- Joined
- Jul 27, 2012
- Messages
- 208
I am new to the forums, but not new to Becker knives. I now own quite a family of them, but the collection started with the BK 17 that quite possibly saved my life. I will recap the story with a couple pictures and try to keep it short, but I figured you fellow Beckerheads would probably appreciate it.
Two summers ago, I was camping with my family out on the coast of the Washington/Oregon boarder at Ft. Stevens State Park, and I had been spending quite a lot of time surf fishing and crabbing around the rocks and off the South Jetty. I had a new BK17 on my belt all week, and was really enjoying putting it through its paces chopping fire kindling, preparing food, rigging heavy saltwater fishing rigs, and exploring our findings on the beach.
I has found a castable snapping crab trap, that rigs to a heavy salt water pole, and you can bait and cast it if you have some seriously heavy line and some energy. I was enjoying casting it off the big jetty boulders between slack tide when the crab were more plentiful near the rocks, and the waves werent suicidal to be out messing with.
I went out the last morning I was going to hit morning low tide right at slack tide, but that meant hiking really far out the boulder jetty to get to the water. I walked down the north side of the jetty with my dad and my 9 year old son, and they took off up the beach, as I said I wouldnt be too long. I waded out through some slack pools to a good spot to climb up over the jetty, as it is much easier to cover the distance on sand than hopping boulders. The spot that I chose to climb up was well below the water line, and this tide just happened to be the lowest in weeks. The boulders out there were the size of cars, and completely covered with very fresh and wet seaweed. I started climbing up and got about half way up when I made one bad footing decision right as I crested the jetty and an offshore wind gust hit me like a tank at the same time. I tried to hop up to better footing as I was scrambling to keep my feet, and this resulted in me straddling a massive crevice with one foot on each side. This is where my second idiot decision compounded things (I believe they say most catastrophes can be traced to a series of human mistakes) ..We were in a hurry to get to the beach that morning, and I opted to wear a pair of Croc sandals instead of decent shoes. My feet were wet and sliding around in my sandals as I straddled the slimy rocks .Crocs on rocks is the phrase that flashed through my head as I fell down the crevice.
I had both hands full of rods, traps, raw chicken bait, bucket, and tackle box as I crashed to the bottom between two giant boulders. I felt searing pain all over my body from gashing my arms, legs, and torso on barnacles as I came down. My feet were numb, but I could tell my left foot was in trouble. It had gone toes first through the crack at the bottom where the boulders had converged, and I could feel horrible pain despite the cold, and there was blood everywhere, but I couldnt keep track of where I was bleeding from. I took an inventory of myself and knew I hadnt hit my head, and couldnt find any huge lacerations, so barring anything catastrophic going on with my left foot, I knew I wasnt in too bad of shape, until I tried to pull my foot out.
I had become wedged at a really odd angle, and was not able to bend my leg to lift it out, or move my body to pull myself up. I began to panic because I realized I was truly trapped, and I knew .1. I was probably ten feet lower than the high tide line .2. Slack tide was changing and I would very soon be under water as it came in 3. My dad and son had no clue where on the jetty I was at I knew if I didnt get out, they would not find me until the next low tide.
I flailed around while trying to fight off tears of panic, and then told myself out loud calm down .there is a way out of this. I tried a few more times to find a way to hoist my body up or climb the boulders enough to lift my foot out, but they were too vertical and slick to find any purchase for my arms.
I looked past my left foot and saw some really thick nasty blue rope washed into a pile of crap between the rocks, and thought that if I could pull myself forward it really hard, maybe my foot would dislodge forward. It didnt but the rope came pretty loose, and I discovered it was some sort of hefty cargo or fishing netting. As soon as I realized that, I had the simultaneous idea that I could probably pretty easily throw and snag it over the top of the rocks and have a way out. Thanking my creator that I had kept my knife on my belt when I got dressed that morning, I was able to easily cut a huge piece of the netting free and sling it back over my shoulder. It got caught in the crevice up behind me on my first swing and I frantically pulled myself up freeing my leg. I probably should have slowed down and planned better, but it worked and I was free. I took my Croc off to see if I was ok and my left big toe was obviously in trouble and displaced quite a ways from where it needed to be.
The next bit was a real blurr, but I managed to climb out, over, and free of the crevice. I remember sliding over the last boulder on my stomach and falling into a sandy slack water pool, and wading across to open sand. I could see my dad and son down the beach, and was able to flag them down as I fought off shock. I was somehow able to walk about a quarter of a mile up the sand before the pain of it all was more than I could stand any more, but it was far enough to get a truck down to me.
So summed up .My toe basically exploded. I had to endure it for two days (because the hospital in Astoria couldn't deal with it) until I could see a specialist orthopedic surgeon in Seattle that performed the surgery. He said the bone ironically looked kind of like crab meat when he opened it up. Three surgeries and a few pins later, I have a semi working toe these days, but I can certainly tell you when the barometric pressure drops and it is about to rain .the pain in my toe lets me know ..but I am very thankful .and I always have a Becker with me now.
The BK-17
The Toe
The X-Ray
The Fix
Two summers ago, I was camping with my family out on the coast of the Washington/Oregon boarder at Ft. Stevens State Park, and I had been spending quite a lot of time surf fishing and crabbing around the rocks and off the South Jetty. I had a new BK17 on my belt all week, and was really enjoying putting it through its paces chopping fire kindling, preparing food, rigging heavy saltwater fishing rigs, and exploring our findings on the beach.
I has found a castable snapping crab trap, that rigs to a heavy salt water pole, and you can bait and cast it if you have some seriously heavy line and some energy. I was enjoying casting it off the big jetty boulders between slack tide when the crab were more plentiful near the rocks, and the waves werent suicidal to be out messing with.
I went out the last morning I was going to hit morning low tide right at slack tide, but that meant hiking really far out the boulder jetty to get to the water. I walked down the north side of the jetty with my dad and my 9 year old son, and they took off up the beach, as I said I wouldnt be too long. I waded out through some slack pools to a good spot to climb up over the jetty, as it is much easier to cover the distance on sand than hopping boulders. The spot that I chose to climb up was well below the water line, and this tide just happened to be the lowest in weeks. The boulders out there were the size of cars, and completely covered with very fresh and wet seaweed. I started climbing up and got about half way up when I made one bad footing decision right as I crested the jetty and an offshore wind gust hit me like a tank at the same time. I tried to hop up to better footing as I was scrambling to keep my feet, and this resulted in me straddling a massive crevice with one foot on each side. This is where my second idiot decision compounded things (I believe they say most catastrophes can be traced to a series of human mistakes) ..We were in a hurry to get to the beach that morning, and I opted to wear a pair of Croc sandals instead of decent shoes. My feet were wet and sliding around in my sandals as I straddled the slimy rocks .Crocs on rocks is the phrase that flashed through my head as I fell down the crevice.
I had both hands full of rods, traps, raw chicken bait, bucket, and tackle box as I crashed to the bottom between two giant boulders. I felt searing pain all over my body from gashing my arms, legs, and torso on barnacles as I came down. My feet were numb, but I could tell my left foot was in trouble. It had gone toes first through the crack at the bottom where the boulders had converged, and I could feel horrible pain despite the cold, and there was blood everywhere, but I couldnt keep track of where I was bleeding from. I took an inventory of myself and knew I hadnt hit my head, and couldnt find any huge lacerations, so barring anything catastrophic going on with my left foot, I knew I wasnt in too bad of shape, until I tried to pull my foot out.
I had become wedged at a really odd angle, and was not able to bend my leg to lift it out, or move my body to pull myself up. I began to panic because I realized I was truly trapped, and I knew .1. I was probably ten feet lower than the high tide line .2. Slack tide was changing and I would very soon be under water as it came in 3. My dad and son had no clue where on the jetty I was at I knew if I didnt get out, they would not find me until the next low tide.
I flailed around while trying to fight off tears of panic, and then told myself out loud calm down .there is a way out of this. I tried a few more times to find a way to hoist my body up or climb the boulders enough to lift my foot out, but they were too vertical and slick to find any purchase for my arms.
I looked past my left foot and saw some really thick nasty blue rope washed into a pile of crap between the rocks, and thought that if I could pull myself forward it really hard, maybe my foot would dislodge forward. It didnt but the rope came pretty loose, and I discovered it was some sort of hefty cargo or fishing netting. As soon as I realized that, I had the simultaneous idea that I could probably pretty easily throw and snag it over the top of the rocks and have a way out. Thanking my creator that I had kept my knife on my belt when I got dressed that morning, I was able to easily cut a huge piece of the netting free and sling it back over my shoulder. It got caught in the crevice up behind me on my first swing and I frantically pulled myself up freeing my leg. I probably should have slowed down and planned better, but it worked and I was free. I took my Croc off to see if I was ok and my left big toe was obviously in trouble and displaced quite a ways from where it needed to be.
The next bit was a real blurr, but I managed to climb out, over, and free of the crevice. I remember sliding over the last boulder on my stomach and falling into a sandy slack water pool, and wading across to open sand. I could see my dad and son down the beach, and was able to flag them down as I fought off shock. I was somehow able to walk about a quarter of a mile up the sand before the pain of it all was more than I could stand any more, but it was far enough to get a truck down to me.
So summed up .My toe basically exploded. I had to endure it for two days (because the hospital in Astoria couldn't deal with it) until I could see a specialist orthopedic surgeon in Seattle that performed the surgery. He said the bone ironically looked kind of like crab meat when he opened it up. Three surgeries and a few pins later, I have a semi working toe these days, but I can certainly tell you when the barometric pressure drops and it is about to rain .the pain in my toe lets me know ..but I am very thankful .and I always have a Becker with me now.
The BK-17
The Toe
The X-Ray
The Fix
Haven't like AE since they denied me a card in 1979 for the sole reason that my mailing address was an FPO. So a pox on them.
