Kitchen Accidents

To Serve Man: or, fun with knives, or, after reading posts on professional knife sharpening

My blog January 8, 2004:

Who knew Band-Aid offers such a wide variety of bandages? Amazing self-sticking fibers(I'd like to see some of these under an electron microscope), wiggy shapes, super-stucky adhesives.

Though I wasn't trying to impress anyone(except, perhaps, myself) ala William Burroughs, I DID manage to hack off a hunk of my left index finger in spectacularly gory fashion. It's all because of the puttanesca. I guess the parsley garnish had it in for me. Maybe it was that bloodthirsty knife. Mostly it was inattention.

Knock on wood, I'm relatively accident-free in the kitchen so when I do fuck up I feel compelled to give it my all. Chop, chop, chop pleasantly mincing Italian parsley I'm pretty happy with my tiny pile of vivid green; just a maverick leaf or two to go. Then-I know I've just done something really fucked up but I can't process it. For a perfect moment there's my stunned finger lying supplicant on one side of the blade(digit peering up at me with an almost discernible look of entreaty) and, slipping down the opposite, a little peach magic eraser-esque mound of flesh, bit of fingernail a flag planted atop some newly invaded country.

So there's this delicious instant where I'm thinking...well...that's not so bad.

Intimate abbatoirs are at once abject and intoxicating.

It really fucking hurt.

and it wouldn't stop bleeding, but at least it wasn't pulsing and when I could bear to run it underwater no pearlescent bone said howdy.

S/o 'n I debated the emergency room. Him worriedly sorta pro/me kon. What? Are they going to stitch the tip of my finger back on? Inject xylocaine directly into the wound and proceed to debride it of any foreign material? Been there, done that.

Then there's always the-visit triage for a kitchen accident, leave with superflu-scenario.

It really sucked for the s/o. To begin with, he assumes I have the wherewithal to use my knives safely and appropriately. He also gets saddled with the plethora of emotions associated with impotency in the face of my stupidity and mutilation. He crafted two prototype finger crutches to replace my hi/tek of wrapping paper towels in a plum-sized bundle and gesticulating wildly. It's fun to peer into a trash bin awash in venal, purplish blood.

I woke up overnight once the shock/buzz had ebbed away and thought I might be sick, but it too passed.

The wound scabbed over near dawn. Just a few lackadaisical ketchupy leaks erupting past platelet tectonics.

I've got it open to the air interspersed with applications of the aforementioned Band-Aid projects. It looks so fake.

Speaking of Deep Red; the puttanesca was my best so far- if on the spicy side(poor s/o, again). Muir Glen whole tomatoes chopped and strained of their juice(which is reserved). Spice House rapid-frozen pure tomato powder mixed w/ chopped tomatoes. Small yellow onion diced. Tblspn tomato paste. Two garlic cloves minced. Tsp. anchovy paste. Tblspn brined capers(soaked and washed). Fettucini. Kosher salt. Cracked Black pepper. Red chili pepper flake. Olives excluded(So is it a true puttanesca? Do the whores care?)

The secret this time was a smoking hot saute pan with olive oil into which I tossed the onions. As they transluced I added the garlic being careful not to burn it. I tossed in the tomato paste and browned it. Then the anchovy paste. Then the pepper flake. I added the chopped tomatoes. Stirring all the time. In went the tomato juice which appeared to emulsify on impact. In went the capers which neatly incandesced from their normal dull, khaki state. Fettucini was cooked way-al dente in heavily salted water, drained, some pasta water reserved, then (pasta) added to the sauce for a couple more minutes. The whole was removed from the heat, tossed with the ill-fated parsley(I was, at this point, one-handed). And served.

---I ought to have saved the index finger sliver for use in an amuse

It's a question certainly asked many times before; what pairs well with human flesh?

Am I more cabernet or zinfandel? I have heard that Stuck Pig is best served sans alcohol.

bon appetit

update April 2006: you can just barely see the point where my fingertip slopes inward from the nail. I've shown it off to others who claim not to be able to discern anything amiss.

I did the exact same thing, except it was my left middle finger instead of my left index finger. And it was fresh basil instead of fresh parsley. Got some nail in the process, but managed to stay away from bone. It was, however, a large enough piece to consider attempting to reattach. This was complicated, however, by the fact that skin goes very white when the blood drains out of it, and looks very similar to rounded bits of chopped green onion and garlic, which I also happened to be working on at the time. This left me in the fiction-worthy position of tasting multiple white chunks that were strewn across my cutting board in an attempt to discover which were green onions, which were garlic and which were finger.

This isn't an experience I care to repeat.

Then I'm obviously in good company with this one!

Flash back to the eve before Thanksgiving. Already put in a full day at the office and trying to feed/clean/entertain a two year old.

Now, it's time to cook. Nothing simple, mind you, but a list of complex dishes that required extreme multitasking (that's what super moms are so good at, right??).

I met my match with my gorgeous mandoline. Adios to the tip of my finger....I fall to the kitchen floor in a most ungraceful manner (as is my style).

Adios to dinner. This mom is done.

HTG,

It sounds like you were most likely preparing things for Thanksgiving Day dinner and thus probably not Italian dishes... That comes to mind only because Christopher (clearly) and Dmnkly (possibly or probably) both were making Italian dishes when they severed their fingers. This idea troubled me for various reasons and all the more so since it called up from the memory banks my own experience with auto-mutilation.

A little over twenty years ago, when residing in a very beautiful and wild part of New York State, about 15 miles or so from the nearest emergency room, I removed the better part of the tip of my index finger on my left hand. How did this happen? Well, it was a festive occasion -- though not a holiday -- and I was attempting to prepare a nice dinner, the primo of which involved the inclusion of some minced prosciutto. Alas, the prosciutto had sat out for a bit, warmed up and gotten a little greasy and slippery...

Try to find the tip of a finger in a little mound of chopped prosciutto; I dare you. Do it while blood rhythmically pumps out of the severed stump and waves of intense pain wash over your entire being.

The best moment of that evening came at the far-off emergency room. A nurse at the reception desk pushed a large pile of forms in front of me to fill out before they would look at me. I said «but it really hurts. Please, help me!» She insisted again and I replied with some pathetic groans and moans added to punctuate my plea. A dark look came upon her hard and pitiless visage and she said: «The devil take you, laddie; you'll get no treatment here without first completing and submitting properly all required paper work. See to it now or else I shall forthwith call security!»

At that I said sinisterly «Okay, Ma'am, but be advised it's a left-hander I am,» and I then proceded to fill out the forms as best I could with the pen between my thumb and middle finger, with blood oozing out onto the forms from under the large wad of Mr Lumberjack brand paper towels that was wrapped around my severed digit. As I did so, I muttered to myself «And may the great Satan take you, you cruel and bureaucratic b*tch.»

It took a very long time -- and considerable pain remained for months -- but eventually the wound healed. In effect, the tip of my finger grew back, demonstrating that I am, after all, not the inferior of the starfish or gila monster. But there is one strange thing to note here: since they grew back, the swirls of my finger print on that digit clearly form the number 666.*

I'm still bitter about this for I never had dinner that night. And it would have been really good.

Antonius

* This is why I'm always careful to wear a thimble when committing a crime.

Antonius, your branded finger should work gangbuster's at the Jewel scanner, no?

Happy Taster Gal wrote: I met my match with my gorgeous mandoline. Adios to the tip of my finger....I fall to the kitchen floor in a most ungraceful manner (as is my style).

HTG, I did the same thing, however mine was a stroke(no pun intended) of genious. Being so handy in the kitchen with a mandolin, I didn't feel it necessary to use the hand guard while slicing some potatoes. Low and behold, I get down towards the end and bang, there goes a slice of my index finger. Had people coming for dinner so I just wrapped it up and continued. I think GWiv exclaimed my potatoes anna were the best he'd ever had. A certain richness he couldn't quite put his finger on(again no pun intended). Why do the best lessons in life have to be either very painful or very expensive?

The Rev's post reminds me of a near accident I witnessed a few weeks ago. There was a guy demonstrating how to make his favorite apple pie filling. He used the slicing blade on a Cuisinart to slice the apples. Whenever the hopper was empty, he would turn off the machine and stick his fingers in the shoot to stop the blade. It was a heart stopping moment. After a while he stopped using the plunger and just stuck his fingers in there. People were gasping every time he did these actions.

After his presentation I commented how scared I was on his behalf. He genuinely did not consider it a safety issue.

***

A friend's Mother-in-law she dropped the Cuisinart blade on her foot. It not only required stitches, it made her wheel chair bound for a few weeks. I've occasionally dropped the blade and knowing of this experience, you never saw me jump so fast to avoid it.

***

I'm missing the tip of my left thumb for largely the same reason everyone else here is missing a slice of themselves.

***

I used to have a hand cranked rotary slicer. I once had a dream I sliced deep into my thumb, as if cutting it in half, I promptly got rid of it. I'm shuddering now in phantom pain at just the thought.

Ouch!

I took a section off the tip of my index finger trying to slice sweet potatoes lengthwise with a mandoline. I second the Rev: folks, always use that food holder thingee that seems so unnecessary. You can no longer see the scar except in a good light and the tip filled back out but that section of my finger remains a bit numb.

I also have a sizable burn scar on my arm from spilling tomato sauce I had (over)reheated, back when I was learning to use the microwave. Tomato sauce really sticks! That one nearly required a skin graft, and the scar is still quite sensitive.

However, the kitchen accident that's caused me the most long-term trouble was dropping a 2-pound jar of honey on my foot. Crunch! The jar didn't break, but I'll never wear high heels again. It took months of physical therapy and iontophoresis before I could walk normally.

I do recommend the mincing technique that calls for rocking the blade back and forth while holding your knife with both hands -- one on the handle and one at the top of the point end. Not only does it work extremely well to make a fine mince of herbs, etc., but it keeps all your fingers out of the way of the blade.

Christmas morning. Junior gave me a new 8 inch chief's knife. I have been using a 6 incher for years and years. Being a good dad, I used the new one to cut the onions.

Yep, a inch long slice, filled with the juice of the onion. But do have to note that the new blade was so sharp, I did not feel the cut, until the onion juice got in it, and noticed that the onions were red. That sucker did bleed for two hours.

Is this something we can add to the forum logo?

"X severed digits, and counting"

?

"A friend's Mother-in-law she dropped the Cuisinart blade on her foot. It not only required stitches, it made her wheel chair bound for a few weeks. I've occasionally dropped the blade and knowing of this experience, you never saw me jump so fast to avoid it."


I can speak to this....several years back on Valentine's Day of all days, I was opening a birthday present to me from my Mother...my very first Cuisinart. i was ecstatic. I was also exhausted -- it was about 8 pm and I was scantily clad in only a t-shirt, sitting on my sofa and I reached into the box to unwrap everything and pulled the blade out (in a way I thought was thoughtful and carefully handled" and in this incredible slow motion camera work like way, it simply slipped down my thigh and leg, leaving a trail of blood every where it went -- especially on my ankle, where it narrowly missed an artery...

I was in shock and hopping around trying to find something to tie off my foot (let's just say i'm not the most agile person on earth) and ended up dragging my across the hall neighbor over to help me, a wonderful person who gave up her Valentine's Day evening to sit with me in the ER while I got 15 stitches.

I think i had those stitches for at least a month and to this day I have a really nice scar on my ankle. Needless to say..i am extremely cautious when I use the Cuisinart.

I had invited friends over for some homemade pizza. I spent the day shopping for all of the items to make sauce, seasonings, toppings, etc. All as fresh as I could find. Put together a glorious pizza, baked the pizzz, slid the pizza peel under, pulled the pizza out, and as I turned to place the pizza on a plate, I tipped the peel and the pizza ended upside down on the carpet. A complete and perfect 180º flop.

The carpet still has slight melted imperfections from the pizza. I had just barely enough dough and ingredients to make a smaller pie and with the salad we ate enough.

Having just dropped a paring knife on my big toe, the topic is on my mind right now. What's the worst damage you've ever done? What's the grossest?

This is by far the bloodiest accident I've ever had - not the worst, but my apartment looks like a crime scene right now. I've got blood all over the white kitchen tiles, and bloody footprints on the carpet all the way to the bathroom, where I keep the 1st aid kit. My two main concerns at this point are (1) infection, and (2) my dog developing a taste for human blood. Hydrogen peroxide should solve the first, and I suppose I should get the carpet shampooer out to deal with the second.

Before this, my worst injury was burning my hand on a cast-iron pan, followed immediately by dropping said pan on my foot. I'm starting to think I should start wearing steel-toed boots when cooking.

Poor George. My worst accident involved boiling oil. I don't like to think about it.

Ouch ouch ouch!

I've been relatively lucky...some burns, some cuts, but nothing that's sent me to the hospital. The most memorable was a Thanksgiving about 20 years ago when I was much less experienced making gravy. It was the end of a long day of cooking, and I was frustrated the gravy wouldn't thicken. Exhausted and not thinking, I took a taste from the metal spoon that I'd been using to stir it...and it was so hot that it sizzled on my tongue. My cooking partner in crime--equally worn out--asked, "Oh, is it hot?" and then proceeded to stick his finger directly into the pan of boiling fat.

Yeah, that was the end of our cooking for the day. We told our roommates/boyfriends/friends (who's spent the day eating, watching TV, playing video games, but not otherwise helping) that they could finish preparing the meal, then locked ourselves in another room with a bottle of wine until a bit less stressed.

I have never done great damage to myself cooking, but I have had some spectacular equipment disasters, the most memorable being the Christmas eve that my brother and I had just arrived at our parents' apartment in Switzerland, and were cooking the traditional Christmas eve pizza. As we were preheating the oven in a tiny Swiss kitchen, the glass door of the oven exploded and shattered all over the kitchen. Anyone in the kitchen would have been severely hurt, but luckily, no one was there. Twelve guests were expected for Christmas dinner the next day, however. Fortunately, my parents had friends in the building whose kitchen we could borrow to cook the big dinner. I don't recall what we ate for Christmas eve -- we were all pretty shook up.

Ouch, I hope you're okay. I almost started a similar thread several weeks ago when I had an incident with the mandoline. I have developed a bit of tennis elbow like symptoms from baking and cooking for fun by night/weekends and working with a computer mouse by day. I thought I would be able to slice apples more cleanly, evenly, and quickly for my apple pie even though the night before I sliced them all by hand. I sliced right through the nail of my middle finger and a bit of the meat underneath. It was quite bloody, and I was home alone with the dog. It's been 9 weeks now, and the broken part of the nail is almost done growing out. It's been very annoying to snag it against clothing and even putting my hand in my coat pocket or handbag to search for keys, phone, etc.

On the plus side, I can now attest to the efficacy of the Chefs Choice 130 Professional sharpening station. The blade was so sharp, I barely noticed it carving through my flesh!

The administrator of the hospital I was working at decided to allow the same folks who sharpened surgical instruments to also do our kitchen knives.

And it did cut very well through the tip of my finger.

Well, let's see, can I finish this before lunchtime?
Other than using my cutting board to chop my fingers and burning myself on oven racks...

I was washing dishes and a glass was chipped, but running a rag around the rim caused that chunk to break off and slice the side of my hand. A very messy problem that required four stitches and an X-ray to make sure there was no glass inside. The fella who stitched me up commented that it was in the shape of a J. I joked that I'd go home and do the other hand with a W so I'd have my initials.

At an old job, we had an ancient cake turntable with a cast iron base. The base was separate from the turny part and it slipped out of my hand, dropping right onto my pinky toe. It wasn't broken, shockingly, but we had a skeleton crew at the time, so for an hour or so I had to walk around the kitchen with ice in my sock.

There are two others at that job that were caused by my own stupidity. I was dragging a hot box through the kitchen and realized that it could fit through the dishwashing area. I was hauling ass until my hand was reminded that the actual dish washer stuck out about an inch from the wall.

It was the 4th of July, and there were two of us working, and we were told that as soon as we finish we could leave, so naturally, we were moving at top speed. I went down to the storage area to get some ingredient we missed, whipped around the corner and my legs went out from under me. As I got up, I caught sight of one of the cleaning crew, who did not put a "wet floors" sign near the hallway I came down, and he looked absolutely horrified. The look on his face makes me laugh to this day. I had to get x-rays of my ass bone (not broken!) but I walked around like Frankenstein for about two weeks, and I had to stand to watch the fireworks.

chgoeditor - I've done that!!! only it wasn't me cooking - I was sneaking bits of food off the pan while my Mom was cooking. I got the dreaded "See? That's what you get for not listening to me!" rebuke.

Pucca - And that is why my sleek & stylish Kyocera ceramic mandolin sits on my shelf, unused. I can't get the damned hand guard to work, and the kevlar glove I bought is (a) even more slippery than my hand, and (b) not exactly sanitary. Therefore, I refuse to touch that death trap.

As an addendum, I did stay up late last night cleaning up the mess, so now the dogwalker won't think I butchered somebody in the apartment over the weekend.

Independent George wrote:As an addendum, I did stay up late last night cleaning up the mess, so now the dogwalker won't think I butchered somebody in the apartment over the weekend.

That's the very reason I would have left it there. Ha! I probably would have gone out and tried to find one of those stuffed severed limbs they sell at Halloween.

Mandolined off a knuckle. Took two months for that wound to close.

My finger required 8 stitches from an unfortunate oyster shucking incident. When my boss asked me why I wasn't wearing the glove I had to show him it was still on the other hand, damned shell cut me open requiring a tetanus shot

Flip

Pie Lady wrote:That's the very reason I would have left it there. Ha! I probably would have gone out and tried to find one of those stuffed severed limbs they sell at Halloween.

Darn! I wish I thought of that. I could also have left him a polite note saying that he should be a little careful on the walk, because the dog was being a bit touchy over the weekend...

...we discovered he can smell fear...

Technically not a cooking incident as much as an equipment disaster.

I received my first Cusinart as a gift for my birthday many years ago and I was simply opening it and looking at all its marvelous parts when I pulled the blade out and promptly dropped it all down my leg to my anke.

Ever hear that those blades are sharp??? THEY ARE. I was very lucky and missed the artery in my thigh and ankle -- the last by mere millimeters but I ended up having blood everywhere on my living room floor and sofa and limped all over my apartment looking for something to tie off my ankle which was bleeding profusely and was very hard to tie off by myself. My neighbor, the kind-hearted angel that she is, dropped everything to take me to the emergency room where I received 10 stitches in 4 hours. The kicker? It was Valentine's Day and my neighbor gave up her date for me. Still have the scar.

Still have the Cusinart, for that matter. It's at least 12 or 13 years old and still working great. I am extremely careful with the blade though.

Worst I've ever done to myself was a 1" slice across a knuckle from a knife that had been put in the dish drainer wrong (upright instead of dried flat like we usually do). Lots of blood but it was really sharp, so it was more of a sting than any real pain. I hate hate hate hospitals, so I convinced Chouxfly to squirt Superglue along the (well-cleaned) cut. Unfortunately, the sides of the cut didn't line up perfectly so I have a slightly shifted strip of knuckle lines.

One of our cats tripped me when I was carrying an open can of enchilada sauce. She took off like a shot and we had to drag her out from under the bed to wash her eyes. She was mad for a long time (both for the sauce and the indignity of being held under a faucet), but I swear she has never gotten underfoot again (her dumb brother, on the other hand...).

I detailed some of mine in the previous Kitchen Accidents thread. Cooking isn't for wimps!

Reading that thread, I'm kind of surprised more of us don't have screen names like "Stumpy", or "Stubs", or "Hook".