# Worst accident you had while digging?



## reach44 (Feb 26, 2013)

Hey everyone.  What are some mishaps you've had while digging?  Cave ins?  Get shot at?  Broke a nice bottle?  Anything odd?

 I recently found a common but nice Bo Peeps ammonia bottle (1920s Id say) and as I was shaking the mud out of it I dropped it....and it broke all to pieces.  []

 Had a hole I was in completely collapse on me.  Quite scary!

 Also had two dogs show up out of nowhere and watch me dig all day.  I was in the middle of nowhere.  Lol


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## MisterSilverSearcher (Feb 26, 2013)

While I was picking dirt up and throwing it in a barrel a piece of glass gashed my finger down to the bone. I learn to use my shovel for moving dirt now haha


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## reach44 (Feb 26, 2013)

Ouch!  Any stitches?  Or did you tough it out?


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## frozenmonkeyface (Feb 27, 2013)

Did the dogs look anything like this? 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn4ghEoupJk

 That is one scary looking doggie. I love Rottweilers personally, but if a stray came around me looking like this, I would get a little antsy. haha


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## botlguy (Feb 27, 2013)

Only incident I can think of right now is the drunk with a bad hangover who objected to our breaking a hole in a concrete slab with a sledge hammer at 6:30 A.M. one Saturday morning. Theatened us with an empty 1/5th until he was politely told out potato fork would hurt him more than his crummy bottle would hurt us and we would soon have a hole to hide the evidence.

 We did keep an eye out for awhile.


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## sandchip (Feb 27, 2013)

Me and a buddy were walking a creek and had gone downstream and were heading back up.  He had gotten ahead of me when I spotted a nice pottery jug we both had missed.  I hollered for him to check it out, and as he turned there was a big splash and I was left holding up the handle.  Learned the hard way never to pick up an old jug by the handle, especially when it's full of water and sand.[]


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## RICKJJ59W (Feb 27, 2013)

Once while digging a big wood liner "Mystery Tavern" It was right at the end of the dig,I was bent over at the bottom of the pit. I reached down to get one last bottle out of the corner,as soon as I stood up,half  of the wall crashed in and hit me up to my chest. It knocked the wind out of me. If i was still bent down getting that bottle when it caved I would be in privy heaven. If I recall the bottle was a decent one.[]

 Always dig to the walls.Its the fill that will kill you not the clay.


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## midwestdigger (Feb 27, 2013)

Oh geesh, where to begin, lol.  Stupid neighborhood kids kicking dirt in the hole along with a nice 1850s era brick to the head.  We were once sitting digging a hole and a paddywagon and about 5 cop cars show up on the lot we were on.  They come running out with guns, we were scared shi-tless and shirtless too.  It was 100 degrees out.  Luckily they were heading to the drug house next door and the garage where about 10 guys scattered in all directions.  Several were tackled within 20 feet of us.  Ironically, no cops actually asked what we were doing.

 Well there has been several phone lines, gas lines, old/somewhat not in use sewer lines right through the middle of the hole.  When you are chopping through hard clay, whatever is in the way is getting busted.  

 Once had a rent-a-cop call the real police and about 5 squad cars converged on the hole we were digging.  I was down in the bottom still digging.  My uncle was 10 feet above me getting bent over a squad car and patted down.  I crawled out of the hole, only to find all these cops say "we got another one", "get on the ground".  After some heavy duty explaining they let us go.  But the rent-a-cop thought we were cooking meth.  We had a couple milk jugs of partially frozen water we take to drink sitting by the hole.  

 My uncle has been arrested several times.  He has also had a gun pulled on him.  He also had someone steal his wallet when he was digging by himself.  He went to a local tavern where he had seen this thief hang out before.  Two large guys tried to jump him.  After breaking the first one's nose and knocking him out cold, the other one jumped on his back and put him in a headlock.  After biting a piece of his arm off, he let go and my uncle was able to get away.  No jokes.  

 Oh yeah, and there have been plenty of gun shots within close range, not to mention a prostitute in a nasty neighborhood in Memphis lift her dress to reveal she decided to go commando that day!  Wanted to know if we wanted anything..... we were quite happy with our bottles.


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## GuntherHess (Feb 27, 2013)

> midwestdigger


 are you related to Doug?


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## CaptainSandune (Feb 27, 2013)

Was digging in a ditch that had a spring feeding it in Pensacola FL with a hand trowel this winter.  Moved a clump of clay and was eyeball to eyeball with a hibernating water mossacin less than 8 inches from my head.  It was a little bit alarming.


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## KBbottles (Feb 27, 2013)

Kneeled down on a shard of glass once that went nice and deep in my knee.  The strange thing is I never even felt it!  Dug the whole day with no pain.  Maybe it was adrenaline from finding bottles in the pit that kept me from even noticing.  Got home and realized my jeans were stuck to my leg from dried blood.  Showered, found the deep open wound and cleaned it up real good.   Healed fine but left a small scar.  I don't particularly mind the scar because it reminds me of a great day of digging.


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## sunrunner (Feb 27, 2013)

digging in camden n.j awell back,my partner,whent,to getus some thing to drink at a corner store.i was coming out of the hole,whan i see this girl coming over,now,wev been diging all morning,so in looking pritty grouby,well the girl walks rightup to me and ask me if i woud like to have a littel fun,for 10.00s.i toled her i was having enough fun.


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## blobbottlebob (Feb 27, 2013)

I've told this story before but I had a digging partner hit me in the head with a shovel. I'll look for it and post a link. It was mildly amusing . . .


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## cacarpetbagger (Feb 27, 2013)

Worst cut I've had was when I put my finger inside the mouth of a jar and pulled it out of the wall.  A bit chunk broke off and cut the tip of my right index finger almost off. Not bone or fingernail just the meat.  I've never been accused of being smart.  I jammed it into the palm of my other hand and my buddy drove me to the ER.  Doc laid me out on a table and said don't watch but of course I looked up  just in time see him finish cutting the tip of my finger the rest of the way off.  Then I had a little girly fainting episode.  He then carved all the meat from the skin and put the skin back where it belonged and sewed it back on.  I remember he kept moving the skin around until he got it lined up just right.  Did a fine job and it only cost me $125, which was a chunk of change in 1975.  I was always more careful after that.


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## RICKJJ59W (Feb 27, 2013)

> ORIGINAL:  sunrunner
> 
> digging in camden n.j awell back,my partner,whent,to getus some thing to drink at a corner store.i was coming out of the hole,whan i see this girl coming over,now,wev been diging all morning,so in looking pritty grouby,well the girl walks rightup to me and ask me if i woud like to have a littel fun,for 10.00s.i toled her i was having enough fun.


 
 You should have gave her 10 and told her to dig to the use layer lol[8D]
 10 bucks? that must hav been a while ago  [8D]


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## BellwoodBoys (Feb 27, 2013)

The worst digging accident I've ever had is when the base of a local amber crowntop was sticking out of the ground. I reached into the small hole to grab the base and was cut by a piece of rusty metal. It was a good thing my friend brought disinfectant spray. I also got the bottle out shortly after.


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## stumpr (Feb 27, 2013)

I was digging out an early war Yankee trash pit with my son. He spots a bottle and points to an area below the brick. I move the shovel to get a better view of the bottle, slip and put my entrenching shovel through the neck of a Masonic Seeing Eye flask that was above the brick. Only bottle I have ever broken but what a bottle to break!


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## JustGlass (Feb 27, 2013)

Both accidents I had while digging were minor but uncomfortable. I was pulling on a tree root because a bottle was wedge underneath it and it let loose sending dirt up into my eyes. It took a few minutes before I could see clearly. I also was moving some rocks that had bottles underneath them and pinched my fingers between them. I have never broke a bottle while digging, I just wait to get home to do it.


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## blobbottlebob (Feb 27, 2013)

As promised, shovel in the head story (here on the forum) . . .


 https://www.antique-bottles.net/forum/A-commical-story-about-my-first-dig/m-196708/tm.htm


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## AMChandler (Feb 27, 2013)

I cut my finger pretty good one time. It kept bleeding and wouldn't stop. I packed it with some mud and kept on truckin! 
 I also wear gloves now.


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## Jim (Feb 27, 2013)

I've been pretty fortunate in avoiding any major injuries while digging. A few minor finger and knuckle cuts are all I can recall. My digging partners have not always been so lucky. One of my buddies was digging in a dump with me and slashed his arm to the bone on a busted whiskey fifth. He ended up with stitches, but was more upset about having to quit digging early []

 Another time, I was digging a dump on a high creek bank. The guy I was digging with had a cavernous hole going, with brick and rock rubble hanging over his head. I had no sooner suggested to him that he might want to clean out the overhang when he caught a falling brick right on the temple of his head [&:] It nearly knocked him unconscious, and he almost went for an unexpected swim in a cold creek.  ~Jim


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## mctaggart67 (Feb 27, 2013)

Haven't dug in years, but sure did get the typical nicks, cuts, scrapes and muscle pulls. The worst, however, came during an afternoon's dig in the old town dump at Petrolia, Ontario. I had a deep pit going -- was hitting blob sodas and earlier drugstores -- and I was about a foot below the water table and near dump's bottom. I sunk my shovel in, worked it around to pry up the dirt as gently as possible, when this oily-gassy substance started leaking out of the ground and pooling on top of the water at the bottom of my hole. As you might guess with a name like Petrolia, I was in historic oil drilling and refining territory. I know the oily-gassy substance wasn't gasoline, so my best guess is that it was benzene or something similar. It constricted my lungs a bit, but the most severe effect was to my eyes. Initially, they got itchy, then watery, then swollen to the point where I could barely see. My saving grace was that I had brought a fresh jug of water to drink from. Naturally, I doused my eyes with that water after climb-crawling out of the hole. Once my vision got better, I could see vapours coming out of my dig pit. Needless to say, that was it for the day.


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## mtfdfire22 (Feb 28, 2013)

In the last 2 1/2 months I have had five stitches in one finger (thanks to a ketchup bottle) and removal of a foreign object from my cornea.

 The five stitches in my thumb were from a clear bottle which was close to the top of the privy. Figuring it was a nothing bottle but still curious i grabbed the base of it and was wiggling it out of the wall. When it started to come free i twisted it and the base fell off and my hand was still twisting. Not good. lanced my thumb open in about the middle of the pad. Deep. 

 This past weekend we were pick axing through about 7 inches of frost and something big hit me in the eye but fell out. That was around 10 A.M. Went home to celebrate my mothers birthday with the family and at around 6 P.M. it felt like a scratch. Couldn't sleep all night. Went into work and decided it was time to get to the doctor who promptly numbed my eye and dug something out. Relief.....until the numbing wore away. 

 now i have added thicker gloves and safety glasses (when pick axing) to my arsenal. approx. $1100.00 applied to my insurance deductible and not a single good bottle recovered. thanks again favorite hobby.


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## frozenmonkeyface (Feb 28, 2013)

Great story about the shovel! Sounds like something that would happen to me! haha

 OR I would fall into the hole. I have not had my first real dig yet, just poked around my mom's property. I am so accident prone its not funny... []


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## blobbottlebob (Feb 28, 2013)

Thanks frozenmonkey. Be careful out there when you do dig. Lots of shards in them privies.


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## RIBottleguy (Feb 28, 2013)

I have been pretty lucky!  I remember slicing my fingers once or twice as a kid thanks to gloves with holes.  It didn't happen again until I was salt marsh/river digging.  The water softened the gloves and more slicing occurred.  
 I've broke a few bottles while digging.  Nothing rare, but a few nice pharmacy bottles.  They were in a hard-packed dump layer and when you swipe at it with a heavy rake it doesn't have mercy on the glass.


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## southern Maine diver (Feb 28, 2013)

While diving for bottles, I've seen some "out of air" situations, but recently, a freind of mine was diving for bottles and found an unexploded Civil War "Parrot" cannon round in about 25' of water.  He had to call the Coast Guard, harbor master, state police, local police, US Navy shipyard, Marine patrol, bomb squad, Maine  and NH archeologists... it was a nightmare for him!  It had been underwater for more than 150 years and was  a "Civil war" artifact. In the end, the state ended up detonating the warhead because they were unable to preserve it.  Oh well...


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## toddrandolph (Mar 1, 2013)

I've had my share of minor cuts, scrapes, bruises.  A few years ago I was walking a fencerow and found numerous bottles and small dumps along the way, finding a few common bottles to keep. I got back into a swampy woods about a mile off the road and spotted a huge 1950s dump full of metal and bottles. i wasn't watching where I was stepping and felt something go through my boot and into my foot. Uh oh. I knew exactly what it was before I even looked down: a rusted through T post that left  a sharp point a few inches above the ground. Luckily, it didn't go too far into my foot, but it was still quite painful. I dig and explore alone, and i think it makes me a bit more careful because I know that whatever situation I get myself into, I have to get myself out of it as well.


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## rmckin (Mar 1, 2013)

My tale is not about digging, but getting to one of my dig sites....Back last fall, I was out digging ginseng, and although I had a good morning, it was getting tiresome.... There was an old farm place on the ridge above the hollow that I was in , and I thought I would go and look for bottles to kill the afternoon. Working my way around the hillside, there was a hickory log in my pathway. It was too low to the ground to climb over, so I stepped up on the log........Yep......the bark broke free from the log, and my feet went straight into the air, and I landed squarely back onto the log, across the lower part of my back, and then rolled onto the ground. It knocked me totally Stupid!!!!!!!       The pain was unreal, and I laid perfectly still for maybe 10 minutes. All this time I was thinking, "I'm alone, hurt seriously, and probably paralyzed"...... Then I realized that I could move my feet.......       Relief!!!!!! I waited for maybe another 10 minutes, and got up the nerve to sit up. I was sore.....but ok.
 I thought it best to cancel my excursion, and get home......I was sore for about 3 weeks........

   Lesson Learned for me......
 Ron


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## bottlecrazy (Mar 1, 2013)

Hi all.  Back in 1974, when I was just a wee lad, I fell on a broken bottle and gashed my knee.  Fortunately, my dad was a doctor, and he stitched me up himself.

 Even worse, we had a cave-in at that same dump that almost killed my dad's digging partner.  He was underground for some minutes, and only survived because he had the presence of mind not to struggle.  He was blue when my dad finally dug him out.  I remember during the drive home, an hour or so after the incident, the digging partner broke down crying - that left a lifelong impression on me, and an abiding respect for the danger of cave-ins.

 Be careful out there!

 Andy


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## frozenmonkeyface (Mar 1, 2013)

Yikes!!! I am glad he made it!! How scary for a kiddo to witness! [&:]


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## Dugout (Mar 1, 2013)

When I was about 7 we were out rock hunting. I was with my Dad and he saw a rock he wanted to bust open with his rock hammer. So he hit it and the corner of his rock hammer embeded itself into my left inner thigh. The blood came squirting out and my Dad was hollering "Mother!!" And I will never forget Mom come running from where ever she was looking around. They took me to the hospital. The exray showed that it was very near the bone therefore they could not operate. Since it was steel they could leave it in there. They said it would form a core around it and remain there or possibly my body would eventually absorb it. I will always have the small scar on my leg and it has not deterred my love of rock hunting.  Who else can say they carry a part of their Dad's rock hammer within.


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## frozenmonkeyface (Mar 1, 2013)

OH MY GOSH!!!!! Does it ever hurt?? That is wild!


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## rockbot (Mar 1, 2013)

I had the good fortune to be digging a riverside dump that produced 28 sodas. Had the bad fortune of returning the following week and slipping down the steep riverbank and gashing my knee. Only 23 stitches. Went back digging two weeks later and finished that darn dump![8D]


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## MisterSilverSearcher (Mar 1, 2013)

Haha forgot to check back and see if anyone asked anything. To answer: Yes, I had to tough it out with some simple bandages. Luckily I always carry some Neosporin on me and used that. I got stitches later on that day.


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## bottlebuzzard (Mar 1, 2013)

WAS THIS RECENT LIKE LAST FALL ?I HEARD ABOUT IT ON THE NEWS IF SO 


> ORIGINAL:  southern Maine diver
> 
> While diving for bottles, I've seen some "out of air" situations, but recently, a freind of mine was diving for bottles and found an unexploded Civil War "Parrot" cannon round in about 25' of water.  He had to call the Coast Guard, harbor master, state police, local police, US Navy shipyard, Marine patrol, bomb squad, Maine  and NH archeologists... it was a nightmare for him!  It had been underwater for more than 150 years and was  a "Civil war" artifact. In the end, the state ended up detonating the warhead because they were unable to preserve it.  Oh well...


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## NyDigger1 (Mar 1, 2013)

had a landslide on a 20 foot slope / cliff dump, had to dive 15 feet into the river below.


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## southern Maine diver (Mar 2, 2013)

Hey Bottlebuzzard...

 Welcome to the forum... and yes, it was last year that the "Parrot" round was found. Rob Love was the name of my friend who found it. The archiologists hounded the hell out of him because he wouldn't reveal the exact location of the round. He took underwater photos of it and everyone told him that is looked like a discarded oxygen cylinder or an old scuba tank.  Well, Rob was in the British artillery for six years.

 So when word got out that he was looking to sell it, then the state archeologists got involved. The navy finally sent a dive team to the site (they couldn't find it either) so Rob jumped back in the water and had to point it out to them!! The state coluldn't get the round disarmed, so it was detonated...


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## myersdiggers1998 (Mar 2, 2013)

Mine was an accident that almost was. I had a long deep trench pit going and it was down 6 feet . I took a lunch break and was down washing my hands in the river ,when I heard a loud crack. I looked up the bank and realized a twentyfive foot section had given way and buried my hole.The whole thing slid four feet. I would have been crushed and buried for good. The good thing was a nice crock appeared in the crack, and my life was spared .I dont trench dig anymore,and I try not to tunnel, but still do on occasions.I have a numb pinky finger tip to from glass cutting a nerve once, its the price we pay for our passions.


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## digginthedog (Mar 2, 2013)

I once set My digging bag down on an in ground Bee's nest, as I reached for My shovel, I saw them and knew it was to late... They wrecked Me that day ... JB


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## David Fertig (Mar 3, 2013)

> ORIGINAL:  RICKJJ59W
> 
> 
> 10 bucks? that must hav been a while ago  [8D]


 
 Don't know why, but that line caused me to snort.


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## MrSchulz (Mar 9, 2013)

Im the opposite of a small dude.  6' 2'' 380lbs.  On top of the dump I was digging, 8-9 feet down was my buddy and me leaning over to jump down I slipped and a broken bottle we had left in the wall decided to get in my way


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## trail (Mar 9, 2013)

Three of us were down 14' with a 5' cap of clay (very old worth the work). Two of us were out of the hole when all you could hear was POFFFF! 4' of clay broke off and buried the guy in the hole. I jumped in ASAP and started do dig with everything I had and then some! Managed to get him out just in time. Luckily he was sitting and fell forward when the clay dropped. This allowed a small pocket of air to be trapped between his legs. He was off work for 3 1/2 months! He told me 6 months after he was still having trouble sleeping with bad nightmares. We still dig together but he watches what depths he is willing to go. It was 12 months ago on Good Friday later this month!!!  Couldn't believe it and still cant. He still suffers from ankle and back pain. But it better than the other option. I count my blessings every time I go digging.


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## bottlesjhbottler (Mar 11, 2013)

stitches to knee very deep,nice s shaped cut to bone on finger!
 beer always sorts it out


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