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It’s been said by someone, somewhere, at some point that trampoline accident videos are the reason for the internet. Well, that, and farting cat videos. But as much as I might like to watch people, or even cats, fall down, trampoline accidents, specifically, have always made me wince.
It was 1999. Like many other nerdy teens, I’m spending an evening trolling AOL chat rooms on the family computer. I’m pretending to “cyber” (that’s a precursor to sexting, look it up kiddies) with a lonely shut-in or six when a phone call kicked me offline. It was a neighbor, a friend of my younger sister, Mandy. (We were both named after songs now only heard in dentists’ offices.) She told me Mandy fell off her trampoline and was crying. Mandy was a bully, and I was her usual target. I took a moment to relish the thought of her in pain. “Okay, I’ll call my mom.” Instead, I immediately signed back into AOL to edit my Joaquin Phoenix Angelfire fansite.
In the mean time, the neighbor girl (since friended and unfriended on Facebook after some questionable Tea Party-related status updates) called 911. They took Mandy to the hospital, the one where my mom worked. I was busy hotlinking dreamy photos of Joaquin’s golden brown eyes when another call interrupted my work. Mom. “Mandy’s hurt!” Mandy’s really hurt. So much for sweet schadenfreude.
Continue this riveting story after the jump.
Mandy didn’t come home that night, or any night for the next two weeks. She hadn’t jumped from a roof or a window or even fallen off the bouncy death trap. She just caught an awkward recoil and set off a nightmare chain reaction: The force snapped her tibia. The wayward bone shattered her knee cap. Rogue pieces lodged in her blood vessels and nerve tissue. By the time the doctors realized that blood couldn’t flow past her knee, the tissue in her lower leg and foot had started to become necrotic. There was talk of amputation. She was a 14-year-old just jumping on a trampoline. During an eight-hour emergency surgery, the doctors sliced a line the length of her thigh to harvest blood vessels, then another incision down the front of her knee and shin. The resulting quadruple bypass saved her leg.
Mandy was put in an ankle-to-groin cast and used a wheelchair for months. We wheeled her through her Confirmation ceremony. We pushed her up to accept her grade school diploma. We wheeled her to a Hanson concert. We helped her scratch inside the cast with a hanger. We helped her in and out of the bathtub promising not to look at her naked. When the cast finally came off, her leg was a mess of bright red scar tissue. She used a walker for a while after that, tennis balls capping the device’s front legs. She rode the bus with that walker, and navigated her new high school behind it. Not exactly a tween’s dream.
Twelve years later, Mandy is fine. Almost. The nerve damage continues to prevent her from ever running, kneeling, or moving her toes. Her scars have faded from blood red to white, but her leg is still very much mangled. She still shies away from even the friendliest of sports. She never wears shorts or skirts.
All because of a trampoline accident. So, yeah, the videos don’t really do it for me.
I’m not trying to make a grand stand against laughing at people getting hurt. I’m in no position to preach. I LOL’ed at Antoine Dodson and his assaulted sister. (But then we all felt bad about it for a minute?) I smiled when the boy danced into the path of the ice cream truck. And the shopping cart face-plant girls? Oh brother. Why is that? Are we all just internet trolls who cannot comprehend human suffering unless it’s directly related to our personal experiences? Probably.
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I’m just so glad I deleted my YouTube rant about how white people always crowd me in the yogurt isle of Whole Foods before it went viral.
I am very squeamish so I just kind of browsed through your story, but that is awful about your sister and I’m glad she’s okay
but I like to believe that if someone was in the hospital they wouldn’t post a video of them falling on youtube, people are generally good right? right?
I’ll take Anne Frank to block.
Joan of Arc for the win.
I understand how dangerous trampolines are, but whenever I see one with the net around it I think “pussies”.
Unless the nets have a basketball hoop, in that case you won
Me too, but only because I’m pretty much constantly thinking about pussies.
Erm, I mean just yours, baby! I love you!
“Nice save, R2.” – you guys
Nice save, R2.
the prophecy is fulfilled!
Ian I totally agree. Trampoline hoops are the best. This kid does not know what I am talking about.
I see what you did there. I see EVERYTHING.
Something tells me you don’t like trampolines, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.
more after the jump..
Time for kittens everybody.
Should have looked at this picture a little closer. That is a scary ass kitten.
And yet, I still love him.
I find that most ass kittens are pretty terrifying.
Look out! Ass kitten!
I’ve never really enjoyed seeing people get hurt on youtube videos… I guess, I mean partially because it’s embarrassing, but moreso because ti’s just weird seeing someone potentially getting hurt. I don’t like seeing people get hurt like that.
Except this one time where I saw an old lady get punched in the face by another old lady, because old women punches are like grandma hugs.
I think people getting hurt can be funny, so long as it’s not a serious injury. A little pain? Laugh away.* Impaled on a fence post? Not so much.
*I got absolutely destroyed by a golf ball struck from close range last Spring. My friends laughed and laughed, and I don’t blame them. It was pretty fucking funny, and all that really happened was a welt that hung around for a few weeks.
The most recent video I can think of is that one kid who’s being chubby who picks up the bully and slams him head first into the ground and the bully sort of limps away. I was just like “oh, craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap! why!?” that’s actually my reaction to most things I watch on youtube though.
I can’t handle watching people hurt themselves. I don’t even like watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. This makes me feel even worse! Where can I send flowers to Mandy?
I feel the same. 1-800-Flowers. Also a distant relative broke their neck on a trampoline (or well falling off of one). I won’t go near one. No way.
I’m gonna send an Edible Arrangements because they’re pretty and delicious, can someone lend me $900?
For the record, I never felt bad about laughing at Antoine Dodson. And trampoline accidents make me wince also, since my mother tore her ACL on a trampoline. I still watch them over and over again, but I wince while doing it.
I always kind of felt like I was laughing *with* Antoine Dodson? It seemed like he was having fun once the danger had passed and everything was okay.
On a related note, my karaoke-hosting friend created a karaoke version of the Bed Intruder song at my request. I shall be performing it on Saturday, and there might be video available online.
I realized that I agreed with you, but worded it in such a way that it seemed like a disagreement. Not so! You are correct, sir.
Point: usually when I read a downer, I throw the boxer puppy on the trampoline gif up to make me happy. But I don’t think this is the right context.
Counterpoint:
Shellbomber, that’s a really good story.
coming from Mr. Stories, that is a huge compliment.
I’m actually kind sorta afraid of trampolines. I just look at those springs along the edge, and all I see is someone landing on them and cutting their leg open or something. I actually shivered a little typing this comment.
I am scared to jump more than two inched on a trampoline because I know any higher and I will be pulled into the shining jaws of the springs. Pinch pinch pinch.
*shudders*
I am so glad that you were able to put this into a coherent statement, shellbomber, because I agree completely but have never been able to do the “words-putting-together” part.
It seems like the only time something is “not funny” on the internet is when it applies to an experience that speaks to the e-observer personally, myself included. It’s true–we have all been butthurt at one time or another. Group hug! The first step is admitting we have a problem.
As Mel Brooks said “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.”
See? Mel Brooks gets it!
I love you. I am the only other person I have heard quote that. Done seen it in books other places, but authors aren’t real people.
Did you ever consider just cutting your sister out of your wedding? Wait, was that the point of this story?
P.S. I took out the part about the wedding at Mandy’s request.
Sorry to hear that, that sucks.
I have the same reaction to viral videos since my brother got his head caught in a yogurt cup.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to laugh at our grand human slapstick. We’re frail and fairly stupid creatures who try to jump down flights of stairs while riding on a thin piece of wood. We put blatant taunts to natural selection in our backyards and expect small children to jump on them three at a time. We flock in droves to see a movie featuring grown men playing tetherball with a beehive. We leap out of planes at 25,000 feet JUST FUCKING BECAUSE.
Naturally, our idiocy tends to sometimes get the better of us. And when it does, how should we react? Should we cower in existential horror over the fact that someday, yes, it will end and not only that, but before it does we will experience every sort of pain on every sort of level? Or should we attempt to find levity in such things because LOLZ THAT D00D GOT HIT IN DA NUTZ!!1!
Haha, the ’90s you guys!!
Cybering, AOL, dial-up, trampolines (noaccidento)… it all makes me…
Ha, remember “The Rachel”?
OMG, about three weeks ago I walked into my salon and requested (and GOT) the Rachel. I have the Rachel. I am the 90s.
I have to agree that trampoline accident videos always make me wince. I definitely prefer videos of animals using trampolines like the following ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyxU29V4jVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdPI50E0Zdo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFt5Zz5Mwlo
My friend had a trampoline when we were kids, and we played this variation of tag where the person who was “it” crawled around underneath the trampoline and tried to tag people’s feet through the mesh between bounces.
People always wonder why my friend is as odd as he is now, if not a bit slow, and I can never help but think of the multiple sustained head injuries that game seemed to bring about.
I have to agree that trampoline accident videos always make me wince. I definitely prefer videos of animals using trampolines like the following ones:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyxU29V4jVE
or this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdPI50E0Zdo
Good job today! You’re the bomb(er) now, dog!
Agreed.
“Instead, I immediately signed back into AOL to edit my Joaquin Phoenix Angelfire fansite.” Oh man! Yes! Where are my slap bracelets??
I really loved this post, Shell. Thanks.
We are brethren, Shell. I actually had a Lukas Haas fansite OH GOD IT IS SUCH A RELIEF TO FINALLY ADMIT THAT. Goodbye, shameful burden!
You could never the Pin him down.
I live near the mall where that woman fell into the fountain. We went to the mall one day only to find that people were taking photos of themselves tripping into that fountain. Also, the calendar stand was out of calenders. I like to imagine that people came from all over the US to photograph themselves at the fountain and buy commemorative calendars.
Kids are very dumb and trampolines are can be very dangerous, but they were so much fun. Whenever my older brother and I would go out to jump we inherently knew that one of us was going to get hurt, but that didn’t stop us from going. Our favorite game was called SUMO POUND IT. The object was to throw the other person off the trampoline, and if they landed on their feet they could get back on. My mom let us keep the trampoline for only 2 years, during that span, I broke my collar bone and my brother broke both his wrists. When my dad took apart the trampoline to give it away, my brother and I cried. It felt like we were putting a pet down.
tl;dr: Kids are very dumb and trampolines are can be very dangerous.
Ah, reminds me of the time a few years ago when my 7 year son hurt his ankle bouncing on a trampoline at a friend’s house. I thought he just twisted his ankle and just took him home that night, put some ice on it, and put him to bed. (No supper for you, clumsy child! [JK!]) Next day my husband decided to take him to the doctor. That’s right, broken ankle, cast for six weeks, split/boot thing for another four weeks. Mommy guilt from HELL! Trampolines = EVIL
Also, I’m unable to watch people hurt themselves. AFV is very wince-ful. Except for that woman falling in the fountain at the mall. THAT was funny!
Every time I watch a video of someone getting hurt, my body reacts reflexively by trying to send my balls into my stomach. Consequently, I don’t like watching videos of people getting hurt.
Okay I’m way too late to this party, but I feel like I would be betraying my graduate degree if I didn’t point out that the philosopher Henri Bergson gives what I think is a pretty useful account of why watching people fall over and hurt themselves makes us laugh, in his book Rire (Laughter). He thinks we laugh when a human body is unexpectedly revealed to be material, and not subject to will. The quote that everyone knows from the book defines the comedic as “something mechanical encrusted upon the living.” The effect doesn’t work, however, unless we can distance ourselves from the person being laughed at in order to perceive both the person and the material body, the living and the mechanical. If you are interested Wikipedia has an okay synopsis of the book that sounds like it was google-translated from the French (and thus is funny! Get it?)
I always thought that the falling-into-the-fountain-while-texting lady was secretly put up to it by a philosophy professor who needed the PERFECT example of the Bergsonian comic for his Humor Studies 301 seminar.
It is 1:30 am and I am writing about Bergson in my underpants. THANKS INTERNET!
Tragedy is when I cut my finger.
Comedy is when somebody falls off a trampoline.
Less funny is when someone shatters their tibia, almost loses a leg and can’t run 15 years later.
This is not right. Good things happen to good people…..
Super Probiotic
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