I have a pretty wicked scar on my chest that’s about 4 inches long and looks vicious.
People ask me how I got it and I always say jokingly, “a knife fight”. But the truth is far less impressive, my friends.
Here’s what happened: we were on a family vacation in Florida when I was about 16-years-old and went to the beach, walked into the Gulf of Mexico, and dove in when the water was about waist deep. As I skimmed along the bottom of the water, a big, jagged shell that was sticking out of the sand cut deep into the middle of my chest.
It bled like crazy and probably could have used stitches, but I just put a butterfly bandage on it and the sun and the saltwater made it into a big, puffy scar that I still have today.
Oh, and I have a cool scar on my hand because some kid stabbed me with a hand-made, wooden knife on accident on the bus my Freshman year of high school!
Folks on AskReddit opened up about how they got the scars on their bodies. Let’s take a look!
1. Still think of her.
“I was 10 years old, in Girl Scouts, and I really wanted a jack knife.
Mom got me one, and said, “Be careful. And if you’re not careful and you cut yourself, don’t come crying to me.” So I’m outside whittling on a stick, and the knife slipped and sliced into my finger.
Mom’s gonna kill me. I was scared to go inside the house, ’cause Mom would know what happened, so I rinsed the cut with the garden hose and wrapped my sock around the finger til it stopped bleeding.
Mom’s been gone 35 years and I think of her whenever I notice that scar.”
2. Lucky to be here.
“My appendix ruptured and the doctor claimed I was faking it for drugs. Only when my mom said she would burn down the clinic the doctor sent us to the hospital along with a police escort to arrest her…
I was under the knife and operated on within 15 minutes of arrival barely surviving and they had to make a 8 inch opening to flush out every piece of contaminant 5 times before they could close me up.
My mom was not arrested and the police officer told her how to file for disciplinary actions on the doctor.”
3. Lab accident.
“My middle school science teacher was doing a routine demonstration in which she heated up a jelly baby with a bunsen burner.
For whatever reason it went wrong, the jelly baby exploded, and landed on my knee. Burnt a hole through my skirt and tights and the scar is still there to this day. She was a bloody lovely woman and a fab teacher and was really really apologetic.
She let me eat the rest of the bag of jelly babies to make up for it.”
4. Those things are nasty.
“Brown recluse spider bite.
I was four, and my mom didn’t notice it for DAYS.
Definitely could have died, but luckily got away with just a scar.”
5. Terrible.
“I was 11 and got mugged, the third guy sliced my face.
There was so much blood they freaked out and ran.”
6. Ouch.
“I was riding my bike in the city, and a car door from one of the parallel parked cars opened up in front of me.
Needed surgery on my collarbone.
Now I can tell when it’s about to rain because my metal plate begins to hurt.”
7. Butterfingers.
“On my left hand, I have a one and a half inch scar. You can still see the holes from the stitches that I had.
I was cleaning the excess plastic from a 3D printed project. It just got out of the acid bath, which is used to help get rid of the extra bits of plastic. I was shaving down larger bits that didn’t get burnt off with an x-acto knife.
If you ever had acid on your hands, know it makes them very slippery, so my project slipped and I cut through my left hand.”
8. Scary stuff.
“Used to work in a small pharmacy, my coworker was going to a party and asked if I could close up myself.
Me being me, I agreed, I was locking some stuff away (we used to keep most of the strong stuff in just some lockers, we upgraded after this) and 4 junkies jumped me.
Sliced my throat, and took a bunch of drugs. Wasn’t deep but it could have been lethal.
I was in shock but knew i needed to call for help so I just went and pushed the alarm and called 112 (911 in Europe). Luckily I got the help I needed and the thieves were caught.”
9. Glad you’re okay.
“I was going out for my 17th birthday last year and the car I was in got hit by a truck.
I ended up with a long scar starting from my forehead going back into my head.”
10. The old days.
“Y’all old people remember the swing sets that were made of metal poles and if you swung too high/hard the legs would lift up and the chains holding the swings were never fully attached so you could go flying off at a moments notice?
That, with a spectacular landing right into the end of the pole on the slide that was tipped over that gouged out a hole the size of a dime in my knee.”
11. What a story.
“Drank a box of wine, jumped off a roof, broke my leg, had s*x instead of going to the hospital immediately.”
12. Sounds painful.
“I tripped on a stick & half of it jammed into my shin bone.
The weirdest part? It didn’t bleed.
I speculated that perhaps I’m a cyborg & just didn’t know it but that didn’t pan out.”
13. Whoa!
“I was camping with the family when I was around 5 years old.
I was playing, my mom and dad were busy setting up the campsite. I spot what I think is a kitty cat and go over to pet it.
Turns out it was a Bobcat. It left me with a 6 inch scar across my chest.”
14. Dangerous playground.
“When I was about 4 years old I fell from a playground.
At the time in my country a specific type of playground was very popular, imagine a sort of Fort made from metal. They were 2 stories high, on one end there was like a half story on which there was a slide and set of stairs to get on the playground, then there was another set of half stairs to get to the highest part of the thing.
On the other end there were 2 sets of, I wanna say climbing rope nets, but made from metal, to get from the ground to the top of the thing. And those things were huge, as in 4 year old me could barely climb them.
There was also a fireman’s pole, and swings, all metal, and on the upper level there also were some catwalks to get to the “towers” of the fort.
So this really windy day the lady that watched us while our parents were working was up in of the towers with my (still in arms) little sister, I was walking up there from the end that had the slide and the regular stairs, and when I got to the top where the climbing things were the wind knocked me over and I fell rolling down those.
When I landed my head hit the concrete base where the thing was built and I got a cut about 10 centimeters long right in my forehead right to my skull.
Obviously chaos ensued, an ambulance was called, etc.
The paramedics had to use a whole roll of gauze around my head to be able to contain the bleeding enough to get me to the hospital.
Once I got to the hospital and the doctors removed the gauze everybody freaked out and a million doctors got called. In the end nothing really bad happened and they sewed me up, 30 something stitches on my forehead.
Thinking back I can see why those playgrounds no longer exist here.”
How about you?
Do you have any crazy scars on your body?
If so, how did you get them?
Tell us all about it in the comments! Thanks in advance!
