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Unexpected Dangers

 

Many sports have obvious dangers inherent in the sport such as motor racing, but some sports can have risks that are totally unexpected. A case in point springs to mind and happened some years ago to a darting friend of mine. This friend had gone fishing with a mate and had volunteered to carry most of the tackle including rods, fishing box, etc down to the bank. I say down to the bank because a steep slope had to be negotiated to reach the waters edge. Unfortunately the ground was a little soft and muddy causing him to lose his footing. He slipped and tried to hold onto everything resulting in a bad fall which broke his leg. Now when you go fishing you don’t think about the possibility of breaking your leg, but there you have it he wasn’t prepared for the unexpected.

Playing darts has the obvious dangers of flying darts bouncing out of the board, but most people would not think about taking a bandage in case they sliced open their fingers, but as I said strange accidents do happen. I wrote about the following incident on another web-site and it has been included here as another warning to the unwary.

When I was at darts the other week Young Lizzie asked me if I had got any new shafts with me. I had, so I fetched them out of the car and she selected a couple of sets of metal shafts. Lizzie had trouble getting them in her darts and got one cross-threaded. I offered to put them in for her and said out loud, “Lizzie, you can’t screw straight. You have put my shaft in all crooked.” Everybody laughed.
I cut my fingers on the chewed up metal thread as I removed it and then said, “Look I have cut my fingers getting my shaft out.” Again everybody laughed at me. Then I handed the darts back to her and she tried to insert the flights.
“Alan, I can’t get these flights in your shaft, it’s too tight.” This time they laughed at Lizzie and then somebody said, “Push the point of another dart down his shaft.” Painful. Eventually the flights were pushed into place and we started the match with me dripping blood, from my gashed fingers, I hasten to add.

Perhaps the most unfortunate darts player that I have heard about recently is Davy Richardson who on his sixth attempt to qualify for the recent B.D.O. World Championship Darts Competition, made the grade and reached the first televised rounds. Unfortunately for him shortly before the match night he was taking his trousers off in his bedroom and he lost his balance which resulted in him falling heavily on the corner of his bed and cracking two ribs. It was the first time he had qualified in the preliminaries so he did not want to miss his chance to compete. After a visit to the doctors he decided to play even though he was in agony. Not surprisingly he did not get very far because of his pain but he won a few games and at least he can say he got there which is more than the vast majority of darts players will ever do. However, if he had been more careful taking off his trousers, who knows he might have won the darts competition.

Let these recollections serve as a warning to all who get careless before competing at any sport whatever they might be doing.

 

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