Put the knife down. Step away from the knife!

Alantoo

Well-Known Member
Just a tip and a warning and a thank you.

Tip first…

I have recently found that a chain mail glove is a brilliant aid to skinning it enables you to get a positive grip on the slippery pelt without strain.

I have also discovered that mine will fit over both my nitrile rubber glove and the dressing and splint I have on my finger….

I discovered this because...

Warning...

Make sure you remember to put your knife down, even if the clean spot is a couple of steps away, before you snap off the leg.

A wise man learns by his mistakes…a lucky man learns by the mistakes of others…. :)

Thank you...
:tiphat:I would also like to express my thanks to Apache for his advice on applying pressure to nasty cuts in an earlier thread….:tiphat:

Alan
 

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Dont want to be a spoil sport but the chainmail glove on top of your glove will lead to more cross-contamination. In the meat trade we are made to wear a rubber glove over the chainmail. Hope this can be any help to you
 
On a lighter note, did you get to eat the lolly before using the stick as a split?
 
Dont want to be a spoil sport but the chainmail glove on top of your glove will lead to more cross-contamination. In the meat trade we are made to wear a rubber glove over the chainmail. Hope this can be any help to you

That makes sense, it always takes an age to get the bits out of the mail…I must admit my priority was to keep the blades and gunk away from my wound.

I do have large and extra large nitrile gloves I could have tried one inside and one outside…will do that next time :)

One learns so much on SD.

Alan
 
On a lighter note, did you get to eat the lolly before using the stick as a split?


Unfortunately it was painfully (given my sore finger) fashioned from a bit of kindling wood (how did you guess it was a lighter?) a cedar shingle off cut :)

It was the half remembered vision of a lollipop stick splint that gave me the idea after I managed to open the wound just before bed last night that prompted the whittling...

Alan
 
This is good advice, I managed to stick my knife firmly into the top of my knee/lower thigh while cutting through the last leg joint on a red stag, it was tough as old boots so more force than normal was needed, finally went through, but I then somehow managed to follow through it and into my leg...it also put a nice hole in my prohunter trousers too....
great!
 
This is good advice, I managed to stick my knife firmly into the top of my knee/lower thigh while cutting through the last leg joint on a red stag, it was tough as old boots so more force than normal was needed, finally went through, but I then somehow managed to follow through it and into my leg...it also put a nice hole in my prohunter trousers too....
great!

I'm no first aid expert but I think its thoroughly bad drill to use a blade near your upper leg or inner thigh, especially when performing a task that requires pressure. If you slip and put the blade through your femoral artery it'll be thank You and Good Night. Unless you've got a suitable tourniquet to hand and know how to apply it in double quick time your blood will flow out of your like you've turned on a tap. There'll be no waiting around for four minutes for an ambulance - if one can get to you.
Its so easy when you're tired and your hands are cold and slippery to relax onto your knees and work much too close to your legs. I did it once when I was trying to cut the brush off a fox for my nephew who had asked me to get him one. It was a freezing cold night and my hands felt like wood. I was trying to push the tip of the blade between the vertebra when I slipped and drove it into my leg just above the knee. And a knife blooded from a fox's rear end as well.
Although it makes my back ache I now always work standing up with the knife to the outside of my legs and working away from me. Sounds obvious when you're set in an armchair but easy to forget in the heat of the moment.
 
having applied said tourniquet to eejit who should ave known betters i agree ,its a doddle when your tired and cold to cock up.whatching someone slice something open on his leg with a stanley knife ,as he went through his flesh and the red stuff sprayed out i did a good impression of speedy gonzales trying to stop eejit from bleeding to death.bootlace at the top of the thigh and snellmachen to the local A n E so the nurses could call my stupidvisor a t....w..a.TTT.still no substitute for experience as he used to tell me before he needed 11 stitches in his thigh muscle .we never extracted the urine of course being gentlemen
 
It is so easy to cut yourself. I like to do a fair bit of cooking and I came a cropper with a Sabatier knife whilst cutting meat a few months ago. Nothing lasting except I've lost the feeling in a bit of one finger for good. You feel so stupid. I always cut away from myself whenever using any bladed instrument, as I'm sure we all do 99% of the time. But it's right that when you're a bit cold, a bit tired, perhaps the excitement of the stalk is behind you and it's the more mundane chores you are doing when you need to be at your most alert and that is when it's most difficult.

Next thing is: How many of us when gralloching a deer away from the vehicle, would have any sort of first aid kit to hand?
 
Sound advice, 12 stitches in my knee last august skinning a roe :( Very lucky I didnt open up anything major
 
Alan, hazards of this game i'm afraid, when you do it for as long as some of us have you do get cut, i lost count the amount of stalkers i have met when i used to take out clients who had scarred hands, me included!
Cheers
Richard
 
Make sure you remember to put your knife down, even if the clean spot is a couple of steps away, before you snap off the leg.

I can concur with this. I sliced through the tendon on my index finger last year whilst taking the legs off a deer. Spent 5 weeks in a cast from my finger tips to my elbow.
 
thanks for bringing it to everyones attention
dont get sloppy
sharp knives DANGER ,DANGER always take care
cold weather....poor light....in a hurry.
just in case....carry a wound dressing.
 
Never cut towards anything you are not prepared to lose !

True, but I did not do that. I was not actually cutting with the knife at the time. Mine was even more stupid.

The point of my original warning was that having run the knife around the joint I did not put it down. I gripped the hoof with my left hand and the upper leg with my right which still held the knife, as I wrenched the lower leg around to snap it off, my left-hand knuckles barely brushed against the tip of the knife which went straight through both glove and flesh:doh:.

Alan
 
Depressing number of stalkers chiming in with tales of various injuries. Good point about the first-aid kit.

My 'hassle bag' is a zip-lock baggie that lurks in the pocket of the Roe Sack. Never need it, never want to - but it weighs nothing & is constantly there, just in case!

In it is a selection of wound dressings, from bandaids to shell-dressing (for gun shot wounds, a plaster doesn't hack it), safety pins (for when wet stuff stops dressings sticking), Tampax (width-ways expansion & fire lighting gents), probe wipes (sting like buggery but do clean up the wound site), spare folding knife, lighter, whistle and mini compass on a para-cord lanyard (doubles as tourniquet/bootlace etc).

Not much to carry, only needed it a few times in the last couple decades, but a reassurance to know it is there.

Baden Powell had it right!

Be Prepared.

Rgds

Ian
 
Funny thinking about the OP's original point;
a few years ago when doing the First aid at work re-certification the examiner had supposedly cut his forearm with a Stanley knife. The correct response he wanted to see, which thankfully I did, was to first take the knife out of the victims other hand ............... then and only then proceed with resolving the bleed.
 
I had a stupid moment within months of starting to stalk.
Whilst gralloching a Muntjac, I slipped at cut a finger pad. I don't think the guy supervising was too surprised as I was proper fingers and thumbs that day, but what did surprise/impress him was my ability to immediately apply pressure and produce a plaster to fix the digit that had copped it in the line of duty. And a few moments later to wrap it all up in micropore when the claret streamed through the plaster! As IanF stated, be prepared, from minor to major, have a plan, have equipment, the Law of Sod may apply at any given moment.
Thanks Ian Burgess for not taking the p1$$

Roger
 
Just a thought, but when hunting I've brought with me an IPOK - http://www.narescue.com/Individual_Patrol_Officer_Kit_(IPOK-CG)-CN1C91835F6180.html - a sealed kit with a tourniquet and clotting bandage. Way too much for the average accidental knife cut but should you manage to impale yourself or worse be accidentally shot it can be a lifesaver. I'd really want one of these if I was a guide and potentially dealing with folks with poor or forgotten gun handling skills.
 
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