This story is terribly sad but there’s a moral to it, I guess. About pranks. Or love and commitment. Or optimism.
Rachelle Friedman‘s hen’s night went horrifically wrong when her bridesmaids pushed her into the shallow end of a pool. Rachelle broke her neck and is now a paraplegic. The wedding was cancelled and has not been rescheduled.
From Gawker.com:
Rachelle Friedman is paralyzed from the chest down. Now she can’t marry her fiance because their combined income would cause her to lose her Medicaid benefits.
Light at the end of the tunnel: Rachelle, who worked as a dance and aerobics instructor before the accident, remains good-natured. Her betrothed is still devoted to her, even if he can no longer make his devotion official lest Rachelle lose the Medicaid benefits she now relies on. She’s not even mad at her friends: “It was playful, but it went wrong. It was a freak accident.” [ABC News]
Ever done something stupid or silly on a hen’s night? Clearly, this is at the extreme end, please God you’ve never been to a hen’s night that ended as tragically as this. But there’s a huge spectrum of behaviour that goes on at such occasions….
I remember when people used to think it was funny to pull someone’s chair out before they sat down. Imagine doing that now….you’d get sued and probably sent to jail for attempted manslaughter.
Comments
62 Comments so far
I’m a Hairdresser and I’ve seen and heard some real horror stories about Hens/Bucks nights. It never ceases to amaze me what some people will think is funny!
I had a man ring up one Saturday morning begging me to fit him in for a colour, because he was getting married that afternoon and his mates had ‘coloured’ his hair at his Bucks night. I felt sorry for him (more so his future wife) and told him to come in. When he arrived I discovered his ‘mates’ had held him down and poured pure white king bleach over his head. Not only had they bleached his hair, they had left him with severe burns on his scalp and face, and he couldn’t open his left eye. I explained to him that he needed to go to a doctor, not a Hairdresser, but all he was worried about was what his fiance was going to say when she saw him.
There was nothing I could do, his scalp was so badly burnt there was no way I would put colour on his hair. Thankfully he finally agreed to go to the emergency department. The entire time he was in the salon, his best man kept laughing and telling me I needed to find a sense of humour. Strangely, I failed to find what they’d done even remotely funny.
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What a tragedy, this story and many of the comments below really show how quickly everything can change in life…
I’ve noticed a lot of people are presuming that something like this would only happen in the American health system – unfortunately it happens here also.
An example is what happened to Perry Cross (http://www.perrycross.com.au/) a young man who became a quadriplegic after an accident in a Rugby Game.
He went on to obtain a degree, despite the challenges most of us couldn’t imagine facing, only to be told by the health system that if he took a job he would no longer receive any assistance. When you are on a breathing machine with a team of around-the-clock medical carers, that’s expensive. Suggestions were made for him to receive LESS health funding, in accordance with his earnings, but logic wasn’t on his side.
I believe now earns enough from his book and motivational speaking to cover the medical bills, luckily, because otherwise he certainly wasn’t allowed to work AND survive in our system!!
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When I lived in London I heard of 2 separate occasions where this happened – bucks went off to the Netherlands for a weekend of shenanigans and on one occasion the bachelor was blind drunk and lost assumed drowned in the canals and another with a similar story – drunken pushed/fell in a canal and spinal damage.
Apparently it happens a lot there as canals + drunks = trouble.
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Thankfully I have never seen a prank go so horribly wrong but over the years I’ve often found myself concerned by the many random acts of so-called good-natured fun. I’ve been to weddings where grooms are thrown into the air by their mates and then the mates form a circle beneath the groom hoping to catch him in their extended arms on his way down. Everyone laughs. I just stand there and hold my breath hoping the groom doesn’t drop on the ground. Am I a party pooper? There was one occasion when a groom did land on the ground and broke his arm. He went on his honeymoon with his arm in plaster. It could have been worse, I suppose. I’m all for fun but what about the prank that left one groom in plaster on his bucks night, courtesy of his mates, after the groom has consumed too much alcohol to remember what he had done. It wasn’t until he came back from his honeymoon that the bride and groom were told that the groom’s leg was not in fact broken. And then there was my husband’s 21st party when his so-called best friends thought it would be so funny to make him drink a combination of whisky, beer, wine, gin and who knows what else. He consumed the lot and immediately passed out, and from 9.00 pm he was semi-comatose on his bed. His mates thought it was so funny. I wanted to kill them. It was also potentially dangerous. Some people don’t wake up from that kind of mix of drinks. I just don’t get it. I never have. I’m of the belief .. don’t do to someone what you wouldn’t want done to you.
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This is such a horrific story and so are the ones littered all over the comments. I can’t stop thinking about them.
Yet more reasons to not sweat the small stuff and be appreciative of every single day you have on this Earth.
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I think the most disgraceful thing about this story it what it says about the American health care system. These two are obviously deeply in love and I am sure that he has given up a lot to stay with her, yet they can’t celebrate that publicly because of the cost of health care!
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My brother and his fam go to Honolulu once or twice a year, and on their last trip a little over a month ago, my niece slipped going into the pool and gashed her chin open. She needed 7 stitches at the hospital, and it cost them $3000!
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I once heard a story about a hens night where the bride took her family and friends to a Chinese restaurant for a dinner. Turns out everyone got food poisoning from the seafood, and it was the night before the wedding. Some of them had ongoing health problems from it. Anything can happen even of you’re safe.
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Ohmigod! That was in my home town! It’s was all of the bride’s family, she was vomiting through the ceremony, as were her bridesmaids and family etc. Awful…
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Wow. What a story.
As for stupid hen night stories, I have one. my husband and I had our hens and bucks separate during the day, but everyone met up and went to the pub at night. My husband was absolutely smashed and then someone knocked into him which damaged his knee (that he’d just had three months of physio on), so he couldn’t walk. So, in our drunken wisdom I insisted on carrying him home. But he kept slipping, so my bridesmaid suggested she do it. At one point he was slipping there too, so she hoicked him up and he went over the top of her and they crashed to the ground. Face first. My husband was fine, but the bridesmaid literally broke her fall with her face. Blood everywhere. It turns out that it was all my fault (I can’t remember but one of my friends caught it all on camera) and I helped lift and gave it too much, causing them to lose balance. So, not only did I have a groom with walking stick, I had a bridesmaid whose face I’d effectively smashed myself.
Did I mention this was two days before the wedding?
Thank god for photoshop and makeup and a hefty dose of forgiveness on the part of my bridesmaid!
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The other moral is OMG, how fucked is the American health system. I hope I never get sick there.
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Let’s face it. Some people are just cretins.
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Who is a cretin here? It was a hen’s night, it seems that someone playfully pushed her into the pool. It was an accident, one that will affect not only the bride to be but the person who pushed her in, for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t seem malicious or intended at all. If you accidentally hit someone with your car and they were paralysed, does that make you a cretin?
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I booked a house down the coast and took my closest girlfriends and sisters away for a relaxing weekend for my Hen’s Night – it was glorious. Safe, funny, peaceful and relaxing – a great way to close one chapter and start another. My heart goes out to Rachelle and her fiancee – what a devastating story.
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My sisters boyfriend was a groomsman at a wedding. The three groomsmen and the groom drove up to Sydney (3 hours away) to celebrate the bucks party 2 weeks out from the wedding. They stayed the night in Sydney, but came home early the next day, and were an hour from home when the car crashed and killed all four of them instantly. They were all under 25, the groom had his brother and two best friends with him. It was tragic and heart breaking, and you never forget.
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I remember when that happened BAJ – it was just absolutely tragic and a huge reminder about how so terribly important it is to make sure you make that 3hr drive as alert as you can possibly be.
It was a long time ago – I hope your sister is ok.
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Oh my goodness that’s so terrible. What an awful tragedy for their families and friends to go through.
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I fricken hate hen’s parties and buck’s nights. They always look really sad and tryhard, either a bedraggled hen wandering around drunk with a lopsided tiara, followed by a gaggle of equally drunk chicks, or a crew of pissed blokes, who end up at some sleazy strip club at 5 am doing things they either do forget or wish they could.
One of my mates went to a buck’s party where there were three strippers who ended up having sex with the buck one after the other, straddling him. WTF… It’s all so fricken sleazy and people do things that wouldn’t be tolerated in real life.
I’ve never been married but if I ever do, and if I HAVE a hen’s party, I’ll probably rent a house in the country, invite my 5 best girlfriends and then sit around for the weekend drinking wine, listening to old tunes and cooking yummy things together. And chatting. And laughing. And maybe smoking the odd spliff and cacking ourselves.
But then I’m an old nanna so this is to be expected.
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Good God, what every new bride wants, an STI from their husband.
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I’ve been to a lovely hen’s weekend like this – we met at a bridesmaid’s home in the northern suburbs of Sydney, carpooled, and drove to the Hunter Valley. We stayed at a hotel close to the vineyards and drove home with a boot full of wine.
Meanwhile, the boys were on the south coast playing golf all weekend.
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My partner went to a bucks where the stripper got out a chuppa chup, put it somewhere a chupa chup does not belong, and then shoved it into the groom’s mouth.
I nearly vomited when I heard, thankfully my partner told me, as he was also appalled. The vilest thing I have ever heard of.
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Wow, her fiancee is an angel.
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My hens night is next weekend and I am lucky enough to have my sister organising it, so there’ll be nothing stupid and no-one comatose-drunk because she knows I am not into that and neither is she.
My fiance’s is the same weekend and honestly, I am freaking out. I almost lost him in an accident once and I feel like the whole time I will just be waiting on that same phone call.
I do not trust the boys he is with not to be stupid and I have told them many times of late that if they get so much as a scratch on him they won’t be forgiven – but I can’t keep him in a padded cell forever, these things can happen anytime, anywhere.
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This is pretty much the worst thing ever. Personally, I’d be cracking some serious heads if someone did this to my fiancee. Fortunately, I’m reassured with the fact that most of our friends have enough common sense not to push her into a pool or something equally idiotic.
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So devastating that someones life can change in an instant and these accidents tend to happen when people are in their most relaxed state.
We lost a family member in a pool accident not so long ago and we always discussed what would be worse, surviving and being a para/quadraplegic or a family living without a loved one….
So tragic either way….
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Such a terrible accident. I feel equally sorry for the person who pushed her, I could never live with that guilt knowing I had done that to a friend.
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I remember hearing a story about a bucks night where the grooms friends handcuffed him to a pole, naked and with a rubberband around his testicles. By the time they came back to get him his circulation had been cut off and after being rushed to hospital was told he would never be able to have children. All the night before his wedding…
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How foolish. Men have the most ridiculous ideas of what is funny. I’m glad I’m not male
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My old boss went to a wedding in Bali this year. About 80 guests had flown over and were making a holiday of it. 2 days before the wedding, the boys were drinking and mucking around in the pool and one of the groomsmen hit his head and drowned. The bride and groom still went ahead with the wedding, I guess they figured they’d come all that way and they’d both lost family members recently so I suppose they had an attitude of “life goes on”. I don’t know how they did it though, if it were me, I think I would have been too distraught.
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I had friends who recently got married, and the best man died on the Wednesday before the Saturday wedding. He was the police officer who was shot.
They went ahead with the wedding, although it was a bittersweet day, at times so sad and touching, but it was still joyful. And he was remembered. I guess-would they have wanted it to go ahead? Probably yes.
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Oh, god! How awful this is??? I can’t even imagine how guilty her friends will feel forever…
I didn’t really want a Hen’s Night but my bridesmaids gave me one…and then proceeded to spike my drinks so I got really drunk, really quickly…the whole night was over before 10pm!! So stupid, and if they could do it over again they wouldn’t do the same. Silly isn’t always fun!
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I was watching this with my hand over my mouth..so terrible. I don’t know if I would be so forgiving
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Oh NO. I feel ill thinking about this. My heart to this woman and her fiance. (Is this American – this situation totally SUCKS and the US beaurocrats should fix it! Wondering if Oz situation is similar?)
Never had anything go QUITE this wrong during a celebration – but do recall a few years ago that story about a wedding where the bride or groom was being flown in to the wedding (on a property somewhere in Oz) in a chopper piloted by her brother. Everyone waiting at the ceremony site. And there was a crash. Cannot begin to imagine that situation.
Hens nights are usually a bit of fun – but pools and alcohol are like cars and alcohol – a terribly potent mix.
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Just to slightly change the subject, when it came to a buck’s night I didn’t bother with one because I was concerned about something like this happening.
My wife had a relatively tame hen’s night with several of her friends and relatives going out for a quiet dinner at a restaurant. Nothing too outlandish happened, nobody was injured or arrested and she was quite happy with that outcome.
You really don’t have to act like a dill in order to enjoy yourself. That said, we are now about to go and dance in the backyard because the neighbours are out on their deck.
Ready, Mr Music !
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That story is so heartbreaking. The couple themselves have had the worst luck imaginable. And can you imagine how guilty the friends feel. They’ll have to live with this for the rest of their lives.
As for me I’ve only been to one hen’s night and the worst thing that happened was just funny and embarrassing rather than painfully sad. After the penis cake, and the drinks consumed via penis straws (you can see where this is going) we convinced the bride to let us draw on her face with permanent marker promising to do something “cute”. We were all heavily intoxicated and because the night had so much of a penis theme, we decided to draw a large penis on her cheek, pointed at her mouth.
She fell asleep before she got a chance to look in the mirror and the next day we were woken up with a scream. She comes running out of the bathroom threatening to kill us all. Her groom to be walks in, notices his future wife, breaks out in laughter and says “now that’s the perfect hangover cure”. We all laughed, and I think that saved us from death at the hands of a crazy hungover lady.
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oh my goodness, i thought this was going to be a lot lighter and had come in with hilarious comments about going to hen’s nights as a lesbian and being faced wih penis-shaped objects all night!
i’ll just sit quietly over here i think.
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On a lighter note, I know of a groom that had his eyebrows shaved off at his bucks night two weeks before the wedding. Boy, were his mates in trouble!!
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So sad.. My good friend who was getting married about 11 years ago, her fiance had his bucks night at their house just a few mates around to watch the grand final and have a few drinks. Some kids from down the road wanted to gatecrash and there was a fight out the front, my friends fiance went to split it up and he ended up getting punched so hard he fell back and hit his head on the drive way and died – two weeks before their wedding. Was just awful…
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I remember something very similar happening near where I live, a while ago. It sounds terrible, but I hope it was the same event as you just mentioned, I can’t bear to think of more people having to suffer in identical incidents.
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Was this in Perth? I remember reading about it and being absolutely horrified. To be honest, though I hate even the thought of bucks nights and hens nights. Why are they even relevant in today’s society?
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Yes this was in Perth. It was horrific.. My poor friend went through hell, and the justice system = what a joke!!!
Good note now she is married to a lovely man with a 5 month old baby.
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That is unbelievably tragic. What an amazing couple. My heart goes out to them.
For my hens night, we went and did what I loved doing: we had Jap food.
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Thank you for sharing, that video clip was inspiring
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That is terribly sad. I feel for her, her fiance, and of course the bridesmaids — what an awful thing for them to have to live with.
Some people think pranks are funny, but they are mean at best, and at worst, have consequences like this. I was talking to someone who is in the US Navy a while ago and he was describing some of the “initiation rituals”. I got very upset about what is basically institutionalised bullying — it’s all a laugh if you’re not hurt by it, but the consequences can be extremely serious and lasting for others.
It is great that this couple are so practical and still so loving and supportive of each other. I hope things work out for them; insurance and medical issues seem to be a minefield to negotiate.
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the phrase forit is “hazing”. it’s banned but fraternities have “hazing rituals” as well.
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This makes me feel sick. I’m going to a hens next week and while I never had any thoughts that something would happen I always worry about my boyfriend when he goes to bucks nights. He and his friends tend to get very messy when they want to and I worry that something stupid like this will happen to them.
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The sort of things some people get up to on their hens/bucks nights are about as funny as watching Funniest Home Videos, where the main aim seems to be watching people hurt themselves.
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I was actually thinking about hens nights recently and how silly all the traditional plastic tiaras, fake veils and hot pink boas were. And then yesterday I saw this:
http://www.whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/2010/11/here-come-the-girls-a-vintage-hen-do-shoot.html
What an awesome (and SAFE!) way to spend time with your best friends and have memories that last forever. I loved it.
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Those photos are awesome! And you get to be girls and have fun and take home some fantastic shots of you and your friends!
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Safer than being pushed into a pool, that’s for sure.
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That is gorgeous! I LOVE IT!
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Erica – thank you for the link
I own {www}and thank you very much for your kind comments 
x x x
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No worries at all! I run Moonlight & Whimsy – I RT’d it on Twitter too for you. It was just such a great idea!
xo
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This was my hen do and the thing in this article was exactly what I was trying to avoid. So sad for this girl and her fiance
I’m really glad you liked it. The most dangerous thing about it was we were a little chilly
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Oh the story upset me
how sad. Its good that she remains “herself” i’d be bitter. God bless her.
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The entire concept of a “hen’s night” is stupid and silly, IMHO.
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Well bah humbug to you too! It’s an excuse for a fun night out for God’s sake, I think that’s far from stupid and silly.
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Not when I see gaggles of bogan girls with crappy tiaras and veils running around places like king st, melbourne drunk on hooker heels just looking like idiots.
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It depends what you do with it. It’s nice to celebrate your friend’s upcoming wedding, but it’s not nice for it to get messy, or for there to be strippers (what person who has found the love of their life wants to see that?!), etc.
Each to their own.
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I agree with you 100% picardie.girl!
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ditto! for my second wedding i refused to have silly strippers. i said to my friends i didnt want it, and if they went ahead with it they can go themselves cos i wont show up. i find male strippers gross. they sweat, they smell, they all do the same moves!
im so glad we had a nice dinner at a nice resto a week before i married my best friend in the world.
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Technical issues mean I can’t watch the video, but I’m assuming from the mention of Medicaid this happened in the US? So, the story is about 2 things – pranks and just how screwed up the US health system is. People may whinge about our health system (and it’s a long way from perfect) but compared with the US we are blessed.
Have I ever done something stupid or silly on a hen’s night? No, I avoid them like the plague.
I also feel very sorry for her bridesmaids’ who will have this on their conscience’s for ever. Whilst it’s not as bad as being a paraplegic it’ll be one hell of a weight for them to carry through their lives.
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