Some of the dumbest I had were with an HPI 5B SS.
1st thing was as I was building it. I was having a hard time getting the big king pin ball ends to pop together, so I was going to drill a hole through a piece of wood, stick the ball end over it, then have enough gap below it to squeeze the ball into the ball end with a c-clamp or something. I was holding onto the piece of wood in my hand while drilling... thing was, I was using a brand new 12V lithium drill at the time. One of my workers bought it for me for Christmas after helping him setup his new TV/bose system in his house. It spun WAAAY faster and with way more torque than I was expecting. Ripped through the 3/4" piece of wood in a couple seconds and then went into my finger. One of the downsides starting a multi-hour build at 8pm, it was 2am at the point I was using the drill... my judgement wasn't at an all time high by then...
Nothing like sitting in the ER at 3am like a fool. Luckily didn't cut the tendons, just chipped the bone and ended up with 8 or 9 stitches that took forever to heal.
2nd thing was a week later, I was out breaking the engine in. It was winter, January, snow on the ground and I was on wet blacktop nearing the end of the first tank and it was really getting up to speed nicely. I came flying at WOT at myself on the wet blacktop, with a heavy 1/5th scale 2wd rig with only rear brakes... it did not stop until it bounced up off my steel toe boot (lucky I had those on) and it peeled 5 inches of skin up the front of my shin and tearing my jeans. I got home with blood all over my leg looking like I hit it with a chain saw and my wife was like "Maybe you should get rid of that truck...".
3rd thing was, I bought a 2wd 1/5th scale to run in the colder/snowy months because it would be less fussy to tune in the winter than my nitro trucks. Didn't sink in until I drove it the first time, in the cold/snow/wet that it only had an inch or so of ground clearance, was only rwd and was super heavy. Basically means it gets stuck easier than my 2wd nitro jato, which was totally useless in the winter.
4th thing, I didn't take the smell of pump gas into account. I live in an apartment. All my trucks are in my office. After running a weed wacker, go set it on your dining room table and see how long it takes your wife to complain about the smell. She's also very prone to migraines... and the smell of gas throughout the house for 2-3 days at a time each time I ran it would trigger them.
Over the 2 years I owned it, I drove it 8-10 times. I had put $300+ of upgrades on it, so was near $2k when I sold it for $600. $1400/8=$175. So, not including the hospital bills, it cost me $140-$175 for each time I drove it.
Kind of glad I tried it... really glad it's gone... was quite a machine though.
Ooo man, that's a pretty nasty injury! And finger injuries, while mostly small, and cumbersome, you realize just how much you use your fingers every day! Always keep your body parts out of a cut/drill path! We're always taught that, but only when we learn it the hard way a few times does it stick! When I was younger, I used to be more careless with my utility knife, it's no katana or saber (


), but I did get small, minor cuts here and there on my fingers, mostly at nighttime. It was inconvenient, but I've learned! I've admittedly worked into night too before, but not till 2am, just up to like 12:30am (don't tell anybody!), last time I was converting my 1/14 scale brushed buggy to brushless, and that day the parts came, I could resist...I got the chassis cleaned up, got the motor on the mount with the pinion, trimmed the gear cover (to fit the smaller pinion), and got the job 75% done, then had to call it a night.
Doesn't sound like much, but I work slowly and carefully, plus I take the opprotunity to clean everything I couldn't clean before (like the part of the chassis under the motor, the central drive shaft bearings, ect.)! Next night I fitted the new BL ESC and tidied up the wires. How much power can a little 12v drill have? Not much I guess (we have a 20v BL Dewalt drill, more than enough power for our needs), but perhaps you thought the same thing, and underestimated it? Funny the power difference, 3s in an RC and "3s" in a drill is completely different.
Anyway, moving on, you just casually said "...didn't cut the tendons, just chipped a bone"! I would be screaming near bloody mary by then!


I haven't actually broke any bones or gone to the ER before, luckily, but I still have many years to do that!

Gotta have fast reflexes and jump out of the way of an incoming RC beast! I always subconciously take a few step back when I'm driving my RC down the road at speed toward myself, mainly so I can see it better as it whizzes the other way. Perhaps you should wear some shin guards while running!

1 inch of clearance, for a big 1/5 scale in the winter? That ain't very good (if you don't mind me saying!), most 1/10 scale off-road rigs can beat that, heck, my 1/16 scale MT, stock, has a little over 1 1/4 inches of clearance! It's not even jacked up or anything!
I've thought about Nitro a few times, they seem cool and all, but the price, having to buy fuel over and over, all that tuning (I like to tinker, but not messing about in the cold and with gas, I don't know anything about Nitro!), ect. just doesn't seem practical and all. I think I'll stick to electric, but if someone let me drive a Nitro for a quick while, that'd be fun!
Well, seems like the person who bought it got a great deal...next time, sell something for higher! $140-$175 per run...man, talk about a money waster! I agree, it's best you got rid of it, for many reasons! Some things are just better to not have, I've heard! What rigs do you run now?