Have you fallen on your ass, literally or figuratively lately, and why does it always happen to be in front of someone else?

There is nothing embarrassing about falling.

A couole of weeks ago I went down in my driveway while carrying in the mail. The ice was like glass with a light dusting of snow on top. Deadly.

Whenever I leave my elderly neighbor’s house, as he is closing the front door, he says: “Don’t fall ‘til you reach the road.”
Funny guy.

The last time I fell it was flat on my face in a torrential downpour. I was double lucky: I was unhurt and no one saw.

Very rarely, but when I do, I spring right back up like a gazelle, my arse is firm & toit S.African accent

I fell in October. I was coming to work and there was a crushed clear plastic Starbucks cup in the parking lot. I didn’t see it, came around the back of my car and my foot slid on the cup and I went down on one knee. My knee was cut and bruised for weeks. It was also embarrassing. I find falling to be embarrassing, whether or not others think it is.

The worst fall I’ve had in a long time happened last June. My daughter asked me to come with her to a skate night that the school was sponsoring. I’m not an expert skater, by any means, but I first learned to skate about 50+ years ago, and I can get out and have just as much fun as anyone else. I was skating away down the long stretch of the oval rink, when out of nowhere, a little girl skated directly into my path! I tried to stop. Somehow the top part of my body succeeded, but my feet kept on going, and I made a hard 3-point landing (right hip, left elbow, and head)! Fortunately, I did not crash or take anyone else down with me.

The last time I fell was during a power outage in 2009 when we got buried in snow and the power was out for about 3 days. I was going down the steps in my garage in the dark and tripped, plummeted about 3 feet and slammed into the side of my dryer. haha
Tweaked my arm, scraped my leg, was rather stunned for a few minutes but not majorly hurt.
Prior to that, many years ago I fell/slid, all the way down a loft ladder from the second floor of a dutch barn house I lived in. THAT really hurt and I had a huge bruise and giant scrape all the way down my spine.

I tripped on the front walkway at a friend’s house with my arms full. I came down hard on my arm. It was so embarrassing that I rushed to get in the car and leave. I didn’t realize how badly I was hurt until we pulled away. My entire forearm was swollen and bruised.

Within the past 4 months I have seen 2 women in our employ fall flat on their backs. I saw both in slow motion, helplessly watched them fall in slow motion, then their heads bouncing on the ground. One over 65, the other over 70. No serious injury, but I swear if they don’t cut it out, it’s going to be the death of me.

Falling IS embarrassing, and I’m like @ucme and @Juels – I spring up and carry on so fast it wouldn’t surprise me to one day look down later and see bone showing.

That said, I think I fall down more than most, because I tend to recognize the inevitable and go with the fall. My most serious injuries have been from an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a fall. I swear I relax just before impact.

I can’t remember ever doing it in a public place exceot falling while ice skating at an ice skating rink. Either I have very selective memory or it really never has happened. I had a girlfriend in college who used to slip and fall on the ice all the time. We used to laugh about it, she had a reputation for it. I definitely have lost my balance, but never make it all the way to the ground.

At home is different. I’ve misjudged the end of the bed and fallen off. I’ve missed a step and landed on my ass or my knee depending on what direction I am going. It’s all very rare for me though.

When I was visiting a prospective PhD program, I slipped on the ice and fell on my ass in front of my cohort. It was embarrassing, but really, nobody else seemed to care. They asked if I was alright, and then we proceeded as normal. Shit happens.

It was actually worse when I recently fell and was completely alone. I tripped on my shoelace while crossing the street to my bus stop, and I completely skinned my knee. I was two buses away from the meeting at work and didn’t have an alcohol swab in my first aid kit to disinfect the area. THAT sucked far worse than falling on my ass in front of other people.

My advice: IF you think you have a broken tailbone, DON’T bother going to the doctor. They won’t do anything about it unless your coccyx is free floating (surgery), but to assess that they will lube up the ol’ thumb and shove it up your ass to palpate with the pointer finger. Worst. Pain. Ever.
Just ask for pain meds and don’t let them touch it. Seriously.

^^ OWWWWWWWWWWWW!!

The one time I managed to fall without an audience was also one of the worst spills I’ve had. I hit the top step, 32 degrees and raining a bit and it was all iced over. I hit the ground and the bottom step with my head and shattered the inside 3 to 4 inches of my collarbone and gave myself a major concussion. The only plus was I was out long enough so I missed the impact.

Oh, I wrote about this fall here, somewhere, awhile back.
I also once tripped stepping off an escalator in a dept. store and plowed, headlong, into a display of comforters. It was a soft landing anyhow. haha

Oh yeah. In January I caught a downhill edge and came down hard; doing a complete body slam. Felt like someone had beaten me with a stick until they broke every bone in my body. Once I managed to get my breath back I rolled over to the edge of the trail to get out of the way and sat there for about 10 minutes until I felt I could get up.

I still had to get down the hill.

That hurt.

I turned in my board and went back to the condo for the rest of the day but could not get comfortable even with the pain pills and anti-inflammatories.

I walked listing to the left for a couple of weeks afterward.

I was once knocked backwards by a rather large dog, landed on my tailbone, OUCH!!! Nobody else around, just the dog.

@Adagio I’d bet the dog had a grin on his face. Tailbones hurt a lot.

Man I fell on the ice a few months ago, but on my face rather than ass. Or almost on my face. As I was slipping I put one hand in front of me to try and not land too hard, but that didn’t work, my hand just slipped and my knee hit the ice. It hurt like hell. It also sucked. After that I was pretty much sprawled on my stomach. Nobody was around though, it was snowing and it was deserted everywhere. Like a zombie movie, only, without any zombies.
But it’s probably a good thing if you fall and people are around, in case you’re seriously hurt and need help.

Once I saw this dude wipe out on main street in Winnipeg, he was on his bike. My heart just about hopped out my throat, I’m like holy shit he’s gonna get run over. Fortunately, it didn’t happen, but EVERYONE saw that haha.

As far as figuratively falling on my ass, I’m pleased to say that I’ve matured to the point that I can turn almost any embarrassing moment into entertainment.

I cherish quick witted people and I have learned a lot from them.

I almost forgot this one—

Winter—1962

I lived in a small town in rural Illinois, population 500, give or take. During the winter, the county would plow the major streets (the ones that went all the way through town!), and put all the snow in one pile. The snowpile was a great source of recreation for all the kids, because it was at the top of a hill, adding a big boost of speed to the sleds and snow saucers before we went down the hill.

There had been an early thaw that February, and the streets were all clear. My friend Charlie and I got our bikes out, and went out to be the first on bikes that year. As we cruised the town, we noticed that the snow had all melted except for the snowpile. We started riding up the snowpile, gaining enough extra speed by the time we hit the sidewalk, to fly down the hill at (what we thought was) an insane rate of speed.

At one point, I remember saying to Charlie, “I think I’m going to jump the pile there.”
“Don’t do it!” he warned me. “There’s a straight drop off. You’ll never make it!”
“Aw, it’s not that bad,” I replied. “I’ll have enough speed by the time I get to the top that I’ll fly right over it!

Famous Last Words!

It took me three tries to enough momentum to get the bike up to the top, let alone fly over it. The front wheel went over the drop-off, the sprocket caught on the snow, and the bike stopped. I went flying over the handlebar, and not thinking, I did not let go. I pulled the bike with me, and was airborne until I landed, nose and knuckles, on the sidewalk.

I must have passed out, momentarily, because the next thing I remember is some men were helping me get extricated from the mangled bike, and walked me over to the general store across the street.

Fortunately, no serious injuries, no lasting effects, and a tale to tell!

@Yetanotheruser when I was younger (mid 20’s), my friend did a similar stunt.

We were jumping our motorcycles off a 5 foot drop. The secret was to gas it and lift the front end at the last second so you landed on your back tire. There were four of us and we had each done it several times previously when “Chuck” (not his real name) panicked and slammed on the brakes at the last second.

Unfortunately his momentum carried him onward and his front tire went over the edge. As the bike dropped he was pitched forward and outward; driving both knees into the ground before doing a face plant in the dirt. The motorcycle followed him.

Fortunately his flying arc had been greater than that of his bike and when it fell, it hit the ground directly behind him.

Unfortunately the forks compressed and launched the bike skyward again only to come back down to earth squarely on Chucks back.

Fortunately he had been wearing all the appropriate riding gear including a helmet with a chin guard , body armor and riding boots that kept him from breaking his face and helped cushion the blow from the bike as it landed on top of him,.

Unfortunately, his knees did not fare so well. They were both bruised and abraided and swelled up so much that we ended up cutting his semi-new riding pants off above the knees.

Fortunately the loss of the pants was no big deal since the exhaust had landed on them and melted the material and leather on the back of the pants.

Unfortunately his legs were inside them and he got a pretty nasty burn across the back of both thighs.

Ah well. Live and Learn. And if you can learn from the mistakes of others, all the better.

(melted the leather? must have been pleather)

More like scorched/seared the leather and melted the fabric part. And that was the heat from the guard, not the pipe itself.

Ouch.