Written by adam on Dec 11, 2007

How Much of This Blood is His?

Filed Under: Editorial
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This is me:

That's me after losing about 3 tablespoons of blood out the tip of my thumb at the hands (HA!) of my Henckel's Chef knife. For a better representation, click on this link to see a graphic photo. [WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC!]

I was dicing some ham to make a breakfast skillet hash when my son asked me a question, I glanced over and the knife glanced down through the meat of the tip of my thumb. It hurt like hell and bled like a war wound.

You know that neat thing that TV chefs do when they are chopping onions, carrots or herbs? You know, where they curl their fingers under and place the blade of the knife against the flat of their knuckles? You know. It's so cute and precious and it looks so easy and great.

Turns out proper finger position isn't just for show. It's important to the life if your fingertips

I've never had a cut this bad before, and I have two things that I blame, besides my dumb stupidity. Number one, I don't think the blade was sharp enough. And number tow, I got distracted.

Having sharp, honed blades is key to keeping your fingers as well as making nice pretty cuts with little effort. This is just common sense. But the sneaky snake in all of this was that I was distracted from my cutting for a split second to answer one of my son's endless barrage of questions. Consequently, I sliced a flap open in my thumb, scared my kid half to death with my deep inhales of breath and dripping blood, and almost ruined dinner.

So the next time your chopping onions or dicing some ham, be sure your blade is sharp and your family knows that you are not to be bothered while handling sharp pieces of metal.