I cut my thumb instead of the bagel. Its right through the inside of the knuckle. is through the entire skin layer. bled freelyfor 10 min. has stopped for the most part. does it need sitiches?
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
Doubt it. Hands heal quickly. Do you see the bone or a tendon? Nope? Flush it with water and keep it clean and covered for a few days.
You up to date on your tetanus shot? Need it every 10 years. I assume you used a clean, rust-free knife.
Posted by msquared (Member # 4484) on :
I heard once that in certain cities Emergency rooms listed "Bagle Palm" and the most common injury on Sunday morning. People holding the bagel in their hand and cutting towards the palm with the knife. The obvious happens and people end up in the emergency room awaiting stitches.
msquared
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
I had fun playing around and looking at the inside of my thumb.
msquared: --I--
It stopped bleeding and hasn't restarted.
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
See? I told you cuts were fun.
On second thought, come over here and let me stitch it up. I need the practice.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
--I--
(good thing it was my thumb that got cut )
It's actually only one part of the cut that's troublesome. It's the deepest part (and therefore the most interesting) and right on the inside knuckle crease. So it gets opened whenever I use my thumb. Also hurts.
How am I supposed to lift weights today?!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
About ten years ago, I cut off the top of my left thumb at a Christmas party. I was chopping greens for a salad when someone called my name; I looked over, talked a bit, then looked back at the cutting board and noticed weird red liquid all over the greens. I washed 'em off, but then noticed more red liquid in the sink. I rinsed it out, then saw red liquid on the FLOOR.
I bent down to wipe it up, then caught sight of my girlfriend's bemused face. "What's wrong," I asked.
"I'm just waiting to see how long it'll take you to realize you cut off your thumb," she replied.
It was only at that point that it started to hurt.
Since it was Christmas Eve, only the local clinic was open. I got a doctor with such a thick Indian accent that it almost felt fake, like Apu from the Simpsons: "Oh! Your finger, it is bleeding very muchly now."
I nodded. "I'd like that to stop, if possible."
He tsked a few times, then continued -- picking up a little device that looked like a soldering iron. "First, we will be cauterizing it. And then we will be numbing it."
I waved my other hand around frantically. "Um. Don't you mean the other way around?"
Sadly, he apparently did not. It was unpleasant, but I've since learned to be more careful when chopping things.
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
Sweet jebus, Tom!
Posted by sarahdipity (Member # 3254) on :
I made the mistake of opening this topic while eating lunch. Posted by CalvinMaker (Member # 2032) on :
When I was really young (7 or so?) it was Halloween, my favorite holiday. Now you see, pumpkin pie was my favorite kind of pie, and I was sitting on the counter next to the pumpkin my mom was carving. I asked her if pumpkin pie was made out of pumpkins (Though now I know it's made out of squash or something.) and she said yes. So, using my seven year old logic, I figure that if I cut off a piece of the top of the pumpkin, I could make my own pumpkin pie. I started cutting, and the knife slipped right through and I gashed the skin between my left thumb and pointer finger. Had to go get stitches. My brother was nice enough to give me some of his candy, since I missed about 3/4 of the trick-or-treating.
(And this is the longest post I've had in a long long time.)
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The sad thing is that I don't know whether CM was joking about pumpkin pie being made from squash, or not. Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
So, this is the thread where we get to tell about our adventures with sharp objects? Cool.
When I was about three, I was at my grandma's house. She was letting me be helpful by washing a few dishes - she had pulled one of the kitchen benches up to the sink so that I could stand on it to do this. Well, I finished washing the dishes and there was one more thing on the counter - a tin can that had been opened by hand and stil had the lid attached. Being the thorough (read: obsessive) person that I always have been, I figured that I would wash that, as well. A good plan, until I cut the side of my hand on the sharp edge of the can's lid.
I did this, of course, just as my parents were driving in the driveway to pick me up (the driveway ran right by the kitchen window), and I started to scream just as they passed underneath the window. I don't remember the blood part, but I got a trip to the doctor's office and a big bandage around my hand, and I have the scar to this day.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Is this that thread? I was chopping twigs with a hatchet at camp once when I hit my finger instead. Fortunately, it was a very dull hatchet and now I just have a lovely scar.
The dumbest injury was performed while cutting the bottoms off of flowers. I sliced my finger along with the stems. It probably should have had stitches, but I didn't get any. Nice scar, though.
Posted by eslaine (Member # 5433) on :
If you think that's bad, try putting a (dull) oster knife through your palm (all the way through the tendon, and out the back).
That was pretty ouchy.
Posted by Jexxster (Member # 5293) on :
Eeewww.
I was cutting potatos into thin strips one afternoon. Of course, I was trying to do so quickly and didn't notice I had sliced the tip of my finger right off until the blood was everywhere. My wife had the car, so I had to walk to school to the student health office. Mastisol, steri strips and some gauze later I had this big old bulb of a bandage on the end of my finger that I could swign around like a club.
Healed nicel though.
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
I got some nice deep cuts on my arm once. I could see the tendons. I was stupid and didn't wash them out and didn't go for help until about 12 hours later. The ER didn't wash them out either AND told me I wouldn't need antibiotics.
So of course I got nice infections in two of them, had to have the stitches removed, and then let them slooowly heal from the bottom up. Antibiotics worked well but I have some pretty scars. Luckily the biggest laceration didn't get infected and healed much nicer.
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
Oh, and once I saw a teenager in the ER with an arrow stuck in his finger. It went in at the knuckle and out near the fingernail of his index finger and about a foot or more of arrow was sticking out either side. OWWW.
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
I closed the window to a door one day. It SLAMMED down on my ring finger, having part of it next to the nail hanging off. And it hurt like hell, so much I was crying and laughing at the same time leaving drops of blood everywhere. I thought I had lost part of my finger, but it fell offand it stil looks ok. i cut the index finger on my left hand when i was shaving wood with a razor. still have that scar.
Posted by Jexxster (Member # 5293) on :
Cuts and other things don't usually affect me, but I have to mention the one time I walked into the ER and just about lost it.
I was on call in the OR and they sent me over to the ER to pick up a kid with a fish hook. That was all they said.
I walked in the room and here was this kid, on his back, with a huge treble hook (one of the hooks with 3 barbs) in his EYE. There was no blood, it had just gone in and out his eyeball. No scratches, no cuts, just this big hook in his eye. Oh, and it was attached to a spoon that was resting on his cheek.
Freaky, freaky image.
Edit: Spellmonkey
[ October 14, 2003, 02:04 PM: Message edited by: Jexxster ]
Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
"Sorry doesnt' put thumbs on the hand, Marge"
Posted by Nick (Member # 4311) on :
quote: I cut my thumb instead of the bagel. Its right through the inside of the knuckle. is through the entire skin layer. bled freelyfor 10 min. has stopped for the most part. does it need sitiches?
(((mack)))
As you all probably know, I just got out of the E.R. for the exact same thing.
I know how you feel right now mack, my is also right on the crease, and I'm also disappointed that I can't lift weights either. Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Oh mack, I'm so sorry.
To keep the cut from reopening all the time, you could buddy splint it to the next finger, but that would put a damper on the whole opposable thumb thing, at least for a few days.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Hmm, I see the docs have weighed in, and not mentioned butterfly bandages. May I ask why not? That's what I've had suggested for cuts like mack's.
I'll share my two most interesting stories about having cut my hand.
An earthenware cup broke in half. It didn't seem particularly sharp, so I just put it in the trash. Next morning, I needed more space, and knew there wasn't much garbage in there. So I pushed the garbage down, neatly slicing open my ring finger (on the broken cup), half-way between the top two knuckles. It was fairly deep, and pressure slowed the bleeding but didn't stop it. It needed stitches -- mostly because of being between the knuckles, so every movement reopened it. Lovely scar, and three years later, sensation above the scar is still a bit odd.
A few months back, I managed to cut open the webbing between my first and second finger. It didn't hurt at first, although it sure did bleed a lot. I remember being torn between, "Oh look! I can see inside my hand. Isn't that COOL!" and "EWWW! That's MY blood!" I got the bleeding to stop, doused it with antibiotic ointment, and it seems to have totally healed at this point -- even the small scar I had at first is gone.
[ October 14, 2003, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by Jaiden (Member # 2099) on :
/random comments
Oyster knives are supposed to be dull Clam knives are the sharp ones.
Pumpkins and squash- Kingdom:Plantae; Division:Magnoliophyta; Class:Magnoliopsida; Order:Violales; Family:Cucurbitaceae; Genus:Cucurbita Some people add "squash" to pumpkin pie thinking it gives it a better flavor (butternut squash I believe).
/ends random comments
Posted by jexx (Member # 3450) on :
Okay, here's my story, and it's NOT the stupidest thing I have ever done. Sigh.
When I was about thirteen, my parents bought a house. Before we moved in, we did some painting and minor repairs. One of the things we had to do was scrape paint off of the windows with razor tools (like a boxcutter, I guess). I laid the razor on the windowsill, and leaned over to get something. Yes, I backed into the blade.
Sigh.
I didn't even notice the cut on my thigh until my dad's friend (who I had a *hayuuuge* crush on) said, "Um, Jen, you're bleeding".
Mortifying.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I've related my most colorful knife wound story elsewhere fairly recently, so I won't bother retyping it, but I've had my fair share of knife accidents involving my hands. Once, when I was in Jr. High, I was chopping at a coconut shell with a rusty butcher knife I'd found in the woods. Really bright, eh? It would be *impossible* to predict that that might result in an injury. It slipped and sliced the side of my thumb closest to my fingers, right at the knuckle. That part of my hand was numb for several years, but eventually the feeling returned.
The other day I was reading an article about human's potential for regeneration, and it mentioned in passing that children were capable of regenerating the ends of their fingers (including nail beds, I think), but that people lost that ability by adulthood. I found that interesting.
Posted by Happy Camper (Member # 5076) on :
Does it have to be sharp objects? Well too bad. And this IS the dumbest thing I've ever done. My parents had (and to the best of my knowledge, still have) a stationary bicycle. One of these really old pieces of crap. Anyway, one day my friend and I were goofing around on the thing, and I ended up standing on one of the pedals seeing how fast I could go around. Well, wouldn't you know it, the pedal itself fell off, causing me to fall to the ground in the direct line of the (still spinning very, very fast) pedal shaft. It's funny how an unexpected injury like that can affect you, because there I was, with a nice gouge in my shin, all the way through the skin and whatever tissue is there, looking at my bone, and all I can think of to say, is to call out in a very calm voice "Mom, I think you should get down here." Ended up needing 15 stitches that one, 5 subdermal, and 10 on the surface.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
(shudders violently, but decides to weigh in)
As long as we're relating wounds on places other than the hand...
When I was five I was playing with a garden hoe in my best friend's yard, and her sister and the neighbor boy's brother came up and took it away from me. But the brother thought it was OK for me to play with it, and they started fighting for it, back and forth and finally one of them lost their grip and it fell, *thunk* right into my head.
It didn't go in or anything, it just chipped my skull... But I can still feel where it chipped. My mom said that my entire face was covered in blood when she first saw me. All I can remember was that everything turned gray for a little while... And talking to the doctor while he stitched me up. I was a precocious little snippet.
[ October 14, 2003, 05:54 PM: Message edited by: Ryuko ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
wound stories?
When I was about nine, I was hanging out with the neighbor kids, and one of them (little demon) dropped a cinder block on my head. All I remember is his mother screaming, bloody towels everywhere, and I kept waiting for the doctor to stitch me up, and then it was over. I thought I'd be able to feel him sewing.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
Me too, kat. But when I realized I couldn't really feel it, I got a lot more chipper.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
Okay, almost four years ago I was in my living room with a mini-earthenware bowl (the white ones with the scallops on the sides) and I was racing my brother to the couch and stepped on it. When I sat down I noticed my foot was bleeding a bit fast. I examined it a bit more closely and I saw a cut around my toes. Then the wound pulled apart and I could see INTO MY FOOT! At this point it actually started hurting and I screamed. I ended up with seven stitches holding a perfect semi-circle from the ball of my feet to the spot between my two last toes. The ER doc said I'm lucky to have my little toe.
Posted by Tristan (Member # 1670) on :
Stupid adventure with sharp object:
When I was about fourteen my brother, a friend and I got into our heads that we ought to make a bow trap. We had read about it in the survival handbook and it looked really nifty. After having played around for a while with a bow, a length of string and a few pieces of wood we managed to set something up that looked reasonably similar to the picture in the book. The idea was that the unsuspecting animal should wander down towards the trap, trip on the string and as a result get hit by an arrow.
I guess it's obvious where this is leading, so I cut right to the chase. I shot myself in the arm with the bow trap. I'm not sure what triggered the shot, but sitting around in front of the trap once the bow was rigged with an arrow certainly wasn't one of my cleverest moments. I didn't get seriously hurt -- the bow was too weak and the arrow was home made -- I just pulled the arrow out and went on with my business. But I have a nice scar as a memory of my stupidity.
Some other time I will tell how I managed to break my arm when trying to impress a girl.
Posted by Rhaegar The Fool (Member # 5811) on :
This one time, I was making chili and when I was cutting up the unions I slice my entire hand open from thumb tip to wrist. It bled for about one hour. I had some serious stiches, but now I can look at my hand and pretend it is a batle scar.
Posted by Hazen (Member # 161) on :
I was working at Icon Health and Fitness a few years ago, building treadmills. One design of treadmill has a foam pad on the base. In accordance with the high standards we have come to expect from business, the foam was about three inches two long. So, naturally, they give some guy a razorblade and tell him to start cutting. It is one of those cheap ones, where the blade goes a long way out, so you could cut (I think) 15 or so peices of foam at once. When I cut foam, I would grab the from of the stack with my left hand (to keep the ends from flying everywhere, and thus taking longer to clean up), and cut with my right. Naturally, one day my left ring finger sneaked in just a little bit too close, and I ended up cutting part of its tip off. The factory had a few nurses on duty, so they bandaged me up. They never found the peice of skin I cut off. I have a really nice scar now. The best part is, the cut was so deep that the scar goes down to some of the plumbing (that's a technical term), so that if I squeeze it, I can get a few droplets of fluid to appear (no blood, just fluid). On the downside, it does hurt like hades if I jam it.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
One of my Christian School Adventures:
As a teacher's student assistant, I got sent down to the elementary school(in the lower floors of the building) to fetch a stapler. I tripped on my stupid long UNIFORM skirt I had to wear, threw my hand out to break my fall and sent a staple through my thumb.
The teacher I showed it to just looked at it and said, "Okay, then. Ready for me to pluck ya?"
He pulled out the staple and splattered another student with the jet of blood that erupted. Right on the white shirt. Oy
((((mack))))
Posted by Narnia (Member # 1071) on :
Man, I must have something wrong with me because I just sat and read this entire thread right through. Good stories!!
Mine isn't half so interesting, and it's not the stupidest thing I've done. My sister and I slept on bunk beds for upwards of 10 years while growing up. I always had the bottom bunk, but one night (I was about 10 and she was 7 or so), she complained of being hot and talked me into switching beds with her for the night. So when I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, do you think I could remember a simple thing? Like the fact that I was sleeping 5 feet off the ground? Nope. I promptly swung my legs over the side of the bed and "got out." On the way down, I hit my leg on a dresser and knocked it over. I was a little dazed, felt pretty stupid and was on my way to the bathroom when my mother came rushing in. She started leading me to the bathroom and I said something like "What's the big deal? I just fell off the bed?" and she pointed to my knee. Yeah. Gross. My dad took me to the ER at 3am and I got some stiches and a lovely scar down the side of my knee.
Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :
Hey, mackillian, try putting lemon juice on it.
I cut myself slicing an apple once. It was weeks before I could stand to eat apples again...
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
eeeeeeew. it's all gross looking. eeeeeeeeeew.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
Okay, this is why I'm not taking any form of health science.
At first, i was upset I didn't have a story. Now, I'm glad. Very, very glad. Take care of yourselves people!!!
Posted by Black Mage (Member # 5800) on :
Big blunt object stories.
My church, when I was little, had an ice cream social. Now, we had these big, heavy oak doors, and you know when you open the door there's that space between the edge of the door and the wall? Yeah. We had the door open and my hand was in that crack. Door closed and. . .
. . .flattened.
Second story: Dove headfirst in a pool. They actually used a type of superglue to put it back together.
For all those injured.
Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :
Wow, this thread is like that one scene from "Jaws".
I picked up the wrong end of a fire poker one time. It was dark and I couldn't see well. It really hurt.
Then there was the time I broke my arm...but that's REALLY embarrassing.
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
I slid down an icy ski slope once, on my face.
This scraped all the skin off my nose from tip to bridge.
I had to keep it covered with a HUGE Band-Aid for the next month and a half.
My so-called friends made fun of me.
Fortunately, you can't see the scar unless I'm not wearing make-up and you look REALLY close.
Posted by Jexxster (Member # 5293) on :
My father and I were out riding our bikes one evening. I was about 6 or 7 years old. Good old dad thought it was fun to try to frighten me, so he would ride really close to my back tire. I, of course, asked him not to, which just convinced him to ride even more closely.
Unfortunately he got too close, and the wheels touched. Of course that stopped my bike, I flipped over the handle bars and slid across the loose gravel on my face.
Needless to say we spent the enxt hour plucking rocks from my lower lip and face. Boy, mom was pissed when she got home.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
When my older brother was a toddler, he had a toy VW Bug that he liked to pedal around (the driver sat in the driver's seat, and made the car go by moving a pair of loops of metal that functioned as pedals. My father used to play with him by tying a rope to the car and pulling him around in it. Once they were playing together on a dirt road near our house, my dad running along, pulling my brother in the bug. My brother stuck his feet down into the pedal area, mangling them. My father didn't realize for several seconds that my brother's shrieks had turned from delight to pain and terror. Miraculously my brother's feet were only lacerated and not broken.
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
I have a scar from slamming my finger in the door of our mini van. I was sliding the side door closed at the same time the front passenger door was closing and it caught my middle finger just below the first knucle joint. The problem was that none of us had keys and my dad was already down the hill from the parking lot on his way to church. By the time my brother went down to get him and he came back to unlock it I was pretty miserable. I'm still amazed it didn't break the bone. My mother said that I turned white as a sheet.
I spent the church service sitting in the church kitchen with my hand in a bowl of ice and trying not to be nauseous and I still have the scar where it slammed.
AJ
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
A friend of mine slammed his girlfriend's hand in the trunk (accidentally, of course) hard enough that it latched. Luckily he had the keys right there on him, though, so it wasn't as bad as your experience Banna. Like you, she didn't break anything, but I don't think she even ended up with a scar, amazingly enough.
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
I poured an entire cup of hot oil from a popcorn popper onto the back of my right hand once at work. As I stared in shock at my hand, which felt as if it were on fire, a customer came up and requested a candy bar. I automatically wiped the oil off my hand with a towel so I could reach for the candy counter. The skin all rubbed loose against the towel. Second degree burns. The ER doc privately told my parents he thought it would be third degree, but it wasn't. That took a while to heal (OWWW) but I don't have any scar from it now.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
So why is it fun to swap stories of the ways in which we've been maimed?
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
My parents live in the country, and have a fairly large yard. When cleaning up branches that have fallen, they typically just pile them up and occasionally burn the pile. Apparently there had been a tomato cage that had been thrown in the fire at some point (burning the whithered tomato plant being the easiest way to remove it from the cage) which had gotten mashed flat, and was concealed in the ashes at the edge of the fire. My parents were burning the pile one spring, and were cleaning up the yard, tossing the branches that had fallen over the winter onto the bonfire. My mother walked up to the fire with an armload of branches, caught her foot in the tomato cage, and fell into the fire. She managed to stand up, but her foot was still caught in the cage, and she fell back into the fire. About this time my dad got there and pulled her out. She had third degree burns on her hands and knees. The worst burns were on her knees; they thought that she was going to need skin grafts, but she managed to get away without having them. Strangely, her jeans weren't burnt at all. We aren't sure how that could have happened.
I was in Texas at the time visiting a friend, and my parents didn't tell me about the accident until I got back a week or two later, because they didn't want to spoil my vacation. Posted by El Babalao (Member # 5817) on :
I don't have any stories to compare to these (of course).
I'm afraid I can't do much to help those of you who have already been cut recently--that's what we have the Hatrack doctors for. But I can give you some candles to place on a high shelf to ward off future injuries.
Posted by Jaiden (Member # 2099) on :
I just lopped off the top of my middle finger and ripped 3/4 of my nail off *pouts*
This sucks.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Yow, how did you do that?
[Edit--if you want to reply without using the letters "E", "D", "C", "I", and "K", the characters ",", "#" "$", "*", "(" and "<", or the numbers "3", "4", "8" and "9", I completely understand]
[ October 16, 2003, 10:57 AM: Message edited by: Noemon ]
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
[Noemon: is "kicked" an improper word? *having a dumb day]
Owww is right. Theca and Noemon's mom need protective custody.
[ October 16, 2003, 12:29 PM: Message edited by: ClaudiaTherese ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I think my mom might have agreed with you after that accident CT!
I'm not completely sure that I understand your question, CT, but if I do, then the answer is that all of those characters are typed using one's middle fingers; since Jaiden didn't say which middle finger she hurt, I had to include all of them rather than just one hand's worth.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Noemon
I got it before the explanation. But then, I taught typing last year.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
)![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wall Bash]](graemlins/wallbash.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
It slipped and sliced the side of my thumb closest to my fingers, right at the knuckle. That part of my hand was numb for several years, but eventually the feeling returned.![[Group Hug]](graemlins/grouphug.gif)
For all those injured.
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
Is that better?![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)