Hunting knife accident.....not for the squeemish!

L

loosenock

Joined
Jul 10, 2002
Messages
77
In the early 70's I purchased a newly released lockback folding hunter knife made by a U. S. manufacturer. The knife was a well made knife and took a nice edge. What happened I do not blame the knife or its manufacturer.

It was not long after purchase that I took the knife into the Colorado mountains to hunt deer. In the 70's deer hunting in Colorado was pretty much a given. It was'nt if you were going to get your deer, but which one do you want.

It was on the second day of hunting I harvested a young 3 point buck. I started the field dressing, had the hide along the sternum peeled back a little and was trying to push the knife through the tough bone.

I needed to get more pressure to the tip of the knife with my thumb. The only way to do this is choke up on the knife. When you do this your index finger is now on the sharpened edge of blade and you will cut yourself. To prevent cutting my index finger I moved it straight out. I am now holding the knife with my three fingers and bearing down hard on the back of the knife with my thumb. I was bearing down very hard. This worked fine as long as I was pushing on bone, but, as things will happen, I was pushing hard when the lock on the knife failed. The hair shaving blade folded missing my extended index finger and burying itself in the back of my middle finger.

It burned immediately, and I could feel the blood rush from my face. I could see the blade crosswise in the back of my finger. Everything was already bloody from the task I was doing but only my own was flowing down my arm. My mouth filled with salty tasting bile.

Something was still wrong. I expected the blade to be free from the cut, like the hundreds of other times I have cut myself doing one thing or another. But it wasn't, it was still very much in place on the back of my finger. Moving the knife... moved my finger. Realization told me the knife was lodged in the bone. I gently moved the knife again confirming my situation. To free the blade from my finger I had to rock it gently back and forth a couple of time before the bone released the blade.

I moved away from the job I was doing and "lost my breakfast" over a log. I sat down and wrapped my finger with a handkerchief, gathering myself. After a settle down period I went back to camp for help and first aid.

I still bare the scar, but the memory still gets to me at times.

Joe
 
Thanks Joe for the story I think it should remind us that we are using a dangerous weapon and we should remember that when are handle our knives!
 
Dude, I've hurt myself pretty bad, more times than I care to remember.
2 broken ankles, broken wrist and fractured every knuckle at the same time. I won't bore you with the countless, stories,(they're recounted in several other threads), more knife wounds, half as many stitches, but I've never buried in the bone, hit the bone? Sure, but never in the bone. I take my hat off to you,(luckily I can still do this with 5 fingers from either hand) I'm printin' your story an carrying it with me, so when my friends make jokes about how I know where every emergency room, in almost every major US city is located, when they tell their kids,"Show Uncle Ted, he'll know if it needs stitches" because I've had more injuries than anyone they know.

That's when I'll pull out the story, and I'll say," Here's a guy who passed me" and maybe, just maybe for one minute they'll treat me like everyone else, and not as the worst self inflicted knife wound that they know.

Thank you,
 
I just joined the "Dropped a Knife On My Foot Club" about a week and a half ago. Small drop point hunter, dropped it as I was about to put it back in the sheath on my belt. It went point down perfectly and stood straight up in the top of my foot up near my ankle for about a second.Then I started a good string of profanity as it dropped off onto the ground and I felt the blood start welling up in my boot.Had trouble getting the bleeding stopped, but the cut didn't seem to be big enough for stitches. It was good and clean and closed up in about 2 days, almost healed over now.
 
loosenock: you shouldn't try to remove the knife because at that point the knife can act as a block and preventing you from bleeding more. This would be much more important if you have something like a knife hitting any vitals.
At least you're fine ;)
 
I have a similar scar on my right middle finger from a CRKT Small KISS Tanto. The circumstances were different as I was only trying to remove a super soaker squirtgun from it's packaging (cutting a zip tie). The lock disengaged, the knife folded up and the next words from my mouth were, "see you guys later, I'm going to the ER". I soon found that I had only glanced the bone, but mostly severed the extensor tendon on that finger. After an hour of micro surgery, I got to have my right (dominant) hand in a cast totally imobilized for six weeks. This was NO FUN!.

Having to remove the blade from your finger must have really sucked.

jmx
 
Man, that really gave me the willies....
Hope I never hurt myself that bad.
 
I had a similar incident. I was sixteen and dressing a whitetail, I was using my new Victorinox SAK - it was 'THE KNIFE' then. My father was watching in protest. He said that I should be using a fixed blade like his. I was gonna show him. Anyway, I wound up cutting myself. the blade cut a tendon and stuck in my knuckle. My dad was very calm, the only way a retired Marine Drill Instructor could be. I lost some range of motion, but my finger works. Years later, in 1998 I had just got my Sebenza and I was determined to prove the old man wrong. I used it to dress another whitetail. It worked flawlessly and it remained sharp through the entire process. So as I'm telling the old man how much better my Sebenza is than his old knife, I go to close it onehanded and cut my damn finger, again. I only needed 4 stitches this time. I guess I'll learn eventually.

Jason
 
Ed Fowler has a nice little booklet on knife design, etc. He is adamant about a few things--a full guard being one of them. Anyway, I don't see any reason for anything but a fixed blade knife with a full guard for hunting. Safer, stronger, less places for blood to collect, etc.

Glad you made it out okay,

John
 
I finally went to a fixed blade for hunting in 1999, But I had to outdo the old man so I bought a Randall Mod 25. My dad has alway wanted a Randall and really liked mine...What I didn't tell him was that I got him one too. I just couldn't stand that piece of junk that he carried. That year he got the first deer and offered to let me dress it with my "Fancy" knife. I declined and told him he should use his "fancy" knife. Then I gave it to him. I'm still pretty sure that I saw a tear when he was all choked up. But he'll never admit it.
To this day, we both use our Randalls for hunting.

Jason
 
Here is one for ya-
One man I met told me a story of his experience with a Henkle knife.
He worked as a manager of a large knife store. Early in the morning he was rearranging the Kitchen knives on the magnetic holder mounted on the wall. He bumped the handle of a 10 Inch Henkle Kitchen knife and it started to fall. It bounced off the wall about a foot above his leg and went tip first into his ankle. And it stayed there :eek:

It was stuck in the bone!

I dont know if he needed stiches, but he says that he does not have as much feeling in that area than he used to.
 
Ah another "how I got stupid with my knife..." thread. Well, I'm not superman, I've got a few stupid stories myself and I can prove it!

This summer I was limbing fallen maple and plumb branches having a lot of fun with my new (and thanks to me) razor sharp golok machete. After I hacked up some limbs I would gather them up and throw them onto a growing brush pile. After a while, I got tired of constantly sheathing the machete to do this, so I began to use the machete in my right hand as something of an arm to help pick up the brush while my left hand grabbed the other side. This worked OK and was pretty safe as long as I remembered to turn the machete around so that the spine was facing my left hand. After a while, I got tired and forgot this rule. Sure enough, on one of my tosses, as the pile of wood left my hand/machete combo, the two middle fingers of my left hand came into contact quite forceably with the edge of the machete! you guessed it, two very deep cuts at an angle from back to front which began bleeding profusely. I ran into the house, washed them off, applied pressure, and bandaged them. When my wife (the nurse practitioner) saw the cuts the next morning (she was working the evening it happened) she said they should have gotten stiches, but it was too late by then...

Yet the story doesn't end there... The very next day, I was trying to cut what was left of a little salami with my large Sebenza. Because I was trying to protect the two bandaged fingers whose cuts would still easily open if too much pressure was applied, I was trying to control what was left of the salami with my forefinger and thumb. Salami being what it is (a little slippery some times) did indeed get away from me, and sure enough, that Seb went through the top of my forefinger in almost perfect alignment with the cuts on the other two fingers! Again the blood, again the bandage, and now I had three fingers bandaged in exactly the same way!

That was all a couple of months ago, and all the cuts are healed now, but the scars are still there to remind me how not to be stupid when playing with sharp things!
 
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