Whether it is stumbling over shoe laces, colliding with a trashcan while waving to a friend or falling up a flight of stairs, everyone has an off day full of humiliating blunders and slip-ups. While these minor misfortunes are embarrassing, there are only a handful of students who truly deserve the accident prone label, along with 24-hour access to a helmet.
Will Rohlfing: At a young age, Will Rohlfing, senior, realized he was an accident magnet. When he was 4 years old, Rohlfing electrocuted his arm while inserting a metal key into a power socket, resulting in a temporary power outage.
“It was a learning experience,” Rohlfing said. “It was just one of those things where you say to yourself, ‘Don’t do that again.’”
Between crushing two of his fingers in a door and accidentally releasing a cage of finches into his classroom, first grade was a year of mishap. In sixth and seventh grades, his experiences were no different. Rohlfing stepped on several sharp pins resting on the floor and walked into a pole while attempting to fill up a flower vase with water for a teacher.
“I am dangerously uncoordinated, and I daze off a lot,” Rohlfing said. “I expect bad things to happen, and I’m numb to them.”
Rohlfing has also experienced multiple misfortunes on wheels. While Rohlfing was jogging in Kirkwood Park his freshman year, his sister hit him with her car. He also barreled into a faculty member’s vehicle during his junior year. On the last day of school, Rohlfing skidded out of control on his rollerblades and acquired an assortment of scrapes and bruises.
“Just wear knee pads, seat belts and keep your head up,” Rohlfing said.
Meghan Tinkham: After the multiple occasions her cousins employed her body as a human jump rope, Meghan Tinkham, sophomore, has been prone to wrist injuries. While struggling to hang onto a set of monkey bars in the rain, Tinkham lost her grip and plunged to the ground, breaking her wrist. Since the third grade, Tinkham was required to wear a cast twice each year until a surgery was performed in 2010.
“I don’t pay attention, and I try as hard as I can to prove people wrong,” Tinkham said. “I am also a huge klutz.”
According to Tinkham, she collides with a wall at least twice every week. Because of this daunting tendency, she suffers from tissue damage in her neck.
“I don’t walk into walls,” Tinkham said. “Walls walk into me.”
Walls are not the only objects Tinkham has difficulty avoiding. Tinkham also broke her toe after running into a door. While using a hot glue gun, she suffered the sting of melting glue on her skin on multiple occasions. On a mission to empty a recycling bin for her mother, she climbed into the rolling bin and eventually spilled onto the sidewalk.
“I have to be more careful with what I do,” Tinkham said. “I can’t mess anything else up.”
Alyssa Cockerline: Alyssa Cockerline, junior, had her first devastating accident with man’s best friend. When she was 4 years old, a dog bit Cockerline’s right eye in an attempt to snatch a hot dog from her hand, tearing her tear duct and subjecting her to three surgeries.
“At the moment it wasn’t funny, but now it’s hilarious because these things happen to me all the time,” Cockerline said.
Shortly after her surgeries, Cockerline visited a carnival where a goat bit her stomach. In fourth grade, Cockerline received 11 stitches after she ran into a bush while riding her bike. She also spilled a cup of scalding tea on her stomach as she lay sick in bed.
“These experiences humble me,” Cockerline said. “They give me something to laugh at because they are just awkward situations that get funnier over time.”
In 2010, Cockerline found out she had an impacted wisdom tooth that needed to be removed. A week after the tooth was extracted, Cockerline was informed she had an infection. Shortly after her doctors cleansed the area, they discovered she had yet another infection. Cockerline’s jaw remained swollen for weeks. To endure the pain and disappointment, Cockerline decided to grin through her setback.
“Stay strong, carry on and learn to laugh,” Cockerline said. “Laughter is the best medicine.”
Jack Stanley: After surviving a potentially fatal accident his sophomore year, Jack Stanley, junior, considers himself fortunate. Both Stanley’s lungs collapsed when he was hit by a truck while attempting to get into a car parked across the street. Stanley also fell into a state of amnesia so severe he temporarily forgot his name and where he lived. Among other injuries, he also suffered from deep bone bruising, road burns running down the right side of his body and ten broken fingernails.
“I am just lucky to be alive,” Stanley said.
Despite the car accident, Stanley has found himself in other predicaments not nearly as life threatening. Stanley slipped in a puddle while bouncing on a pogo stick, giving him 30 stitches in his eyebrow. He also experienced a handful of concussions while playing hockey and football, along with the three times he fractured his wrists.
“Some of the accidents were bad decisions, but some were just terrible luck,” Stanley said. “Usually when you are jumping on a pogo stick you don’t expect 30 stitches.”
Stanley has also had his share of calamitous confrontations with wild animals. A cloud of bats swarmed him while he was walking home from a gas station. He has also been attacked three times by a ferocious raccoon while taking out the trash.
“You just have to realize stuff is going to happen to you, and you have to deal with it,” Stanley said. “At least you get to tell good stories.”
