And They Walked Away: The Stories of 5 Strange Injuries

Take any high school psychology course and you'll hear the story of Phineas Gage, a man whose skull was pierced by a tamping iron while working on the railroad in 1848. He survived the ordeal, but his personality and his life were changed forever by his unusual injury. Here are the stories of five other people whose lives were altered by strange injuries—but, like Gage, at least they lived to tell the tale.

1. The Importance of Saying "Bless You"

It was a typical evening for Britain's Victoria Kenny when she and her husband settled in on the couch to watch a little television in April 2007. Just as their favorite show started, Victoria's nose began to tingle and she reeled back to sneeze. Moments later, she couldn't move.

When Victoria sneezed, the force of her back muscles contracting ruptured one of the discs that acts as a cushion between each vertebrae. Her sciatic nerve was trapped between the bones, creating such intense pain, she couldn't stand, sit, or even move her arms and legs. After three surgeries, the best doctors could do was keep her comfortable with a daily morphine dosage that was so high it caused her to have hallucinations. Bed-ridden in anguish for two years, Victoria had to close the business she owned, became horribly depressed, and even contemplated suicide.

Then, in April 2009, Victoria was referred to Spineworks, a private specialty clinic, to see if they might be able to help. The surgeons there permanently attached a small, plastic cage around the affected vertebrae, placed a tiny spring between the bones to replace the ruptured disc, and held the whole thing in place with titanium rods and bolts. Although it sounds restrictive, Victoria reported the pain was gone immediately. In fact, she was out of the hospital the next day, and was walking around a week later. However, she admits to being terrified of sneezing now, preferring to pinch her nose whenever she feels one coming on.

2. More Than a Mouthful

Chad Ettmueller was hungry. And when Chad was hungry, he often went to Which Wich, his favorite sub sandwich shop in Cumming, Georgia. He normally orders the chain's "Wicked" sandwich, stacked high with turkey, ham, roast beef, pepperoni, and bacon, as well as three cheeses of your choosing. It's a mouthful as it is, but Chad hadn't eaten anything that day, so he ordered double meat, too. When he went to take his first bite, he opened wide and prepared to chomp down. But his jaw wouldn't move—it was stuck open.

This is the part where Chad sues Which Wich and wins a crazy multi-million dollar settlement, right? Not this time. Chad's pride was bruised, but he wasn't going to get all litigious. "It wasn't the sandwich's fault," he said, "it was my genetics." The chain offered Chad as many milkshakes as he wanted while he was recovering and is planning on renaming the Wicked sandwich to honor him and his predicament. They're taking votes on their website to decide if the sandwich should be renamed the "Double Dislocator," the "Lock-Jaw," or the "Jaw Wrecker."

Even though Chad survived his injury, his friend Paul avenged him like a true pal should, by eating the rest of the sandwich later. Afterwards he said "it had to die." What a guy!

Here's a video of Chad talking about his jaw-breaking meal:

3. Talk About Getting Screwed

It's common safety protocol on a construction site to toss away the tool you're using if you start to fall off a ladder. It makes sense, because nobody wants to land on their own hammer or saw. Unfortunately, this method doesn't always work as planned.

There, doctors had the difficult task of figuring out how to remove the drill bit from Hunt's head. They considered cutting into his head and pulling it out from the side, though this would obviously be an invasive process. Instead, someone hit upon the bright idea of just unscrewing it—and it worked! Amazingly, the bit had not punctured Hunt's brain, but had simply pushed it aside when it entered through the ocular cavity, saving him from serious brain damage or death. So it was just a matter of slowly twisting the bit—by hand—until it popped right out of his skull.

Hunt's luck stopped there, though, as his right eye was destroyed and he needed more surgery to insert metal plates in his head to hold his fractured skull together. And Hunt was uninsured, leaving him with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. At least he walked away with an amazing story and the startling x-rays to prove it.

4. Music, Jesus, and Chainsaws

This one's pretty gruesome.

Now standing on a broken leg and foot, blood began to pour into his lungs. Somehow, Murff had the will and forethought to periodically bend down and let the blood drain from the gash in his neck to keep himself from drowning. Stopping occasionally to drain his lungs, he hobbled to his truck 150 feet away, then drove a half-mile to a neighbor's house. A friend took Murff to a small-town hospital 17 miles away, but doctors quickly realized they couldn't handle such a severe trauma case. So they stabilized Murff as best they could before transferring him—by ambulance—to a larger hospital 30 miles away. Once there, he was immediately rushed into surgery to, quite literally, reattach his head.

Miraculously, Murff survived and lived a perfectly normal life, dying in 2003 at the ripe old age of 92. Even after the accident, he still cut down the occasional tree. When interviewed about the accident in 1994, Murff said he planned to live out the rest of his days concentrating on the three things he loved most: music, Jesus Christ, and chainsaws. You have to wonder if maybe he should have just stuck with those first two.

5. Video Games Really Are Bad For You

To cleanse the images of chainsaws and drill bits out of your mind, here's a fun but strange injury to wrap things up.

Growing up, my friends and I suffered from "Nintendo Thumb," a painful affliction of the opposable digits caused by playing too many hours of The Legend of Zelda or Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Thankfully, the worst effect our "injury" ever had was the occasional cramp in our writing hand during an Algebra test. For one major league pitcher, though, his video game injury almost cost him the chance to play in the World Series.

While most players can rest assured their strange injuries will one day be forgotten, Zumaya's injury will live on forever thanks to the makers of Guitar Hero. When Guitar Hero II was released for the Xbox 360 in April 2007, pretend musicians were met with a brief disclaimer in the game's credits: "No pitchers were harmed in the making of this game. Except for one. Joel Zumaya. He had it coming."

Wanna read more about people hurting themselves in strange ways? Check out Ethan's 19 Unusual Sports Injuries.
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Do you guys have any memorable injury stories? Tell us about them in the comments below!