I was learning Morse code in the Navy and was STUCK on 18 groups (1 group = 5 characters) per minute. I had to get to 24 groups per minute to graduate. I had gone to school working on this all day and had practiced in the workroom all evening, so finally I sat out one set to take a break. I put some money in the soda machine to get something to drink while I rested. The dratted machine took my money and no soda. I gave it a little push, hoping that the money would slip on down into the coin bank and register, so I could get my drink, but instead, the machine was off balance and fell on my arm.
I was trapped there with this soda machine on me for about 20 minutes until the set was over and everyone came out for a 5 minute break. They lifted the soda machine off me, and my arm was all swollen and purple. When the x-rays came back, one of my arm bones was broken just below the elbow, the other just above the wrist, and the bone that goes from the wrist bones to the base of the thumb was also broken. They put me in a cast with a thumb spike, gave me the GOOD drugs for painkillers, and sent me to the barracks to sleep it off for a couple days.
As I was leaving the time came for shift change at the hospital. The new shift of nurses was coming in, and, of course, they were officers. I was drugged out of my gourd. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. I saluted and knocked myself out cold with that thumb spike. They had to take me back in, cut off the cast, reset the bones, and put on a new cast.
Needless to say, I was ABSOLUTELY forbidden to salute for the rest of the time that cast was on!