Ultimate Crash Stories?

[StickJumper]

I was at an indoor meet in Alabama, that was held in an old horse barn. When the equestrian season was over, they moved a wooden bank board track inside and had an indoor season. When you ran down the runway, the raised wooden runway in coupling with the large hollow, metal horse barn, resonated so that it sounded as if you were stomping around. Real loud.
Anyway, we were making first attempts at 13' and I planted, and during the swing, I'm still not sure what happened, but my top hand came off the pole, and as the pole unbent, it whacked me in the forehead. The problem existed in my natural need to grab my face and make sure everything was okay. To describe it best, it was similar to how Wile E. Cayote doesn't fall off the cliff until he realises that he is over the edge. I kind of hung for a second before I realised that I had let go of the pole.
I proceded to drop around 12 and 1/2 feet to the runway (raised wood remember). I landed on nothing but the backside of my left hip and made the kind of sound that resembles a cannon shot. Only improved by the resonating of the building. No joke, somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 people when dead silent. Only damages done to me was a dislocated left hip (which feels absolutely great when they pop it back in).
That's my bad spill.

[OUvaulterUSAF]

In highschool, I finished a meet on a borrowed pole at regionals. I qualified but the school I borrowed the pole from wasn't going to state. So the school hosting regionals would be at state and they had a pole the same size in their shed. No one ever jumped on it, so I decided to take a jump. Little did I know it probably had at least three cracks in it. Right at my take off, the thing exploded into 5 pieces and sounded like a shot gun. I did a ganer and a half straight down into the box and landed on my head (more like my shoulders b/c I tucked my chin). I got up and the only that I hurt was the tip of my pinky had a bruise on it. The look on the trainer's face was priceless.

Let that be a lesson to you, inspect your poles!!!!

Actually that's more of a broken pole story then a crash story. Here's my crash story...

In highschool again, my school's pit was so small that the box extended further than the front bun. So the slab of cement was exposed. Well, planted wrong in practice one day and my knee managed to crack into the cement. To this day I still have a deposit of scar tissue on my knee cap.

[achtungpv]

In 1989, Gary Marburger from San Antonio Judson HS, took off about 3 feet out and actually rolled the pole over but he drifted towards the right standard. As he was about to crash into it, he grabbed the top of the standard and swung around the backside of it and let go. As he fell, the bottom peg pierced the top of his right bicep and ripped it clean off. He spent 6 hours in reconstructive surgery and jumped 15' the next season.

[Barto]

Late plant

Met right standard at about 15'

Let go of pole and grabbed standard

Standard base was bolted down (luckily)

I climbed down without a scratch

Took my next 2 jumps (3rd attempt make!)

Barto

[frozensteele]

Wow, some of these are pretty gnarly! I don't really have any because I have only vaulted one season and I started half way through that season so I guess that's about 3 months. I'm sure by next year I will have had some though!

[RoySloppy]

after i cleared the bar, kinda over rotated when i was fallin and i landed sorta on my neck, knee came up and hit me in the nose, broken nose, lots of blood, concussion (my second one in 5 months, got one in football), and couldnt vault for 4 weeks cause of the concussion. my nose is still crooked, but its cool.

[lonestar]

In high school, I used to clear the bar by arching my back high over it because I locked both my arms throughout my entire jump and couldn't figure out how to turn. I cleared a pr 12'6 and was coming down sideways towards the pit, and braced my left arm locked underneath me to break the fall. When I hit the pit, my left elbow hyperextended so that the top of my left hand was pinned under the back of my left shoulder for a split second before I rolled around in pain and nearly passed out.

Freshman year of college, planted way late and to the right, cleared the 13' bungee and went right past the right standard and landed on my hip on the unforgiving concrete of our fieldhouse.

[tim hutzley]

my only crash was at a league meet and I was on too small of a pole it was still above my weight but we didnt get our new poles yet because my school is cheap and my coach waits till the last second for everything. But i went up and cleared the bar and landed about a foot from the back of the pit and then rolled off the back of the pit and hit my head and scraped up my back and shoulder pretty bad.

[rainbowgirl28]

There's a good crash up on Neo Vault right now

http://www.neovault.com/

[blazerunner121]

at the point when i reached 10' in this vault, my legs did a split right on to the bar and at the point where i was descending, i let go of my pole and i fell into the box with the bar falling on me. i laughed afterwards, but never let go of pole ...

[qtpie57]

i was with my vault team at the gymnastics center doing drills to strenthen us.. so we decided to do high bar so i used the straps wehre you attach yourself to the bar and i attached myself and started doing giants... probably only gymnasts will get this... anywayz so u kno the little things the straps are attached to taht spin around the bar... they got stuck... so im holding a handstand on top of the high bar trying to loosten the things and they wouldn't budge.. eventually i fell but i also twisted.. .but dont forget, my hands were strapped in place, so of course i fractured the part that connects my arm to my hand basically kinda by the wrist... i was out for 3 months or so and that was september 2002, to this day i have trouble writing long essays by hand and vaulting hurts my wrist pretty bad

[lonestar]

Interesting stories, but Ray Scotten's crash at NCAA's this year takes the all-time most horrifying crash, followed by John Besmer's, which you can see on Neovault's "Bring It" dvd - buy it at http://www.neovault.com