I didn't think it was possible, certainly not likely but I did it. I don't mean slipping on the deck and breaking an arm. I mean "while swimming".
Two nights ago, going into my backstroke turn in the middle of my 200IM, I realized too late that the backstroke flags had been taken down. I arched my neck to look upside down toward the wall to guage the distance, BAM, I slammed face first into the wall. I came up with a pretty small gash on my nose and cut on my forehead. It wasn't so much painful as startling and certainly embarrassing. Once the bleeding stopped, I thought I should go see about getting it stitched at our local, friendly ER. While in the waiting room, I realized my face hurt...ALOT, so they did an x-ray and sure enough a broken nose.
I've never broken a bone in my life (knock on wood). I quit running 18 months ago b/c I had become so injury prone in my late 30's/early 40's. It's not so bad though, as broken bones go. I'll be back in the pool in a few days once my stitches are gone. The bone will take 4-6 weeks to heal but that shouldn't keep me out of the pool.
Just curious if I'm unique in this regard.
Former Member
Geez, who knew backstroke was so dangerous
yet another reason for me to avoid it like the plague! :bolt:
Geez, who knew backstroke was so dangerous
I did it in freestyle (which makes me look kind of foolish). Swam too fast into the wall and cracked my middle finger bone.
I broke a bone in my hand back in '89 while finishing.
my coach and I were not getting along that day and when I saw he was standing close enough to the pool I decided to finish hard enough to get him wet. wound up breaking a bone in the palm of my hand and was out of swimming most of that summer. Wound up taking a break for 12 months which turned out to be the biggest development mistake in my swimming carrier.
Geez, who knew backstroke was so dangerous Quite frankly, everybody was surprised to realize the gravity of this injury. That female was nearly 6feet tall. Well built National level. 1:03 over 100m back. After all she just crashed into a wall. But since she wasn't at all expecting the wall maybe she gave a huge pull then bang. IOW she was probably accelerating her body into this wall.
Scull fracture. That's quite major.
A while ago someone in the pool told me her toe was broken by a faster swimmer, presumably while trying to pass her, though I'm not sure whether her own body position was acceptable, as it was clear she was not a good swimmer. Sometimes some very slow swimmers' legs spread over 2/3 (or more) of the lane even though they are swimming the crawl, not ***.:cool:
When I was back in high school, I remember glancing hands with a teammate in the next lane (freestyle recovery). Found out that I had broken his hand, which was rather unfortunate because it wasn't that solid of an arm collision.
Had a friend bloody-but-not-break the nose of someone who tried sneaking into the wall just as my friend was doing a backstroke start. The arms swinging away from the blocks caught the guy in the face.
Had a college roommate break his hand blocking a shot during man-down defense in a water polo match. Didn't notice until the end of the quarter that his hand was overly "foldy". Spent several hours in the Annapolis hospital waiting room before they put a cast on his arm.
