I'll not do that again........

Some of us are lucky still to be alive...... maimed, but alive. Got any tales of near death / leaps up the learning curve for us to chuckle at?

Eg.

The Fighter Controller’s symbol generator computer at VL tower in 1983 was a huge room size computer full of analogue switches and valves etc. All the components were wrapped around rectangular drawers that were slid out of the front fascia, remaining operational for adjustment. My tools were on the other side of one of the slid out drawers so I put my hand on top and reached across. I didn’t get the tools cos I was on my back having been blown there by the shock with all the 1950’s vintage resistors and capacitors imprinted on my hand. ‘Kin hurt that did!

or

I hung a soldering iron on the bench drawer handle then reached across it. Welded my crappy nylon mix 8’s trousers to my bollocks. ‘Kin hurt more that did!

or

Eagle base in Norway. I was chef and had filled, and spilled, a few days worth of cookers with naptha in the cold pit dug at the door of the 12X12. Early morning, the 7 or so sailors pretending to be booties are snug in their slugs on the dry hay strewn round the tent, so I get a brew on by the light of a cylume.
Just after the WHOOOMPH! And blinding flame, I could smell my eyebrows and see the tent doors are on fire…along with my gloved hands…..and the hay. The troops are awake but slugs are like straight jackets and the knife is hanging from the roof of the tent. The BCF just about coped as we all rolled through the hole cut by another knife in the back of the tent.
The booties were really sympathetic when we asked for a new tent…..not.

Sometime later, at night, I set a complete fir tree alight while the crew were in a shelter under it whilst trying to fill a Tilley lamp without letting it cool down. We were tactical at the time so I encountered some more booty sympathy. :roll:

I don’t know how I did 11 years.

KP
(Up late cos I broke my arm playing footy – It never ends!)

 

yup fell out of a helicopter at Lympstone ..broken foot and shortened spine ..i was 6ft when i joined and left 5' 11 and a half!!!!! also my oppo complained after a fall -of pain in his arm ..the troop sgt thought he was dripping so dragged him off coach by said arm , to blood curdling screams only to find that the poor nods arm was actually broken!!!

 

Not to me but I witnessed the event!

'Adventure training' in the Brecon Beacons (or was it the Black Mountains?). Group of about 12, split across 6 Force 10s (luxury you may think, but we had already been carrying the bloody things for 2 days). We camp down for the night half way up some godforsaken mountain and all tents put up, scran on the go. One of the other groups has one guy inside the tent beginning to lay out the slugs for the night, whil the other is getting the primus up to pressure and pumping away vigorously. A little too vigorously.

BANG!

Up goes the primus on a ball of flame, knowcking the protaganist onto his back.

WOOSH!

Up goes the flysheet of the tent in flame that is a little too close by. Luckily chap inside has the presence of mind just to grab the bergen straps and hoof it out. Inner tent was fine - but now bugger all use.

Never realised how flammable they were!

 

As a very young OD stoker on the Carron (CA Destroyer) in Guzz I once signed up on the notice board for what I thought was an exhibition but it turned out it was an expedition.
I thought it a bit strange when we were given a pair of gaiters and a bag meal, but I got on the bus anyway. Then after being driven to the `orrible bit in the middle of Dartmoor we were told to get off, split up and make an assault on a disused farmhouse 10 miles away. So off we set and was soon in our stride, although by no stretch of the imagination could our progress be described as Yomping, it was more a cross between an amble and a mince.
When we got in sight of the ruined farmhouse we could smell hot dogs cooking so we immediately gave ourselves up. (we’d eaten the bag meals on the bus) Then the fun began as Jack started arriving back, there was one on a horse, then three on a tractor, even two on a cow, and amazingly two arrived with 3 giggling girls in tow with full make up and high heel shoes (the girls that is.)
Although as it turned out it wasn’t to bad, it did teach me a lesson,

Read the small print and never volunteer for nothing.

 

As a young AB Gunner, during a COST at portland, on Jupiter in the middle of an ADEX, I was the aft GAMBO aimer listening on gun group, while my opposite number on the port GAMBO was getting a barrel change by the fosties. Then all of a sudden there was what i thought a girl screeming on the net. no it was said opposite number who managed to get his fingers broken by the top plate of the gun while inspecting the bore during a violent ship roll!!! luckliy his anti-flash glove kept his fingers in one place...

 

:?:

 

While i was at HMS Mercury i was Duty MA and was covering a Football match.It was all very boring untill a very "chunky" chef tackled an opponent neatly landing on top of him.I clearly heard a "snap" and the ensuing scream of pain.We scraped him up onto a stretcher and carted him off to the Sickbay,where us Medics had a disscussion as to wether he had fractured his femur.I was adamant that he had.However the "Classic" signs of a fractured femur were not apparent.I stuck to my guns and said it was an "intertrochanteric "fracture of his femur.For my cheek the PMO made me escort the bloke to Haslar for x rays.Lo and behold the showed i was right!!!
I have never seen a fracture like this since!

 

To Killick Pinky,

When did the arctic blaze occur?


Hids

 

Are you a Lancashire lad by birth Kinky or just in in-migrant? They do say that people up there are as 'daft as a brush'. My family are from there and live there (I'm the only traitor who has moved out) and my Dad (now 77 ex crab) is regularly falling off ladders and roofs and generally getting into scrapes welding, building telescopes and chasing after women like a naughty little boy. I suspect the forces in general encourage this pre-disposition to behave like a big kid - Dennis the Menace with a big weapon - perish the thought :wink:
GR


p.s. he does tell a tale about changing the sparking plugs on a Short Sunderland, upside down with his mates holding him by the legs over a crocodile infested lake :shock: :shock: :shock:

 

By Jove, I think she's got it!

 

on the castle training with 9mm on the arse end at sea. 1 gunner showing us "ow it works".

5 minutes later, one guardrail shot to sh1t, 1 Dan Can and reflector with water integrity issues a damaged flightdeck and a malicious wounding...

Rib plus SMG, plus not sure where the safety is chief, plus not sat down properly, plus throttle the **** out of it...

also, this is more for booties, you that one "stick yer head round teh corner and see where that sniper is"... prove!