I've seen and experienced some pretty spectacular wipeouts in my time on the ice - like the time that the judge fell over on the ice on her way to the podium to present the medals ...

Does anybody else have any good wipeout stories?

Personal wipeout:

While skating during a private lesson, I fell with feet flying in the air. Unfortunately, I had my jacket unzipped and that little tiny hole in the zipper-pull somehow got hooked over the end of my toepick.

I was hogtied by my own jacket, couldn't reach the zipper-pull to unattach it, and lay on the ice like a turtle on it's back.

My coach was no help as she started laughing so hard she couldn't assist (for a minute anyway).

Lesson learned: zip up your jacket or take it off.

LOL, garyc, too funny!!!

My worst wipeout was on a forward spiral this summer. I was on an empty public session and I really had a lot of speed going into the spiral. Somehow my weight got waay too forward and my pick sent me crashing to the ice. I landed on my knee-hip-ribcage-and upper arms. Even though my arms were there, they didn't break my fall much. The next day my triceps and shoulder muscles were even sor from the fall.

My funniest near-wipeout was during a basic skills test. My instructor asked me to do RFO3 (my better side) and I did but then I nearly fell and barely saved myself. He burst out laughing and just told me to show him the other side.

I have had several pretty iiinteresting falls, but Gary, I think that zipper pull trick outdoes us all!

A few weeks ago I was aggressively going into bunny hops, and I was doing just swell when my toe pick got stuck in the ice and I went flying!!! Landed on my knees/stomach/chest/upper arms. (I'm very grateful that I don't have much of a chest, hehehe) Luckily my "no falls on head" record still stands. It was such a bad fall I had to get off the ice for five minutes so my left knee would stop swelling. But afterwards I went right back and did a couple more bunny hops, just to get it out of my system.

Once at my old rink, I was just gliding along when I found myself flying through the air (this is a familiar occurence to me, LOL..) and landing on my left knee. (It's always my left knee..) After getting up and wiping myself off, I went back and found food crumbs over the spot where I had inexplicably tripped.

LOL I have a tendency to lean too much out of the circle on my spin entrances, and I fall on them a lot. During a group lesson, I did that and somehow ended up spinning on my back, breakdancing a la Michael Weiss. Once I stopped myself, my fellow skaters exclaimed, "Whoa! Show us how you did that!" Oh, to see the disappointment on their faces when I told them, "Uh, just fall on a spin..." and they found they couldn't make themselves fall!

Mikawendy, I've also fallen on a forward spiral, and my stomach muscles were sore for days! (Not to mention my hip bone was swollen.) Now, I prefer to do spirals on an edge, cause if I fall, at least it'll be on my side. My new coach says that I have to lock the skating knee during spirals, and it's gonna take a long time for me to get up the courage to do that, since I'm always afraid that I'm going to trip on my toepicks again..

Anita

Worst huh? My worst was when I first was learning the axel. Something went wrong and I fell flat on my gut and lower arms. The worst part of this is I was in a lesson at the time and I truly was crawling around on my knees, sliding doing so, trying to get up. The look on my coaches face. It was so embarassing and I was in tears to boot because I wanted to show her that I HAD been landing my axel the day before. Of course I didn't that day. In fact, if I recall correctly, it was a long time before I was doing it again.

Chico

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"I truly believe, when God created skating, he patted himself on the back."

I just had my worst fall this week. All I was doing was gliding on LFO edge and the next thing I knew I was laying on my back! I have never fallen on my back before and hope it never happens again. Its still sore and bruised. At least I did not hit my head.

Another time I was trying to do a forward cross-over and my toe pick hit the ice. I feel on my knees and went sliding. Some people came over to see if I was okay and asked "What were you trying to do?"

Axel - splatted on to knees which slipped away from me, landing me squarely on my chin.

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MEL
Absolute Skating

I did that pretty recently too. I had my knees turned so that they didn't hit the ice directly, so the fall didn't hurt at all. It looked like I had done it on purpose, LOL!!!

Funniest:
Went off my heel on the rocker turn doing rocker foxtrot partnered. My partner caught me when my butt was inches from the ground. Meanwhile, we're still sailing full speed down the ice and I can't get up from my dangling inches from the ground position. I'm yelling at him to let go (he's been in a lot of bad wipe outs from trying to save unsaveable falls and I was sure he'd end up on top of me) and he's yelling "Don't worry, I'll save you!" We went halfway down the length of the ice and got a standing ovation from everyone else on the ice when he finally managed to pull me onto my feet.

Worst:
Missed my toe-pick coming out of a split jump. Hit the ice side of the head first. Had racoon eyes and a really bad headache for about the next month.

February 17th, 2000

The day I woke up in the hospital after being tripped by another skater while I was going full speed into a dbl lutz combo. Doctors thought I'd be a veggie cuz my head was all messed up, I was unconscious and having convulsions, seizures etc..... I have a lovely scar (compliments of the 15 staples they put in my head), a purty helmet with lots of autographs from friends (had to wear it for a few months) and met my soul mate. clue. He was the one who tripped me. Go figure!!! Terrible experience tho...only good party...n/m... just not sumthing I care to remember. To this day, I still remember that scared look on my coach's face while he was at the hospital with me...scary. Be careful on those falls!!

FUNNIEST!!

Was going super slow towards the boards to get a drink of water. Went to stop, caught an egde, crashed into the boards and fell over backwards. Started laughing (along with everyone else) until I tried to get up. Ended up with a fractured wrist. I've also done that where I catch my edge stopping and FALL into my coach! lol!!!

Best of all...when I fall, I tend to slide...I've slide into my coach several times cuz he refuses to move!!!!

*patt99*

One of my sillest falls was one morning when I was just doing back crossovers around the rink. My feet hit together and the blades made a loud metal clanking sound through a quiet rink. Anyone ever done that? It's so embarrasing. So down I go, sliding across the rink towards all the parents in the stands. I thought maybe no one noticed too much, until I heard the parents laughing at me. Ooops!! Those are the best kind of falls -- when nothing is hurt except your pride.

Funniest: Hopping onto the ice with my skate guards still on. I mean, c'mon, who hasn't done this at one point or another? If not, I bet you soon will!

Worst: Just two days after 09/11/01, toppling out of a scratch spin and hitting my chin on the ice. The bloody cut I split open needed six stitches.

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This space has been put on hiatus for retuning....

I've heard that called "the click of death." And, yes, I've done it a few times.

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I think everyone has a few... Mine, grouped by categories:

Most painful - fall flat back on tailbone, it hurt for over a year
Most embarrasing - fall on flying camel during program at competition (slipped off entrance edge and did a belly flop)
most pathetic - fall on waltz jump when I first started - got a concussion
Most recent - fall over toepick on exit of intermediate moves (forward crossovers in circle)

Eek! Some of those sound so painful!! I haven't had anything that bad, but I've had a few embarrassing falls:
* Catching my toe pick and going ker-splat during the dance interval, doing the prelim foxtrot of all things (the easiest dance there is, that only involves runs and swing rolls). I was going too fast and had to take a corner quite sharply and jabbed my toe pick in really hard. It was embarrassing because there wasn't that many people on the ice and there were loads of people were watching. Ah well.
* Quite a while ago, I was all confident and happy because I'd been skating really well that session and made improvements, and when I went to go back on the ice, I decided to jump on instead of just stepping on, and went straight over really hard. I'm so glad I didn't hit my tailbone! It was a close call.
* When I'd been working on my waltz jump, I was going to show it to my friend and completely bodged it up! I ended up doing a kind of tap dance on the landing trying to catch myself and ended up sitting down, laughing my head off. I looked over at my friend and he was wetting himself! lol

(I've never tried to skate in my guards yet though, touch wood...)

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

At my rink, we call what you describe the "Click of Death." Its the sound your blades make as they click together, usually on crossovers. You hear it and know you're going down and there isn't a darn thing you can do about it.

Summer/Early Fall of 2001... Early morning club dance session... we were the first group on the ice for the day.

Skating down the ice, one half of a couple doing a low-level dance fell suddenly...no one could figure out why. He wasn't hurt so they continued on.

A few minutes later, I'm cutting across the ice at low speed, and all of a sudden I fall off the back of my blades and sit on the ice (ouch to my tailbone). Couldn't figure out why I fell, went to stand up and I saw a white cable tie on the ice. Yep... I skated over the cable tie and lost my edge/balance and fell. At that point, I picked it up and yelled "Cable Tie" and we realized that that was why the other skater had fallen. So we took a time-out and totally swept the ice and found several more of the cable ties.

Turns out, the rink was doing maintenance the previous night and had replaced the netting above the plexiglass, using white cable ties. Several of the cable ties fell out of pockets or whatever, and because they blended in, colorwise, with the ice so well, no one ever noticed that night. And there was no ice make before our session because we were the first customers of the day.

BITE YOUR TONGUE!!!!

I haven't yet and don't EVER plan to.

This is probably my best one...it happened when I was just starting to learn a camel. I went to push into the spin, my left arm went around way too fast, and I ended up hitting the ice cheekbone-first!

My first big fall was during a spiral. I was just learning, and felt pretty darn proud of what I was doing with the spiral. So, while practicing it, of course I leaned too far forward and went splat onto my front. Luckily, I have a big chest and they cushioned me!

My worst fall was during a spin. I don't even remember what caused the fall, but I sure remember falling. I also remember laying on the ice for a few minutes, then bursting out crying. Very embarassing - I'm 34 years old. Concussion, of course.

Worst--got my toe pick stuck in ice doing double flip, foot stayed still, body and rest of leg took a rotation. End result? Mangled leg, rod and screws inserted, off ice for one year, rod and screws removed, back to skating.

Funniest--I think we've all done this--didn't remove guards, enthusiastically ran on ice, splat flat on face. Sheepish grin, slunk over and took off guards. Kodak moment for sure

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Careygram

January: Sure I'll compete, quick, send the application
April: I signed up to do WHAT??

Worst fall: I was working on 2sal and was too close to the boards when I flipped off the landing edge and hit the boards head first. Gave myself a concussion and a fear of 2sals that took me quite a while to get over.

Funniest: The usual - skateguards on ice.

I've also witnessed one scary fall and know of two others: The one I saw was a girl working on 3sal and like me, she was way too close to the boards. When she fell, her leg got caught in the doorway and broke in three places. (Always close the doors!).

A friend of mine, fell in the path of an oncoming 2lutz. The oncoming skater's pick hit her in the cheek. She was lucky that all she needed was stiches...

The other fall involved a girl from my club working on the Rhumba, she fell forwards on the evil choctaw part and broke her front teeth in half...

Eek some of your falls are so scary.

Worst - totally out of nowhere, just barely moving backwards I fall right on my tail bone. I couldn't get up without help, started crying and couldn't put my own shoes on for two days.

Embarassing - honestly, I don't get embarssed when I fall. I fall usually a couple of times each time I try my lutz and my flip. Last night I landed my lutz on my heels and splat, on my butt then my back and I gently allowed my shoulders and head to fall, well it must have looked more impressive because someone on the bleachers applauded me.!!

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Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.
Maurice Setter

Some of the other stories are really scary! My worst was in warm up at a competition when I was a kid where I fell on a double loop. When I fell I ended up sitting on the end of my blade - ripped my dress and my backside open. Mom sewed up the dress before my turn to compete and I competed anyway - but without the double loop in the program!

A funny one was in my lesson last week. Learning a new circular footwork and tripped. Tried to save myself across at least 10 feet of ice, arms & legs flailing, before crashing to the ice. My coach and I just laughed!

A few months ago, I was trying to warm up by stroking around the rink. I was simply going forward and then someone who must have been doing croassovers hit me from behind. It felt like hitting by a car. The crash sent me flying across the ice like a canon ball. I landed on my butt legs stretched out and spun and slid all the way down the link. It really didn't hurt at all. I was just embarrassed for making a scene.

My silliest fall did hurt though. I found something on the ice and picked it up and carried it over to the bar thinking somebody (lots of kids were there) could trip over it. A few steps back toward the center of the ice, I tripped over my toepick and fell on my knees and chest. Ouch. Falling on knees are not really fun.