I have just gotten over this enough to talk about it. Two weeks ago I was helping a client to her car w/her cakes. She had ordered a large number 1 and a large number 8 for an 18 yr old. As I was carrying the 8, my boot heel caught my jeans and I fell. I can still see it in slow motion. When I hit I pushed the cake out in front of me. The cake slid out of the box right side up. I could not believe it was okay. Only a few chocolate curls fell off. I on the otherhand caught myself w/ my knee and elbow. My whole body ached for a week and I was truely embarressed. Even though, I thanked God for the save. Does anyone else have a story like this?

This is my one and only cake disaster story (so far). I was up very late one night making a small 3 tier wedding cake for a friend of a friend... I had just finished smoothing all of the tiers and had them on a sheet tray walking them back to the fridge to firm up before putting the fondant on when--and I'm not even sure what happened, since it happened so fast--I fell and the entire tray just went up in the air.

Anyway, I lost everything, and had to rebake an entire wedding cake at 3am the morning of the wedding. What a nightmare!

Oh no - and I hope I never do!!

I am so sorry this happened to you - but what a save on the cake and quick thinking too!!

I fell "all over" the safe deposit box room at my local bank last winter (tripped over the metal stool) and I ached like that too and ended up at the chiropractor about 3 months later with shoulder and neck pain and he immediately asked "Have you fallen in the last few months?" So be prepared for more aches and pains a few months down the line - you never know what you have knocked out of whack when you take a hard fall like you did.

I know you were embarressed by I bet the customer was more than impressed with your 'save' skills!!

Hope you feel better

Suze

I fall on a daily basis, almost.

Once, I fell in Walmart and my dress went up over my butt, and I wasn't wearing panties.

When I was 9 mos. pg I fell head first into a huge pile of snow and couldn't get out. It happened right in front of some men from the phone company working on a pole and they laughed their butts off at me.

Same pregnancy, my boss and I were sneaking out of a Chamber of Commerce meeting early, and I tripped UP the stairs and made a huge commotion.

Yesterday I was bringing in our garbage can, one that is 95 gallons and has a hinged lid. It hit the lip of our driveway and stopped moving, I kept moving, and fell INTO the trash can, and had to crawl out backwards.

I've got a lot more....don't feel bad. It happens!

I slipped in the ice once, almost smacking my face on the floor of the truck i was putting the cake into. It is actually quite funny now. I was being so careful and did the same thing as you- put my hands out. luckily i was close enough to the vehicle, the cake- which i didn't let go of sat right down on the floor. I was pretty embarrassed, but i laughed it off. and so did the two guys watching me helplessly! we still laugh about it now. The one guys says " it was funny. er- because you didn't get hurt" lol

I'm forever falling and tripping, and most the times its over my own feet.
I've never fallen with a cake thankfully, but I've tripped and tipped over, but have'nt lost a cake yet.

I have done this. It was my first wedding cake. My grandmother and great-aunt were helping me carry the cakes to the car (3 unassembled tiers and 4 satelites). The car was parked close to my back door, so I was going out that way and tripped over a landscaping timber. I went down onto both knees and one hand in the grass. I wasn't hurt at all and neither was the cake. It was the heavy bottom tier which alone used 4 runs of pound cake batter. On a normal day, it is quite heavy by itself. On that day, I held it up like wonder woman with one hand. Quite a sight I tell ya! I was concerned about my relatives carrying the cakes and I was the one who ended up falling.

I've never fallen with a cake yet, but actually putting that in writing virtually guarantees I'll be doing that someday soon . Anyway, I fell when I was 9 mos. pregnant with my first child. I was wearing a lovely hot pink short ensemble when I slipped on some gas I had spilled while filling my car--then proceeded to sort of end up under my car, scraping my knee in the process. For weeks I heard from people I did not even imagine could have seen me falling under my own car! Anyway, I delivered my baby girl about a week later and you know when they tell you to grab your knees and push--my knee was almost more painful than childbirth, OK not really, but it hurt!!!

Not a cake story, but still funny... I was about 5 months prego and feeling incredable clumsy when I slipped down the front steps and hit my but on every single step!! About four days later my right cheek was literally black.. I took pictures and kept threatening to show people when they made fun of my fall.. lol

yep! carrying a sheet cake to the car and tripped over a jagged piece on concrete in the sidewalk. I have NO idea how I did this, but I felt like the quarterback grabbing the football ... I fell and actually rolled on the ground, keeping the cake in the air and right side up! Ruined my pantyhose, though!

non-cake fall: I managed a warehouse and was working inside a semi-truck trailer where we stored some obsolete material. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving, cold, snowy, rainy and the boxes in the truck had a thin coating of ice. I'm climbing down off of the boxes, slip on one and go tumbling out of the truck and onto the concrete. Broke my shoulder. And the only thing going thru my head is, "I've fallen and I can't get up! And Jack can't hear me yelling!" (Jack was one of my warehouse guys.) I managed to get up and somehow drove a manual transmission car to the doctor's office (it was my right shoulder, too! Try shifting a car with a broken shoulder!).

Oh my yes! It was a cake for my best friend's wedding shower! Her mother was the person who inspired me to become a cake decorator. I was a few months prego with twins, So there I go, down the stairs into the garage (3 story town home w/ garage on bottom), and some how I misstepped had to throw the cake so I didn't go tumbling all the way down the stairs myself. My mom was about 6 feet in front of me and the cake landed square on her head! So needless to say I missed the shower, had to go to the hospital, and unfortunately a week later miscarried. That was over 20 years ago. I no longer do the "stair thing" with a cake. Haven't fallen with one since, and knock on wood won't ever again. Once was enough. But, I can now laugh at the rememberence of the sight of my mom covered in cake!

Omigawd. Still laughing. I can totally relate.

Fallen? many, many times..............the most recent. After a concert at the downtown civic center we're running to our car to avoid traffic. Well my foot hit the sidewalk curb, I tripped and went sliding about 4 ft on my stomach with my hands out in front of me. My DH, turns around, looks down at me and like a baseball umpire yells "SAFE". He said it looked like I was sliding into home plate. I really could have killed him right there and than.
Everyone around me started laughing...........thankfully the only thing I bruised was my ego.

I fell with a cake once....it was an 11" x 15" double-layer chocolate cake with an 8" round on top of it. My husband usually carries the cakes for me but he wasn't there that day, so I opened the back of the Suburban doors and made a beeline for it, forgetting that for the past 12 years, there was a deep flower bed between the front door and the driveway. As I stepped down into the flower bed, I fell in slow motion right square on my chest with the cake atop my outstretched arms. The top tier bounced and damaged the bottom cake. My kids said I shot up off the ground and ran into the house like I was on fire! I started pacing furiously saying over and over, "OMG I DROPPED THE CAKE! OMG I DROPPED THE CAKE!" After the adrenaline wore off, I put the cake in the car and drove to the party. Thankfully, those were the nicest people in the entire universe and a handful of people happily helped me try to repair it (although they weren't really helping LOL). The next year, I provided him with his 51st birthday cake, free of charge. I didn't realize it until later that I was actually quite hurt. I was bruised, bloodied, and sore for 2 weeks.

My cake disaster story is from when I was in college, long before I started decorating cakes. It was one of my friend's 21st birthday party, and we were celebrating big time. Someone had ordered a big sheet cake and I had just lit the candles on the cake, and was turning around to walk the three steps from the counter back to the table. For some reason I decided I couldn't leave my drink cup on the counter while I took those three steps, so I turned BACK around to the counter to grab my cup....while balancing the cake on one hand. You can guess that it wasn't water in the cup....and due to the several cups I had already drank before this point in time, I wasn't the steadiest or most graceful person. As I reached for the cup on the counter, the cake got a little wobbly. I reached to steady it just as it tipped over. I caught it.....upside down, on my arm. Candles lit and all. I had little burn marks up and down my arms! Not to mention being covered in cake and frosting (black frosting, none the less). I felt horrible for ruining the cake, but people still ate it. Apparently it stuck to the cake board pretty darn well (or perhaps my arm smooshed it in lol). So while I didn't actually fall down, the cake did. Oops.

Oh my goodness, you poor girls. Just remember, it's all in the past...

Cake Fall: My only cake fall was so uneventful I hate to even mention it. I just walked up to a full size van that had its side doors open for me to place the cake in. It is the 2 tier Tiffany box cake in my CC photos. All I did was fail to see the metal edge that ran along the bottom of the van door. It made me misjudge the distance to the floor board when I hit it with both shins. I fell forward. The cake was perfectly fine. I ended up with matching bruises.

Non-Cake Falls: #1 - My son and I were moving a desk out of the garage. I actually saw the wall board on the driveway. (We were doing renovations.) I was the one going backwards and hit my heel on the board. My son said it looked like I just let go of the desk and sat down. I must have put my hands down weird to catch myself. I had a broken radial head on my elbow.

#2 - Years ago our sweet Cocker Spaniel got the chance of a life time. He found the gate not latched just as the mail man got out of his truck across the street. The neighbors had company, that included their 2 dogs. As they all visited for a moment with the mail man, my dog went for it.
I was at the end of the driveway, and had just stepped onto the edge of the street, with a plate of Christmas cookies. They were on a fancy paper plate that had been placed in a zip-lock. I thought the mail man could keep up with them better. I look backwards when I heard my family yell, "No" to our dog. He was charging down the driveway like a rocket with that look of someone on a mission. I lunged forward to try to grab his collar as he flew past. The cookies slid across part of the graveled street.
The dogs had a very brief fight, probably all of 5 seconds, which is the amount of time it took my dog to realize he was outnumbered. The neighbors just stood there with their mouths open. I went from flat on my face to my feet during that time. Next thing I knew my dog had jumped into my arms, all 35 lbs of him. It was all I could do to not fall again. I limped back to the house, dog in my arms, leaving the cookies there.
I dropped off the dog, who was perfectly fine, not one scratch on him, and made the painful walk back down the driveway to retreive my cookies out of the street. (My poor knees and hands took the worst of it.)
I told the neighbors how very sorry I was. Both of their dogs looked great. I think it made their day.
What did the mailman do during all of this? He got into his truck and drove off! I guess he made a run for it when he saw the dog. It would have been nice if someone had offered to help me.
I must look self-sufficient.

-Debbie B.

I fell once! This past summer, there was the aftermath of the hurricane rolling through, so it was rainy, etc. A good client of mine had ordered the luau cake from me (in gallery). I took the cake up to her door, but had left some stuff I needed in the car. She wanted me to go through her garage because it was closer to my car and I wouldn't get wet. I was walking through, and she has one of those really slick floors. My shoes were wet, and my left foot slid out, making me land HARD on my right knee. I got the hugest bruise and was super sore for days! Thank goodness I didn't not have the cake with me-I shudder to think about that!

Although, the worst time I hurt myself with cake, I didn't fall, but it was pretty serious! I was delivering the pink and green wedding cake with scroll work. I had my DH's new car, which is an FJ cruiser, and when I bent my knees to pull it out, my knee pressed HARD against the hot muffler. Holy S*** that hurt. I had a C-shaped burn around the size of a tennis ball and ended up going to the doctor. Have a scar. My first cake related scar.

I am such a klutz!

Two Thanksgivings ago, I was supposed to bring a sheet cake to my sister's. The day before, I set the oven to preheat, mixed the batter and loaded the pan, only to discover that the oven no longer worked.

Thank goodness my next-door neighbor had an empty oven which he was willing to let me use. I spent the baking time enjoying a nice visit with him and his kids, then carefully carried the cake in its pan back to my house, tripping on the threshold, and dropping the cake face down!

I certainly wasn't going to ask for another round of baking from the neighbor! I think I ended up defrosting an emergency cake from the freezer for Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately I have fallen too,with a cake in hand.I had made my version of a John deer tractor for a friend of my husbands at work.They had all pitched in and brought items for a party.I didn't trust my husband enough to secure the cake I had made in his vehicle securily so I decided I would do it for him.This was about 7 pm and our security lights outside are not that bright where he had parked his truck.I watched every step I took but as I started for the door of the truck I tripped over an atv tire.The cake landed right side up but before I could even see if it was ok here came the dog!OMG,All I could do was sit on the tire and laugh while I watched her enjoy my cake!

Non cake related fall... I was working at Macy's and fell down the back employee stairs. You know the ones made of concrete and metal!!! My shoe got caught in the hem of my pants. I was carrying a coke and for some reason didn't let go of the can! That ended up all over my blouse. I went tumbling to the bottom stairwell and apparently made enough of a racket that a lady on the other side of the wall heard the fall. She came around to see what the noise was. Another employee was at the top of the stairs in shock, cause he was just looking at me, and the lady yelled at him to get down there and help me. She ran to call 911 and this poor boy came down the stairs. I asked him his name and told him mine, then asked him to just hold my hand. So the EMS guys come in and had to cut off my pants, there was something wrong with my hip. I told the EMS man in all seriousness that at least I had my pretty panties on that day. He laughed and said he appriciated it. heheee.

Non cake related fall... I was working at Macy's and fell down the back employee stairs. You know the ones made of concrete and metal!!! My shoe got caught in the hem of my pants. I was carrying a coke and for some reason didn't let go of the can! That ended up all over my blouse. I went tumbling to the bottom stairwell and apparently made enough of a racket that a lady on the other side of the wall heard the fall. She came around to see what the noise was. Another employee was at the top of the stairs in shock, cause he was just looking at me, and the lady yelled at him to get down there and help me. She ran to call 911 and this poor boy came down the stairs. I asked him his name and told him mine, then asked him to just hold my hand. So the EMS guys come in and had to cut off my pants, there was something wrong with my hip. I told the EMS man in all seriousness that at least I had my pretty panties on that day. He laughed and said he appriciated it. heheee.

I fell last year on Christmas Day. We had been flooded out of our apartment the day before and were spending the entire week in a Hotel. We were suppose to host dinner that evening but instead asked one of our friends if we could have the dinner at their house. (They were away and gladly let us use their home. Well because they had been away there was a few patches of untreated ice on their driveway. I was carrying a few bags, including the Christmas turkey and dessert. I stepped on ice and went flying. I landed on my right knee. It instantly bruised and was swollen. My husband ended up cooking the dinner all by himself and I stayed in a recliner with my feet up. I ended up in the hospital a few days later because I couldn't feel my knee. They said the bruise was to the bone and would take a very long time. Well I STILL have discoloring on that leg, and had small lumps until just recently. 1 year later I still feel pain when I have to kneel on that knee.

Oh and the turkey suffered MANY broken bones... but was still delicious.

never have fallen with a cake YET.........but when I was a freshman in high school I was walking to school and I was a super shy and very self conscious teenager and had to cross the street (I live in Ohio it was winter and soooooo icy) in front of a carload of senior guys and yep, you guessed it........I fell down, but not just down, and not just in front of their cake but I actually slid halfway UNDER the front of their car and then it happened.......the red light they had been sitting at, turned green........they knew I was under the car and they started yelling out the window and beeping the horn " GET OUT OF THERE...........HEY GIRL...........MOVE...........WE'RE GONNA BE LATE!" Needless to say they weren't gentleman.........I was soooooooooo mortified!!!! Not sure what hurt more.......my body or my pride!

I haven't fallen - yet, thank goodness, but everytime I'm carrying a cake I say to myself "don't fall, don't fall, don't fall"
KHalsead, you had me laughing until I had tears in my eyes - how horrible! I can just hear that car load of senior guys - UGH!

I fell about 4 years ago down a set of wooden stairs in the rain holding my son. I ran to the store to get some formula, and it was pouring. I picked him up from my upstairs neighbor (who was also my ex brother in law) and I was going down slowly. My flip flop hit the wet wood and I fell all the way down on my booty. My son was fine since I leaned back, and grabbed him tightly to me, but I was bruised from my lower back down both legs. I could hardly walk. Come to find out I tore the muscle in the right cheek and to this day I have a large lump.

Then about 2 weeks ago my family was celebrating Thanksgiving at my sisters (Sunday), and we were having the first real heavy snow of the year. I was carrying mini pecan pies and a huge tray of NFSC iced with Antonia74's icing. I slid on one of the stairs of my back porch, and fell down the rest of the stairs. Broke almost all of my cookies and smashed my pies.

I apologize in advance for the length... this is a non-cake fall, Thank God, but it did result in me cancelling a bunch of cakes...

This happened to me in July. My husband was out of town for a week and my son had stopped by to get some clothes, he lives with his girlfriend. (If he hadn't been there, I might have been one of those old ladies who lay on the floor for days because I had fallen and I couldn't get up.) It was about 6:30PM. I had walked out to the car with a client to put the cake in her car. I had six more cakes to do over the next 3 days, 5 birthdays and one baby shower. I turned to walk in the house as she backed out of my driveway. It had rained that day and the driveway was wet.

I opened the door, stepped on the plastic mat by the door and slipped...my left foot shot out from under me. I felt/heard a big pop in the back of my left thigh and kinda went into the splits but fell backward onto my butt. I was lying on the floor clutching my leg and having tunnel vision...seeing stars. And my leg was on fire inside. I lay there crying for a few minutes and then remembered my son was there, on the other side of the house. I tried to sit up and couldn't, it hurt so much. I started yelling for my son and he finally heard me. He asked me if I could straighten my leg and it really hurt to try. He asked me if I wanted him to call an ambulance and I said I wanted to try to get up and put weight on it. I was an ER nurse for a long time, and I am a terrible patient. My son helped me sit up and then scoot to a stool. I couldn't sit, but I could stand on it and put weight on my leg, so I came to the decision nothing was broken.

We hobbled me to the phone and I called my MD's answering service. My Dr called me right back and we talked about how and where and what...all that stuff. He called a pain med and muscle relaxant prescription in for me that my son would go get and told me to go to bed with ice packs for 24-48 hours, or longer. I had an appt with the MD on the following Tuesday for labs, but I could be examined for this injury then if needed. My son helped me into bed and got ice packs and left for the drug store. Then I remembered the cakes orders.

When my son got back, he gathered all my cake orders and I started calling people. I felt so bad about it all. They were all so nice...long time clients. Two of them volunteered to come take care of me if I needed help. One of them is a radiologist who volunteered her ICU RN husband to come take care of me that night if I needed. I was embarrassed by how nice they all were. They all said "Don't worry a single minute about the cake. We'll manage. You take care of yourself and call us if you need anything."

I ended up being in bed for almost a week (first with ice, then with heat) except for that MD appt, because I had torn the muscle in the back of my thigh. No bones broken, nothing broken except my pride and a blood vessel or two. I was purple/black from butt to knee to ankle. I had to be careful how I sat or walked. It took about 10 weeks to feel normal again. My friend the radiologist and her RN husband both told me I'd have gotten better faster if I'd actually broken something, because I would have been put into a cast.

I don't know what I would have done if it had been a wedding cake order I had to cancel. It makes my blood pressure go up just thinking about a situation like that. My wedding cake contract states that if catastrophe happens to me they get a full refund. I know no one close by who could have helped me by taking over those orders for me. In 20 years of decorating cakes, the only other time I ever had to cancel a cake was when my father-in-law died. I believe that people will rise to your expectations, a crisis almost always brings out the very best in them.

I am so sorry....but in my head I am seeing some of these falls and I'm having a giggle!!
The only cake related fall was my poor husband.
We have a finished basement with a long stair case and I have an extra fridge just for cake stuff. He, bless his heart was taking a blowl of frosting down for me and completely missed the bottom two steps and plumeted down and the bowl of BC went flying through the air and the impact of it all didnt hurt DH but dented the heck out of my KA bowl!! Thank goodness for press and seal or Im sure the BC would have went everywhere!!
Happy caking!!
Laura

Non cake fall - I work in the aftermarket automotive industy, so I drive customers vehicles all the time. 2 winters ago I was getting out of a customers truck (you know, 3/4 ton crew cab long bed 4wheel drive truck-truck) and I didn't think it was really that icey but when i opened the door & stepped onto his nerf bar (3" round tube that runs under door whole length of truck cab) my foot immediately slipped off the N/B sending me plummeting to the ground, hitting my back on the N/B on my way down. To make it worse, the door flew back closed & slammed right into me. Foot, ankle, thigh, butt, lower back, shoulder & face all damaged in about 1.5 seconds.

I've also done the cartoon ice fall where my feet instantly slip out from under me causing me to fall THUNK flat on my back knocking my head on the ground. I tend to do that about once a winter.

Cake related - I didn't fall, but my for cake did. Heck, it wasn't even a cake yet! I was placing a 12x18 sheet cake pan in the oven (filled with 4 box cake mixes). I slide the pan onto the rack, then took my hands off the sides to push from the front & I obviously didn't have it as far onto the rack as I thought b/c in the 1/2 second it took to reposition my hands, the whole pan flipped off the rack, upside down & all of the batter oozed onto my hot oven door & immediately started to bake. Oh, it was like 10:30 at night! You should have seen me trying to use a pancake spatula to scrape the gunk off my door, so I could at least close the door & bake the new cake. Then I had to self clean my oven (of course) & it ran down the outside of my oven & into the warmer drawer below, which is where I kept most of my cake pans at that time.

Considering how much work goes into decorating cake, I think that you do everything to save that sucker when falling - just like a newborn.

Noncake-related fall: I was backpacking through Europe many years ago and ended up at a pretty lively backpacker's place on the Greek Island of Corfu (actually, it was like one big frat party). You arrive there with a whole bunch of other backpackers after an all-night boat trip from Italy. The first thing they have you do is take a shot of ouzo and smash a plate over your head.

So, one night I had a little too much to drink and fell head first down a big hill. My reflexes not being too sharp, I scraped my chin pretty badly. No one saw my fall, but the real story was too pathetic to tell. So my friend and I made up of a story of going to a bungy-jumping place where they miscalculated the length of the rope. When I jumped, I was hurtling towards my certain death when the rope caught me and pulled me up just before I hit the ground, scraping my chin in the process. Believe it or not, people took this story hook, line, and sinker.