I have cut myself many times in my woodcarving shop. For a while, I thought I had to bleed on every project I made. I figured it gave the piece a little of my soul, somehow. I rarely cut myself in the shop anymore because I have learned the proper mind set for wood carving. And to anticipate Where the blade might go.
But a couple of years ago, while showing my son the Wrong way to cut wood (against the grain), I plunged my sharpest carving knife deeply into the flesh of my palm. Luckily, I didn't damage anything vital, and escaped with a few stitches. I am sure my son learned the lesson Very Well indeed.
But the absolutley stupidest, dumbest thing I ever did with a knife happened just two weeks ago. I was cutting the Christmas tree of the top of my car (tied on with twine through the interior of the vehicle), and with Great force (my Spyderco Centofante is Razor sharp and plain edged, thank goodness), which was Completely unecessary, sliced through the twine and removed the Top eighth inch or so of my left index finger in the process. I didn't feel a thing. I just looked down and closed the wound with my thumb. It was only moments later when my son said 'Dad, your bleeding' that I bothered to look down at the voluminous trail of dripping blood running down my arm. We went into the house leaving a trail OJ would be unable to explain, and managed to bandage up my finger with some paper towels and tape. When my wife got home, I sent her to the market for some sterile bandages and tape. Four hours later, when we changed the dressing, it still bled like I had just cut it. I wrapped it up Really tight, thinking a little compression (or a lot) should stop the bleeding.
I spent the night in excruciatingly, agonizing pain, holding my finger in the air (the cats were very interested, guess it was the smell of blood). The next morning I called the doctor, who wanted to see me immediately. He looked at the cut in silence for a long time, then asked 'why didn't you go to the emergency room yesterday?'. I tried to explain that there wasn't enough finger tip to sew back on. He looked some more, then said that although he makes a practice of Never agreeing with his patients self-diagnosis, in this case, he felt I was probably right. But for injuries of this sort, a tourniquet of a rubber band around the base of the finger would have been a good idea. Compression alone can not stop the bleeding from this sort of injury.
Anyway, the finger is Still covered with a lovely scab, and I change the bandage twice a day; but hopefully I will recover all sensation in my finger tip in a couple of months or so. So that's the story folks. Knife accidents should be seen by professionals immediately. Or you might lose something you need. By the way, the Christmas Tree looks great.
Paracelsus
[This message has been edited by Paracelsus (edited 25 December 1999).]
