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Like I do several times a week I took my two boys to the playground with about half a dozen Nerf foam weapons in tow. We have the Nerf Marauder longsword, two axes and three normal N-Force swords but two of them were highly damaged from my dog porky chewing all of the foam off of the handle and part of the blade. I just duct taped the chewed parts and figured why waste the money and throw the sword away, but I paid the price for doing this finally.
While at the playground and in the midst of intense sword battles, exuberant kids can sometimes launch their swords as spears or javelins. I discourage this but kids will be kids and sometimes they just don’t listen (since they aren’t my kids and no parent is around, I don’t have much influence). I was the target of one of these javelin attacks and the foam sword where the handle was damaged struck me in the back side of my head, the hard plastic tube inside the sword was jagged enough that it gauged a several millimeter hole into my scalp and curled up a chunk of my skin under my hair.
Blood flowed freely and I had to quickly collect the weapons and go home and assess the damage, my wife told me I should have gotten a stitch or two but I just kept telling her to unfold the curled up flap of skin and put pressure on it. I figured it will heal properly if the flap can lay back on top of the hole and scab over. Meanwhile, if it doesn’t heal properly I will probably have a flap of skin hanging off the back of my scalp that I may need to go to a doctor to cut off, so I am hoping it heals properly.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who thinks about jury rigging a repaired toy, if it becomes unsafe by losing its protective foam coating don’t assume taping over it will be good enough, throw the damn thing away and don’t try to be a cheapskate like me.
-Justin Germino