Anyone sewn themselves up before?

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Tony

White bear (Admin)
Admin
Apr 16, 2003
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www.bushcraftuk.com
I was jsut thinking about when my Dad stitched up my foot when i was a nipper, sewing needle and thread job, about 4 stitches if i recall and that was after he sliced it open with a razor blade to get a big splinter out (the fun of living in a wooden barn for a year in Holland :D) Now I'm not asking for the rights and wrongs of what he did but i was interested in hearing if anyone has had to sew themselves up, or someone else and the issues experienced. I just remember it being a painful experience for a few minutes and then all good :D

I've had stitches at hospital for a few different things but that's all proper stuff in the right environment.
 

Ogri the trog

Mod
Mod
Apr 29, 2005
7,182
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Mid Wales UK
Not in the way you think and certainly not intentionally.

When a very young lad, I was playing about with Mum's treadle driven Singer - it was thrashing away at one heck of a lash when it caught my left index finger.

It managed to punch about four stitches into me before I wrestled it to a halt!

Ogri the trog
 

SimonM

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 7, 2007
4,015
6
East Lancashire
www.wood-sage.co.uk
Yup...

I was truanting school, playing on the railway:rolleyes:, when I fell and put my right hand through a loop of rusty barbed wire.

My thumb was ripped open, down to the bone. I couldn't go home to tell my parents, so I boiled some fishing line from the handle of my cheap, hollow handled "survival knife":eek: and put three stitches in.

The scar is a mess and you can see where the stitches were to this day...

I only told my Mum this story a few years ago and got the worlds biggest telling off:yikes:

Would I do it again, not if I could avoid it!

Simon
 

TinkyPete

Full Member
Sep 4, 2009
1,966
191
uk mainly in the Midlands though
On my team medics course we have to practice putting in stitches into things normally pig skin as it id the closest to human skin, we also practice putting in cannula as well. we got bored one evening after consuming some libations and tried the real thing. the cannula was no problem but the stitching was something else. It healed up ok no marks now but the work was a bit wonky.
 

launditch1

Maker Plus and Trader
Nov 17, 2008
1,741
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Eceni county.
I was once being chased by the police and jumped off a cliff to escape them, i crashed through some trees that luckily broke my fall....although i cut my arm on the way down.Stitched it up with a needle and thread from my hollow handled knife.

I then made a rather fetching smock from a skanky old bit of carpet.
 

SimonM

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Apr 7, 2007
4,015
6
East Lancashire
www.wood-sage.co.uk
I was once being chased by the police and jumped off a cliff to escape them, i crashed through some trees that luckily broke my fall....although i cut my arm on the way down.Stitched it up with a needle and thread from my hollow handled knife.

I then made a rather fetching smock from a skanky old bit of carpet.

MMM that sounds familiar...might be a film in there somewhere...if only you could flesh it out a bit!

Simon
 

Miyagi

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 6, 2008
2,298
5
South Queensferry
Yep.

30 years or so ago, a visit to the loo and a rushed closure of my jean zipper in order to answer the bloody phone.

Too embarrassed to go to A&E (I ended up there later) I cut the zip from my jeans and then had to peel the metal teeth... well you can imagine the rest I'm sure.

Lots of interest by the staff at Falkirk Royal and a compliment on the stitching and a telling off as well.

The scar made a good chat up line way back though.

Liam
 

Genty

Tenderfoot
Ouch!

My room mate at Uni tore his frenulum (google it ;-) ) which was painful in itself but made worse by fact that it took so much longer to heal with each gentleman's thought that he had.

He didn't sew it up.
 

Biker

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Didn't actually sew myself up. 12 years ago while at a biker rally I slipped using my the knife of my brand new leatherman supertool. Slipped badly enough to cut deeply into the back of my left thumb. So I quickly closed the wound and scuttled off to the St Johns tent, he had a look and said off to A&E for you, fella. So off I went. Sat there for about 3 hours getting queue jumped by people with far more serious injuries than mine (Inconsiderate gits!) So eventually it was my turn and all that time I'd sat there pressing the wound closed. VERY clean cut it was too.

So I went into the examination room and some doctor's in there looking very bored. So I proudly showed her the now effectively healed cut, saying "No need for anything further eh? I'm all fixed." Oh no she has to see inside the cut, so proceeds to tear open the now rather healed wound all over again.
Once she coaxed me down off the overhead lights she then gave me some local jabs and proceeded to sew up the partially severed tendon then sewed up the skin. To add insult to injury (pun intended) they put me in a cast for 6 weeks to make sure the tendon healed.

So no, I've not had to sew myself up, didn't need to because pressure and natural healing did the job... until some sadist in a white coat had other ideas. Then got to practice her sewing on me.

Ouch+ on catching your todger in your flies, Miyagi. That scene in "Something about Mary" springs to mind.
 

bojit

Native
Aug 7, 2010
1,173
0
56
Edinburgh
Never sewen myself up but i do a good line in cutting myself open !

Most of the time it's with my stanley knife at work or the scalpel i keep in my tool box for cutting out realy big splinters.

Craig.............
 

Doc

Need to contact Admin...
Nov 29, 2003
2,109
10
Perthshire
Closing skin with interrupted sutures is pretty straightforward - I get our medical students to practice on bananas and then on to the real thing. At some of the meets I've run a tutorial (on bananas, I hasten to add) and people pick it up quickly.

The more difficult thing is to ensure the wound is clean and that there is no damage to other structures.

I wouldn't recommend DIY suturing - to do the job properly you need a good light, local anaesthetic, sterile monofilament sutures of the correct gauge which come with an attached curved cutting needle, a sterile stitch set, and ideally an assistant.
 

lannyman8

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jan 18, 2009
4,005
3
Dark side of the Moon
in Canada when i sliced my thumb open, we had no first aid kit plasters etc etc, i used the waxed cotton from my sewing kit, i think it was about 4-5 stiches, i did have vodka to clean it all up though......;) and help the pain...:):):):):)

the things we do eh.....
 

bojit

Native
Aug 7, 2010
1,173
0
56
Edinburgh
Any one tried super glue ? we were doing a refit on a brewers fare pub in the middle of nowhere and one of the guys sliced his arm open on a piece of metal , it was quite deep but didn't bleed much so i jokingly suggested glueing it together . Two minuets later he was screaming that it nipped like hell but it had done the job .
Half an hour later he was off to the local A+E for some stitches in his thumb that he sliced open on another bit of metal !

It just wasn't his day !

Craig............
 

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