy Lynes]

I broke both ankles eating a Cornetto.

LML - you surpass yourself.

[Kerouac1964]

I don't think I've heard this one mentioned. When I eat too many salty snacks I sometimes will get a litte painful pimple like thingy on my tongue. Takes at least a day to go away.

To make matters worse it sometimes needs popped or lanced to release the pressure like it either swells or infects. Ouch!!

One last sad story: a guy I'd known since kindergarten had the ultimate food mishap. He started choking on a piece of meat, and he fled the restaurant, refusing people's help of a heimlich maneuver. Died in the parking lot.

[Lord Michael Lewis]

He started choking on a piece of meat, and he fled the restaurant, refusing people's help of a heimlich maneuver.  Died in the parking lot.

How well mannered.

[tommy]

macrosan threw a chicken carcass at me once. it didn't really hurt, save emotionally.

[Big Man]

One night in college we went to the diner after a long game of Turbo Quarters. I figured that since Jeff had spent the past 20 minutes throwing up in the bathroom and was still looking a little green he wouldn't want the sausage sitting on his plate. I was wrong, and the fork marks were visible in the back of my hand for years.

[Steebles]

Love these stories :) I can really relate to the champagne one:

In the 70's, when everyone was freaking out over disposable pop-tops on beer and soda cans littering the highways, various "solutions" were perpertrated upon us the hapless public.

One solution involved a smallish circle on one side of the top that could be popped in (there were even Tools one could get to facilitate this) along with another even smaller circle opposite to provide a bit of airflow. Like a gas can.

Anyway, at a party I managed to squidge my tongue (God knows why) into the larger hole and it got *very* stuck.

Last week at the movies ("Signs"), I shoved some popcorn up my nose during a particularly startling moment. Timing :)

I licked something off a really sharp knife...... once.

[201]

macrosan threw a chicken carcass at me once.  it didn't really hurt, save emotionally.

This is stretching the topic a bit, but could be funny nonetheless (in a very twisted sort of way):

In their teenage years, my brother and some friends of his once saw a group of vegetarian/animal rights protestors outside of a turkey/chicken farm that provides fresh-killed birds. They drove straight to the supermarket, picked up several pounds of assorted chicken parts, and proceeded to strafe the protestors with raw chicken parts thrown out of a moving vehicle. They even made a few passes until they were out of ammo. I'm sure someONE was injured (emotionally and/or physically), but it certainly wasn't while they were eating.

[Big Man]

Last week at the movies ("Signs"), I shoved some popcorn up my nose during a particularly startling moment.  Timing :)

Please explain. Does popcorn have a soothing effect? I would think that the salt would exacerbate the fright. Perhaps you're using buttered popcorn?