While preparing for the Fat-Bike Adventure Ride yesterday, I found the Swiss Army knife and my small first aid kit I had in my pack prepared me for some amateur, in-the-field surgery.
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| This hurt so bad I had to take a picture. |
I was using a fist sized rock as a hammer to break off a piece of steel I was cutting with a hacksaw. When the rock glanced off the piece of metal, it shifted my thumb in such a way that a vertically pointing broken-off stick impaled a large splinter under my cuticle. This wasn't just the run-of-the-mill splinter you get under a finger nail, this was on the top side of the nail where it grows out of your finger. I could see it was about a quarter inch wide and about an eighth inch thick, I wasn't sure how long it was, but it made my thumb look bigger, it was also broken off right at the edge of the skin so I could not simply pull it out. My immediate thought was "Fuck, why wasn't I wearing the gloves I had sitting right next to me". I needed dig that thing out, but I really needed an x-acto knife or a large needle. Going to the emergency room would be costly and I would not be able to get anything done, I would have to do it myself. All I could find was my trusty Swiss Army knife. When I first started jabbing at it, the splinter went in even further, this made my heart race and my stomach turn. I had to take a little break and asses the situation and stop shaking. After three more tries, and the pain being great enough to make it numb, I got it out. That's when it started to bleed. I cleaned it out as well as I could with alcohol and covered it in Neosporin and a band-aid. The best part is I was able to continue planning and working on the adventure route well into the darkness.
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| I recruited the boys to hep me last weekend. |
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| We had lots of fun looking for frogs and finding fossils and other interesting rocks |
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