I was spending a summer interning at a hospital in Honduras. I had a meeting with one of the people at the hospital and he was holding a bandage on his arm after donating some blood. He asked me if I had a problem with the sight of blood and I said I didn’t, but frankly I hadn’t seen enough to really know for sure.
A few weeks later I was at the house I was staying at, probably doing homework (I signed up for a bunch of classes to do during the evenings.) Later that evening I went outside, just to stretch my legs, and when I went outside. I discovered an apocalyptic amount of blood on the tiles on the walkway to the front door.
This was so much blood that, after coagulating, you could pick it up like a gory piece of jelly. It was so much that I could smell it. I investigated what happened; I certainly hadn’t heard anything like a person screaming! The family I was staying with had a huge dog, named Hank. Seriously this dog must have been 80 or 90 pounds, 3 1/2 feet tall or more.
I think this is what happened: at some point while I was doing homework, Hank was wandering around the property. I think someone (surely a Honduran) was walking along the street and Hank jumped on them. I have no idea if it was playful but I am sure it was frightening. Hondurans carry machetes. I think they defended themselves with the machete.
Thankfully, they only cut his paw. While it was a ton of blood and surely hurt for Hank, he was mostly ok. The surgeon I was staying with sortav sarcastically pointed out that it would have been good if I had given Hank stitches sooner.
Anyway the sight of blood doesn’t really bother me.
Sometimes when traveling I end up with down time and want to spend my time doing something relaxing and productive.
Nearly a year ago I got a set of carving knives for making spoons, along with a few spoon blanks (black walnut and beech.) At this point I have made three crappy spoons, and all of them are pretty small due to the blanks I started with.
I hate buying dry blanks. They are dry as a bone, and way harder to work than green wood. I have discovered that if you use an instant pot (or presumably a pressure cooker) you can fully rehydrate some woods; beech works but black walnut doesn’t.
The other frustrating detail is the use of curved tools. I know how to sharpen chisels, planes, and even saws, but sharpening a curved tool is pretty far out of my comfort zone. This would not be relevant except the last time I was in Texas I dropped my hook knife on some concrete and damaged the edge. I was only traveling with a leather strop so I was done for the rest of the trip.
The first time I used this kit to make a spoon I was traveling to Tel Aviv. My coworkers and I would hang out in the lobby of the hotel relaxing. One would be knitting. I would be carving the spoon. It was pretty fun! When I planned my trip I planned foolishly and I accidentally planned to fly on Saturday morning. In Israel the weekend is Friday and Saturday, so I ended up with a whole spare day. I decided it would be pleasant to carve a spoon on the Mediterranean Coast.
When working with carving knives you have to pay attention to how you are working and always be in control. I learned this the hard way. I was using a gouge on the bowl of the spool and slipped. The gouge cut into a big chunk of flesh on the knuckle of my left thumb.
There was so much blood! I was pretty close to a water fountain so the first thing I did was use the water fountain to clean out the wound. I had some blue tape that was wrapped around the blades and quickly wrapped that around my thumb, and then went in search of somewhere to buy bandaids. This was much harder than I expected. Pharmacies in Israel are pretty much only for prescriptions, it seems like, and the bodega style stores didn’t seem to carry bandaids. I finally got a set, washed off my wound and hand again with bottled water, and applied a couple of bandaids.
There is still a pretty big scar and some subtle nerve damage but everything is perfectly functional. I wish I had watched The Swedish Knife Grip Sessions beforehand, which really demonstrate the grips more clearly than Sloyd in Wood (which I still really enjoyed and do not regret getting.)
You and Walt both have good thumb damage stories! I like the spoons!