Sharp stuff in the naughty corner

[decorum]

My appologies as this post is a bit shock relief.
After being let out of the naughty corner (for slicing & dicing myself on Thursday) SWMBO put me (& ALL sharp stuff) back into the naughty corner.
This time it's due to her not concentrating properly on what she's doing and ending up having every thing put back together in A&E.
Apparently I'm to blame because I sharpened her knife & 'Everything sharp in the house is 'going'' - the shock talking.
I'm not sure how she managed to do it but she's sliced herself from her thumb nail down round the knuckle then across into the bit between the thumb and index finger and curving up towards her knuckles for about half the width of her hand. The cuts were bad enough to require the triage room to be temporarily closed for cleaning :yikes: There was talk of surgery - this is the point where myself & sharp stuff were both expecting a loooong stay in 'The Corner' .

It turns out that our reprieve came from a consultant who told her that because the knife was so sharp it had sliced rather than ripped and the injury would have been far worse had the knife not been so sharp. Fortunately she missed all bits and pieces that would have required surgery.
The irony of the injury is that she'd just finished doing a safety talk about......yep, you've guessed it - 'Knife,axe and saw', I don't think I'll ever forget the desperate supression of laughter of the medical profession when she told them.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

 

[jojo]

You do live dangerously, don't you But between you two, you proved a sharp knife is definitely better than a blunt one:You_Rock_

 

[decorum]

Thanks jojo
With the spirit of keeping things positive; those on site are aware of a couple of incidents with sharp tools and hopefully this will enforce extra respect for edged tools whilst knowing that accidents do happen. We've also been able to show people how to react in a real life situation and it was arranged for me to go back on site (I've been pet sitting) to show them how quickly you can recover - the skin on my wrist had, due to the sharpness of my knife and correct treatment, knitted together in under 48hours.

 

[Longstrider]

That sounds like one hell of a good slice to put into a hand Decorum. Good to know that all the vital bits were missed so surgery was not needed. I hope that she heals quickly and that you and your sharps aren't banished for too long as a result.

I know all too well how easily a truly sharp knife can bite you when you least expect it. My Good Lady was off to Summer School today and wanted her Leatherman sharpened before she left with it. Having done all the diamond honing I was ready to strop it to a polished edge. Holding the Leatherman in my left hand with fingers 3,4 and 5 and the strop between thumb and forefinger on the bench I went to apply the stropping compound...
One wipe of compund down the length of the strop and I'd managed to bury the point of the Leatherman blade in my right index finger to the point where I had to use some force to pull it back out. Guess who feels silly now ?
Even scarier is that because I'm off to do a days tree felling and limbing for a mate on Wednesday, I've got my axes to sharpen tonight !
Anyone got some BIG plasters ?

 

[British Red]

Its easy done - on one occasion I had to take the extreme tip of my little finger to hospital in a bag

Hope all heals quickly

Red

 

[KAE1]

Just cut my finger tip today while washing up. I thought I must have broken a thin wine glass in the soapy water.......wrong......it was a recently sharpened Clipper.

 

[jojo]

Decorum. I hope I didn't come up as being too flippant, I certainly didn't means it that way.

I was reading this earlier:

While they probably never practiced the art of surgery, our Paleolithic ancestors did use tools that have been extolled as more precise than the most modern metal scalpel.

Lee A. Green, associate professor of family practice at the Medical Center, uses obsidian knives for removing moles and repairing torn earlobes. The black volcanic glass is up to 100 times sharper and much smoother than stainless steel scalpels.

Obsidian has been used as a cutting tool since the Stone Age, but modern versions of obsidian scalpels are manufactured by a Virginia archaeologist using a pressure flaking process. Each knife can be used from 10 to 20 times before being discarded, Green says. He keeps his blades in a cold sterilizing solution to preserve their sharpness.

"I like the obsidian knife because it traumatizes the tissue less," he says. "It is very sharp and very smooth at the microscopic level." Green says he first learned of the knives in a brief article carried by Scientific American a few years ago and has wanted a set ever since.

Green says that he knows of no other surgeons in the area who use the same blades, but that there are now a few dozen nationally who use the Stone Age technology for surgery in cosmetically sensitive areas.

I think that this indicates that sharp knives are safer to use, if only because the wounds they can cause are cleaner and easier to repair than the wounds caused by blunter instruments. So the wounds we inevitably inflict on ourselves with sharp instruments are "better" for us because they heal better.

 

[spamel]

I was watching the last man standing last week and Reiko needed a new bat to play in the extreme sport version of cricket. He sharpened the axe up, looked reasonably sharp considering he used a smooth stone, and went to take a tree down. Tree came down, with a snag of wood still attatching it to the main stump, one mighty swing and he put the axe into his foot! Whilst wearing sandals!

The axe went from the tip of his big toe, almost to the cuticle, and into the next toe aswell. He was lucky not to chop his toe off!

Reminds me of the Plant Training Video they show at Wainscott to military Plant Ops, "Three Fingered Joe"! Remember that one Goose?

 

[Goose]

Reminds me of the Plant Training Video they show at Wainscott to military Plant Ops, "Three Fingered Joe"! Remember that one Goose?

Vaguely, was that set to music, there were quite a few different ones!

My opinel has just bit me, my fault using bad practice, but it was just sharpened and it can hardly be seen now!

 

[decorum]

Thanks all,
It looks as if, given ttime, her hand should be good as new. She still can't remember how the accident happened and the only witness said that it definately wasn't down to messing about or poor technique and both the knife and hands barely moved.

Hi jojo, you weren't being too flippant. I've a weird type of humour - when I first started loosing conciousness when having seizures my response to any comment was 'Best kip I've had in ages!'.

We caught Last Man Standing this evening - not the best episode to watch.

 

[Singeblister]

hope she heals quick , lets be thankful it was nice and sharp

 

[maddave]

Yup be careful with those sharps and if you are a little accident prone I recommend a butchers chainmail glove.

Not cheap but guaranteed to keep your pinkies in one piece

 

[decorum]

For some reason, for me anyway) not all posts are showing up in New Posts; so I missed the chainmail

For those who are interested I've found one on ebay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/butchers-chai...yZ141066QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
I can only wonder what's happened to make the owner sell it on
Thanks all, SWMBO's healing quite nicely now; it'll be a while before she regains full use of her thumb though.