[Helen Miller]

I know there has been a recent topic on the dangers of sharps. My curiousity is actually reaching beyond this. I had a conversation this morning with two of my fellow co-workers out of the blue about battle wounds sustained in sparring and drilling. These two people were actually very protected. To my horror both had rather grotesque epee and sabre stories using practice swords! One managed to get an epee blade rammed in her ear! I was wondering if anyone else had any stories to share about practice sword wounds???

[Gary Grzybek]

In my group we ocassionally get bruised or scraped but nothing serious. I have always excercised safety and constantly remind people how easily something can go wrong. In any Martial art or contact sport there is an obvious high risk. As far as sport fencing is concerned, I only know of one story where a blade broke and the sharp end entered someones leg.

[Philip C. Ryan]

Well, in the combat I have done over the last ten years, there have been very, very few "major" injuries. The most significant was when one person was "shield checked" from the side he wasn't watching. The result was 2 pins that now reside in his left knee, as well as 2 months of recuiperation time since he could not walk. The second one actually happened to me. I tripped while in combat and my opponent (who was in the midst of rapidly advancing me) managed to step on my knee while I was falling, which resulted in my knee bending sideways and hitting the ground before my body actually hit. The result was an almost torn tendon on the outside of my knee, and about a month of recuiperation time. I know these do not directly relate to practice swords, but I find it ironic that none of our injuries ever do. They all result from anything BUT the sword swinging at the other person.

All other injuries are fairly minor....bruises, scrapes, cracked ribs, a bit of bleeding here and there, etc.

[Elling Polden]

The most dangerous thing about swordfighting is falling, as in just about every other sport.
Thus, socker or, god help us, alpine skiing is a lot more "dangerous" than blunt sword fighting.

Bruises are common. (depending on who you are. Some people bruise easier than others.)
The most "serious" stuff that happens, at least in our system, is face hits. Unless you hit the teeth or eyes (wich is quite hard, as they are protected by the eye sockets) these are not dangerous either. But because the face has a thin layer of skin over hard bone, face hits are a lot more likely to produce bleeding cuts.
I have had about four small, about 1 cm, cuts in my face. None of them are showing, unless I point them out.

On the interesting injuries: A friend of mine once ended up stabbing a 2m tall danish viking up into a nostril. The result was a couple of stitches inside the nose, but nothing serious. We're still making fun of him because of it, though

Another nasty thing that can happen is spear or polearm hits to the throat. I got one of these a couple of weeks ago. These are also quite rare. (our group, and the ones we usualy fight, enforce rules about always holding your spear with the point downwards)

[Kjell Magnusson]

Got hit, pretty hard, twice on the outside of my right elbow once during some kendo practice, maybe ten minutes between the hits. The result being a pretty bad bruise, and a little "shard" (a few millimeter in size from what I can recall) below the skin, which I could move around a bit, until it dissapered after a few months.

Oh well, it blocked my opponents do-strikes at least.