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Guest
Guest
I haven’t yet stuck an axe in my foot or lopped off a digit while holding back a greenbriar vine with the other hand. I have sliced the bejusses out of my hand with a knife, which perhaps begs a confessional query.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had a bloody backcountry episode.
The worst I have cut myself while tripping was with an early Leatherman knock off. It was a handy tool, but it had some design flaws and omissions. The omission was that it had no bottle opener. WTF?
The flaw was that it had a very sharp serrated knife blade that was somehow intuitively positioned “backwards” when the tool was opened. I caught myself several times stating to make cuts with the back of the blade. And one time I didn’t catch myself.
Dark, hurried, raining, trying to cut a piece of line for the tarp. I backed up the blade with my thumb and made a swipe at a piece of line. Wrong side of the blade. It was one of those:
the kind of accident where you instantly cover the bloody gash with a hand before building enough courage to peek at the carnage underneath.
Blood was dripping through my grasping fingers in seconds. It could have been much worse; it was paper cut straight if meaty deep, went back together nicely and, bandaged and antibiotic ointmented, healed with surprising rapidity.
I know I’m not the only one with an oops cutting moment. You can always claim it was something you heard your idiot second cousin once did. There may be opportunity to learn from other’s tales of poor judgment.