I recall back in college at UC Santa Cruz, the band I was in was playing an event at the school. I broke a string (on a Gibson EB2-D, short scale) and the remnant cut my finger. I borrowed a bass, bled on it and broke a string and then borrowed another and did the same thing! There were three three string bloody basses by the end of our set.
I used to break strings a lot, but I played way too hard and used to slap a lot more than I do now. These days I also get my basses set up better and have the bridges attended to more carefully so breaking strings is not so much of a problem. Also, in my great string search of 2001, I discovered that for me, DR strings broke a lot less often than some of the other brands I tried.