Worst pain of your life...uncensored.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Rad_Hazard

I'd say the worst pain I've ever had is a recurring one. I used to work at UPS back in the day as a loader and it was the end of the night and a long piece of metal that was boxed up came down the belt, it was about 12 feet long and weighed about 200 lbs. We are taught to test the weight of heavy packages so I loosely grabbed one end and it fell directly on the tip of my ring finger on my left hand. Immediate pain. Loaded the f***** thing and went home.

My finger swelled and I went to one of those urgent care places the next day. They drilled a hole in my nail to relieve the pressure and did an x-ray. My fingertip bone had cracked almost in two, split down the middle. Unfortunately there isn't anything they can do for that so I was sent home with some pain meds, which I didn't take, and it healed over time. Unfortunately the nerve healed funny and now when it gets to be about 30 degrees F or colder, if I even brush that finger against something I feel intense pain for about a minute.

Worked that job for several years in my younger days. Surprised I never got hurt very seriously. Used to work both the weak and strong sides of the pick-off sorting packages into large trailer trucks.

Working the "weak" side meant you had to help out loading trucks, and when the strong side pick-off got busy he'd call for help and you had to jump out of your truck, run across the floor, run to a ladder and scurry about 25 feet straight up to your pick-off perch, directly across from the strong side pick.

Couldn't count the times I "almost" fell off the ladder, or was "almost" smashed by a package falling from the 25 foot high belt onto the floor below. Don't even think I even registered what I was doing was even the slightest bit dangerous at the time.

Ah, to be young a dumb again.

Ironically, my very last day there was as a delivery driver years later and much more worn down, and it was one of those heavies on the belt that you mentioned in your post. Wrenched my back getting it in my truck on Christmas Eve morning. Went out and delivered the route with a wrecked back, came back in around 9pm that night, went to the walk-in clinic the day after Christmas when it didn't get any better, and decided I needed to find something else to do with my life, otherwise this was going to be a regular occurrence for me.