No sooner than I handed him my knife……….

Terry M.

Terry M.

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I keep my knives razor sharp. Sometimes I have to as delicate work as splitting the sheathing the long way on a small phone cable. Yesterday I was with a younger co worker and I was busy getting other things set up and he asked to borrow my knife to do the delicate job of splitting aforementioned wire. Reluctantly (and stupidly) I handed him one of my knives and said “be very careful it’s extremely …………………. He cut himself. I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth and he cut himself. I should have known better. I should have known better. Fortunately it was just a nick and not to the bone like it could have been even though it bled like crazy. I was sure I was going to get a visit from our safety guy but luckily just a nick.
Have any of you had similar situations? Sorry, I had to tell someone and since we’re mostly likeminded here.
 
Terry M. said:
I keep my knives razor sharp. Sometimes I have to as delicate work as splitting the sheathing the long way on a small phone cable. Yesterday I was with a younger co worker and I was busy getting other things set up and he asked to borrow my knife to do the delicate job of splitting aforementioned wire. Reluctantly (and stupidly) I handed him one of my knives and said “be very careful it’s extremely …………………. He cut himself. I didn’t even get the words out of my mouth and he cut himself. I should have known better. I should have known better. Fortunately it was just a nick and not to the bone like it could have been even though it bled like crazy. I was sure I was going to get a visit from our safety guy but luckily just a nick.
Have any of you had similar situations? Sorry, I had to tell someone and since we’re mostly likeminded here.
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All the time. I once had an idiot run the blade over his finger AFTER I'd told him to watch himself.
They walk among us.
 
I had a Kershaw out at the range cutting something and a cop was shooting next to me. It was a really early speedsafe model - think it was called a whirlwind or something like that. He asked if he could see it and I handed it to him. I started to warn him that it had speedsafe so it pops open but the damage was done. His thumb followed the normal arc and would up sliding right down the blade. Laid him open.
 
Only time it happened to me, I was on the phone and a coworker came up behind me and, knowing I carry a knife, asked to borrow it. I pulled it out and handed it to them without looking (still concentrating on the phone call). A few seconds later the coworker says, very quietly, "Wow, your knife is VERY sharp." She was opening a bag and shaved off the tip of her finger. Nothing too serious, but I learned not to hand anyone a knife without, at minimum, a warning.
 
Ruari said:
All the time. I once had an idiot run the blade over his finger AFTER I'd told him to watch himself.
They walk among us.
Click to expand...
Indeed they do......

Back in the late 80's I worked for a mail order company and on many weekends in the summer we also did game fairs and shows.

We were at a big annual pistol shoot and I was manning the table. We had a load of various Spyderco's on the table, one was the original large Mariner. This was the old stainless handled model with a serrated G-2 blade. They were fearsomely sharp out out of the box.

One of the local genius's came along and picked it up, opened it and with a sarcastic smile on his face asked me if it was sharp.
Before I could answer he had placed his thumb on or around where the choil is, applied pressure and slid his finger towards the tip of the blade. By the time he got half way down the blade I was horrified to see the finger moving up and down as the bone scrapped along the serrations.
He bled all over the table and had to go to hospital for surgery to repair the damage.

The sort of idiot does a thing like that still fascinates me to this day.......:rolleyes:
 
Both of my index finger second knuckles are covered in scars from childhood whittling incidents, I'm a bit more careful nowadays. I generally don't lend my pocket knives out, and in my job (construction project management) most folks carry their own knives.
 
Yep. In middle school I had a friend over to my house to mess around after school. At the time we both lived in a small town, went deer hunting, owned rifles and knives, etc. So I thought nothing of it when he asked how sharp my new Buck folder was. I opened it, checked it against my own thumb, handed it to him, then was dumbfounded when he ran the tip of his trigger finger down the length of the blade. Thankfully the cut wasn't deep as he didn't apply too much pressure, it barely bled. Nevertheless, he dropped the knife on the floor and clutched his finger like we was stung by a scorpion. He then spent the rest of the afternoon angrily asking me why I made him cut himself with my knife.

That wasn't the nail in the coffin, but we didn't hang out much more after that.
 
When I’m working at shops, I tend to carry 2 knives. One is not as nice, nor as sharp and if someone asks to borrow one, that’s the one they get.
 
I've stopped handing people my knives. They're gonna damage them, themselves, or both. I'll just cut the thing for them (or use a screwdriver or scissors, since that's often what they really need). I will however hand them my pocket utility blade (Magnus SlideClick), because at least with a utility knife they know enough to expect it to be sharp.
 
I worked in a knife shop for a while. A known customer came in and I sharpened his knife on paper wheels.
He immediately "tested" it on the hair of his arm.
When he got to the back of his hand he proceeded to make bacon on the back of his hand. What a mess.
 
I’ve come to the conclusion that a person who doesn’t carry a knife is not to be trusted! You should assume that this person is mentally challenged and lacks the reasoning and skills to use a knife safely and effectively. Let them use their own tools and save yourself the worry and heartache.
 
When I used to at a factory back in Jersey I carried a SAK with me every day for when someone lost a box cutter and needed to borrow a knife. One of our production managers was helping us inspect some carbon steel tubing that came with its packaging full of sea water. He asked to borrow a knife to cut open one of the wrapped bundles.

I informed him that the blade doesn’t lock open so to be careful which he understood and went on his way cutting the wrap. Well what I probably should have added was that you don’t put your fingers around the blade while you use a knife too. He wrapped his index finger around the front of the blade like there was an imaginary finger choil there.

After he noticed what he did he looked at his finger, tried to hide it, then gripped it the same way and keep going…

I had to stop him and take him to the medical cabinet. He’s was 2x my age and a very well educated man, felt a little weird having to explain to him why you don’t grab the blade of a knife. He was a probably a little distracted because of the stress of a whole shipment arriving ruined, so looking back I shouldn’t have handed him a knife in the first place. Even if someone seems calm they might not be internally and hiding it, and will likely do stupid stuff.
 
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