vegetable slicers are bad mmmmkay?

Since I've been injured, please allow me to take a moment for a public service message.

If you own a "washboard slicer", also known as a mandoline slicer (you know, the kind with a blade in the middle of the board and you push the vegetable back and forth over it creating slices), please be careful.

This morning, I was in the mood for hash browns (shredded potatos) and got out my favorite kitchen tool, the trusty aforementioned slicer.  I was about 3/4 of the way through the first potato when the thought occurred to me that "I ought to be using the little safety handle that comes with the .... SON OF A B*TCH!".

Needless to say I'm typing this with one less finger tonight, having shaved off about a 1/8 inch slice from the tip of my right index finger.  Be careful ladies and gentlemen.  I've learned the hard way that no matter how sucky your life is, a split second of carelessness in the home can indeed cost you $300 for a doctor's visit, medical grade bandages, a tetnis (sp?) shot, and 2.5 minutes spent with your hurried, impatient doctor who's trying to fit you in between the other 60 $300 contributing patients he'll see today.  God bless the American Medical Association.

Not a good experience, and yes, there's a bit of humor to be seen now at my expense, but don't laugh.  It could easily happen to you.  Just be careful out there, or in this case, "in your own home".

Wayne

[gizz72]

Greetings,

So that's explains the heading 'mmmmkay?'. :-P Gosh! Had the same experience trying to mend a leaky water tank. I had to use epoxy sealant to do it. It comes with a thin aluminum sheet to place the two components together. Before I sealed the hole, there was some paint that I need to scrape off. Some were hard to come off. I cut myself with it. Careless of me too. Lesson learned and charge to experience.

Regards,

GiZz72

[adz]

Ouch!!!!! :-o :-o :-o

[whabang]

Euogh! Been there! done that!
That safety handle really is there for a reason.

[FluffyMcDeath]

Wayne wrote:
Since I've been injured, please allow me to take a moment for a public service message.

If you own a "washboard slicer", ...

OK. That's where I start to *cringe*. Erk.

But it could have been worse. An old boss of mine was using his table saw a few months back, and ... well similar kind of story but more than an 1/8 of an inch. Anyway, use that pusher thingy.

Pinky was almost severed between the first and second knuckle. Got it reattached but he isn't typing with it. He was complaining to his doctor the other day about how crooked it was. The doctor said "Well next time, cut it off straighter!"

[Karlos]

@Wayne

Ouch, that's gotta hurt X-0 (wincing smiley there, nothing to do with that sheep worrier)

When I was a kid, my brother and I were out digging garden on a hot summer day. It wasn't exactly real work, just using it as an excuse to stay out, get a bit tanned and keep fit.

Mum had made some drinks and shouted us in for some shade, so my brother jammed the pitch fork into the ground (without looking properly where he was aiming) and I suddenly felt a red hot ache in my left foot, followed by an equally ominous numb warmth.

He'd impaled me to the floor with the damn thing!

[Karlos]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:
He was complaining to his doctor the other day about how crooked it was. The doctor said "Well next time, cut it off straighter!"

:lol: Now that's a good come back!

Karlos wrote:
He'd impaled me to the floor with the damn thing!

Now THAT is sibling rivalry...!

Wayne

[Karlos]

Wayne wrote:

Karlos wrote:
He'd impaled me to the floor with the damn thing!

Now THAT is sibling rivalry...!

Wayne

Yes, he did make it to the drinks a bit before I did :lol:

[Floid]

Ow.

Most of my best scars are stupider, but just to spread some warnings:

-If you smoke, always have an ashtray present.  You never know when that lit end's coming loose.

-When the screws on your chair start falling out, don't kneel across the seat (to retrieve an ashtray -- see, smoking's dangerous, kids!).  It'd also be a good idea not to buy chairs made out of a sheet of carpeted cardboard screwed to four jagged metal tines in the first place.  (This is the best one at the moment, only took a long scrape but it looks like I got shivved.)

-Don't slam doors with glass panes in them.

-Don't drop plates on your toes.  (Ooh, medical laser!)

-Don't run down the hall barefoot with a freshly sharpened pencil.  (The podiatrist still doesn't know how I got it into my ankle -- the eraser end hit the baseboard, you'd have to have been there to understand.)

-Don't ride a bike with your eyes closed.  :insane:

-Don't test the soldering iron for hotness by holding it near your upper lip.  Even if it makes sense at the time.

-Similarly, don't drop the hot iron on your wrist.  (If you must, let it only be a 15W, like I did.)

-Don't bite off the side of your tongue for no apparent reason.  (Another childhood one, I don't think I was chewing gum at the time...  Strangely, this one occurred in the presence of the great-uncle who told me the story of his fingertip growing back...)

-Don't be Floid!   :-D

Strangely, I have no health insurance right now... and have never managed to acquire a permanent injury from bungling with computers... maybe they like me.  :lol:

[Karlos]

-Don't be Floid!   :-D

'k, then.

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

"He'd impaled me to the floor with the damn thing!"

---------------------------------------------------------

Did you say "Awww, for forks sakes, what are you doing man!!!"
 :-P

[CU_AMiGA]

Hey Yo!

OUCH! It was a good thing you didn't do that in England Wayne, or else you would have had to wait for 5 hours to get seen. I remember a couple of years ago when i had to go hospital for a similar sort of case.

I was playing football in a field, when suddenly i booted the ball over the fence (which was spiked at the top). So, without giving a moments thought, i decided to climb it. Just when i was about to pull myself up over the fence and jump down to get the ball, i slipped. My leg got caught (literally) on one of the spikes, just below the knee. Normally when you fall off a fence you hit the ground, but because my leg was caught on the spike (with the spike inbedded a little way in my leg), i was stuck in that position (VERY unconfortable). So i had no choice but to pull myself up again, to get my leg uncaught and jumped off the fence to have a look at the damage done (after i got the ball!).

When i got a look at it, it really was not a nice sight to see. I had a chunk taken out of my knee (along with some loose skin stuck to my trouser). Surprisingly, i felt no pain, and (considering how deep it was) it didn't bleed too much. Anyway, went hospital and got seen after a few hours, and got seen by a nice looking nurse :-) So that sort of capped a nightmare day. It took a few months to fully heal.

I can not feel anything in that area now, and i am also left with a scar in a shape of the Star Trek logo (much to the amusement of Blobrana! And yes, it WAS really boneheaded to climb a fence like that, but as i am an idiot, i have not learnt my lesson - and still climb the fences to get the ball! It still makes my hairs stand up thinking about that incident. :nervous:

Regards,

[Karlos]

X-ray wrote:
@ Karlos

"He'd impaled me to the floor with the damn thing!"

---------------------------------------------------------

Did you say "Awww, for forks sakes, what are you doing man!!!"
 :-P

It didn't really hurt properly until I looked down at it, saw what it was and then pulled it out. First it hurt like hell and I couldn't - I only managed to pull the fork out of the ground (foot with it) and then surveyed the real damage.

It had literally gone through the top of my trainer, then my foot (miraculously pushing aside the bones as it was later revealed nothing was broken, but it was bruised to hell for months), through the sole of my trainer protruding about four inches out of the sole of it. Luckily passing through my shoe and sock had caused most of the muck to be wiped off before it went into the flesh.

I then had to brace my foot against the edge of the fence and pull the thing out. I think I probably invented some new swear words at that point, not to mention emiting them at a deafening volume. It also bled a lot heavier than I expected (although I later discovered there's a lot of blood vessels in the sole of the foot), which was momentarily alarming. It stopped pretty quick with some applied pressure though.

The obligatory trip to casualty ensued, followed by wound cleaning, x-rays, anti tetanus, dose of antibiotics etc.

Strangely, the scar is almost invisible now.

[X-ray]

@ Karlos

At least your impalement was not self-inflicted. I did something really clever when I was 14, which resulted in a welding rod being shot lengthways through my thumb. It entered at the base of the thumb and the tip of the rod came out at the tip of the thumb. It was right next to the bone, and stuck fast.

I won't say how it happened, but I will say that the particular 'research' I was doing (welding rods as projectiles) was ended the same day...permanently.  

The doctor was a real {bleep}. He made me lie down and then jumped on my chest, pinned my hand and just ripped the welding rod out. I could feel the rough texture of it grinding against the bone. And he did it without sending me for X-rays first.