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Supertramp concert in 1977. Our seats were right next to the stage right speaker bank.
My ears were ringing for a week. Pretty sure I had permanent damage. |
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Years ago I did WW2 reenacting. While coming around the corner of a building I bumped into a damn Kraut who reflexively pulled the trigger on his KAR98. Between the wall next to me and the steel helmet I was wearing I caught the full impact on the left ear. Knocked me to my knees, and I have about 15% hearing loss in the ear now.
Before that, even with plugs and muffs, being inside the hush house while running up jet motors on the test cell, which is impressively loud, believe me. |
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sneaking into Fort Dix's artillery range to play chicken down range when the big guns were firing 155s make a racket and Led Zepplin front row at the spectrum 1975
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Long ago steel silhouette match... cease fire was called, range declared cold, I removed my ear pro, and the guy next to me touches off a muzzle-braked 30.06 Contender. That's when I learned to look around before removing any protective gear.
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Probably load testing 1500 HP boilers .
Someone (me) had to open and shut the valves. Open 10" pipe under full pressure. No amount of hearing protection helped. |
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Probably the cymbal crashes from about 4-5 feet from me during our band days. Our drummer had a tendency to go to town on the cymbals and drums, even in small places with us all packed together in a limited band space. I had to start using an earplug in the ear that faced his drums during gigs to protect my hearing.
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1971 Cam Ranh Bay Vietnam when enemy sappers blew up the tri service ammo dump. Our line shak was less than 200 yards from the dump where 10,000 pound daisycutters were stored. Six or seven of them cooked off during the night
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Not sure if it resulted in hearing damage, as I was pretty young. But I still vividly remember the Harrier Jump Jet being incredibly loud. Outside of sitting still, EVERYTHING that jet did was loud.
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As a scrawny newly commissioned LTjg., my father was sent to the USS Iowa off the coast of Korea in 1952.
There, as green as he was, he was assigned the quad 40's in the starboard quarter aft. All those crews reported to him. I believe it was 200 some men. The quad 40's were totally obsolete at that point and everyone knew that, so they had little to do but stand around and watch the big show around them. He showed me his GQ station in San Pedro a couple years ago. It was a steel tub right above turret three. He had a pair of headphones and a brand new pair of Bausch and Lomb binoculars to watch and listen. His biggest problem was keeping his crews awake. He remembered shelling for hours straight at one point going the entire night and the next day. Somewhere in the '70's, he got a hearing test at a VA hospital and they said his hearing was like 60%. They put him up for some sort of disability compensation which he never accepted, know others had it far worse. |
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A 122mm rocket impacted about 20 yards from my pickup in a ditch on the other side of the road. All the windows were down. All 3 of us in the truck had ringing in our left ears for days. It wasn't registered as a sound, it was more of pressure, like a giant smack across the left side of the exposed parts of our bodies.
Luckily the rocket was deep into soft sand when it went detonated. The casing looked like Elmer Fudd's shotgun barrel when we went back to check it out. I still have 2 fins and a piece of the casing from the rocket. A piece of shrapnel cut off the AM/FM radio antenna that was right in front of me. The truck was smacked with rocks and dirt. It makes you realize the fine line between life and death. A tiny difference on the launcher angle or just a little bit of air density or wind difference and we were dead. The other 5 rockets in the salvo went further into the base stringing out for 1/2 a mile. The rockets were usually way off target but this time was a little too close. 122mm Rocket Remnants I was just a contractor doing communications support. I never went out the wire except back and forth between bases on helicopters and C130's. I feel bad for the guys hit with IED's. IED's must suck bad if that little rocket with 45lbs of HE smacked us that hard. This was at TQ during OIF-1. |
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Quoted:
Full afterburner F15 engines on trim pad ! View Quote Barracks were at the end of the runway on BAF and every 30 minutes like clockwork the afterburners of the F15s taking off would stop all attempts at conversation. |
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I have fired a SMAW, multiple times. Far worse than any of the bigger missiles in the inventory.
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When I was 16 or 17 I was deer hunting in an enclosed blind. I had the north window open half way and the west window open half way, this blind was like an 8x6 box, fully enclosed. I was sitting on the east side watching for deer out that north window when I saw a coyote coming by through the west one. I got my rifle up and pointed out where I had it open, but didn't move towards the window to get the muzzle outside. When the coyote crossed the window opening I fired. Muzzle was at least 2' inside the window. .300 Win Mag.
Tinnitus ever since. I'm sure it's not as bad as some military guys but fuck that was dumb. Most of my other hearing issues are from sustained levels of industrial noise and not peak noises like that. |
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Front row at too many rock concerts.
Not wearing earpro for well over 50% of the shooting I've done in my life. Not wearing earpro for 75% of the farm work, mechanical maintenance, etc. I've done in my life. Worst was shooting a coyote from inside the truck with an sks paratrooper and the barrel wasn't out the window. That one I KNOW gave significant volume to the 24/7 ringing I have in both ears. |
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Having a M48 fire it's main gun when you are 20 yards away even with the barrel.
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Chemical fire explosion. It was cooking 55 gal drums off 150 feet in the air. The concussion from the blast made a couple of guys throw up. Felt like my head was caught in between two sledge hammers.
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Only thing I can hear clearly is the tinnitus ringing. Shooting bursts out of a short barrelled 5.56 in small rooms on several occasions. Having powder burn scar on my right ear from a 7.62x39 going off an inch away. Huh & what are my two most used words.
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Unexpended dud 500 lb bomb me and my partner turned into an expended round.
Charles was towing one behind a water buffalo when we landed they took off with the buffalo leaving the bomb behind Rather than leave it for them to kill our guys with later we decided to set it off in place. We had C-4,blasting caps and maybe 50ft of wire. I tapped the fuse loose unscrewed it packed with C-4 and a blasting cap and we set it off with a claymore clacker. We laid the wire across the rice paddy and dug ourselves a makeshift bunker behind and under a rice paddy dike. I wanted to peak over the dike to watch the big boom but wisely my partner shoved my head down and into the mud under the dike. Never heard the explosion just came to ten or twelve away from where we started...we got up...fell down...got up fell down...got up fell down and started laughing and falling down some more. The rest of our platoon was well off a quarter mile away and they said the shrapnel was tearing up the trees over their heads...hell of a blast cone So yes now I have brain damage, hearing damage, and probably other stuff as well...C'est la guerre C'est la vie The cost of being young and stupid and thinking that just because it looks like a great idea in your head has nothing to do with reality. Then there was our bunker at FSB Schroeder next to the four deuce battery... |
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Worst I can think of was while I was back doing something to my trailer... Chocking wheels or something, I don't remember. Anyway, another truck was backing into the door next to me, and while I'm standing right there next to the trailer tandems, the air bag on his trailer suspension blows out. Holy fuck that was loud.
Also, standing on the airport ramp while F-15's take off in full afterburner on the runway right in front of you(maybe 200 yards away?) is pretty damn loud - every molecule of your body shaking apart loud. I have very mild occasional tinnitus, and I'm usually pretty good about keeping hearing protection around. My hearing is still pretty decent, but either through age or exposure I know I've lost a little bit - just not enough to cause problems yet. |
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Walked past a stack of speakers in a small venue in New Orleans when Pepper Keenan from Corrosion of Conformity cranked up and wailed on his guitar during a sound check and they went pow! then died. Ears rang for some time afterward.
Det cord explosion got me even with ear protection. |
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F 4 Phantoms about 100 ft. pass right overhead. Not funny.
Every day for about a month. |
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Trivium/Mark Tremonti concert back in 2015. Front row, right in front of the speaker banks. It was at least three hours of non-stop loudness. I could feel the hairs all over me moving around with every thump. My head hurt so bad, but I just sucked it up. Hearing has been noticeably worse ever since, and I wear earplugs to all concerts now.
Need that headbangin' emogee here -------> |
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Loudest thing I've ever heard was at EAA many years ago, I was at the end of the runway at Concorde was going to full throttle before releasing the brakes for its takeoff roll. The ground shook and even with my ears covered as tightly as possible, it still hurt.
Seeing AC/DC live was a close second. |
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Ozzfest 2001 at the Garden State Arts Center. We left early because it was painfully loud. For an outdoor venue, that's pretty impressive.
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12 gauge fired in a 10 by 10 bedroom. Ears rang for two days but went away. I can't believe I don't have severe tinnitus after all the concerts, loud stereos, and unprotected gunfire (back in the day when you just sucked it up and endured it) I've been exposed to. I just got lucky I suppose. I still hear things way before others around me do.
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T/C Contender 44 Mag, brake, no plugs or muffs. 15 shots before I tapped out.
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Laying in the back of my truck with the tailgate down and I ripped off a round out of a 7mm Rem Mag that has a nasty break on it. Forgot to put earpro back in. Ears were never the same.
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I had never been to a NASCAR race. At Charlotte Motor Speedway, there's a walkway where you can stand right behind the screen on the track. My wife and I had been watching the race from one of the trackside condos. You can go from the condos to the track, so my wife and I walked down there to check things out. The race was tightly packed a this point. We walked down as the pack was on the backstretch. We see them coming, drawing closer. Then there's a rush of hot wind, little bits of tire in the air, and what I really think is the loudest sound I have ever heard, and I've shot guns without ear protection.
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When I was very young, Dad blew up a beaver dam with a 5 stick bundle of dynamite.
Kiss, 1976 Dane county coliseum, stood 10 feet back from a speaker stack. Racing engine, first time I installed a roller cam in a sbc stroker. Had screwed up the cam timing 1 degree advanced and started it up in the shop with open headers. Engine room on a 40 tug boat with twin cat diesels, Never thought I would hear anything again. |
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Worked underground in a very large mine here, 30+years ago. Lots of explosives being used.
Also, on the runway in a commercial flight, an F111 just ahead of us. That thing went full afterburner before takeoff. Rattled my fillings, shook the plane like crazy. |
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Browning A-bolt with a BOSS brake in 7mm magnum with no ear protection.
I had tinnitus before that, but still an incredible stupid thing to do. |
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Hot hand-loads in a .44 Mag Super Blackhawk.
Touched one off inside the house. Permanent hearing damage. |
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When we were filming the light's out trailer the 1919 firing blanks was unholy loud.
Right ear very much worse than left ever since that day. Official Movie Concept Trailer: Lights Out |
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Scandium frame snub noze S&W 357 +P off my back deck with no ear pro.
Ran dog off attacking mine, received tinnitus as a reward. |
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Shotgun fired about 3' from my ear over my shoulder. I could feel the heat and hearing was weird for a while after that.
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Mortars and tanks were always fun but I usually had ear pro in. I'd say the worst was when I was in front of a Humvee and a car came around a corner and our gunner on the M2 fired warning shots. Right over my head. That was painful.
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Being a dumbass in my 20's an not always wearing hearing protection at the range.
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Live CQB training and I left out my ear plugs. Shit is loud when confined in a room.
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Quoted:
When we were filming the light's out trailer the 1919 firing blanks was unholy loud. Right ear very much worse than left ever since that day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxEy1WMMijQ View Quote |
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Working a flight deck over a few years. Specifically doing a high power trim on a J-52/P408 in an EA-6B at 100% power. The engine bay is open and you are crouched under the engine trying to adjust the fuel control. Can only be done in small doses. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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