Flint knapping injuries

[img][/img]
Managed to gore myself late last night, here is my shame this morning after the plasters came off and it doesn't look as bad or gaping as it did. Off to the doctor I go.
I slipped with a notcher whilst fiddling with a large flake and found out exactly how efficient the cutting edge of flint can be! My bad, no gloves. I have learnt

Well done you beat me on the severe injuries front hands down.

Now the question is what do you tell the doctor you were doing, true or lie?

It's the worst cut I've had in all these years of bashing rock, and it was done whilst notching which I consider the least risky. I told the truth and even took the offending flake along to show her! She didn't admire the notches though.
I'll be out of knapping for a little while

that looks nasty, i guess it brings you one step closer to been an authentic knapper

I'm pretty sure if you went to a prehistoric village and noticed someone with an eye patch, a scar down the side of their face, 2 fingers missing from the left hand and a walking on crutches with a crushed right foot, you'de go "Hi, so you're the village flint knapper".

Very true! As for telling the truth to the doctor, I think these things are relative, I may have had to be a little more inventive with the story had I wedged a jam jar up my butt.

In the 80's I was a member of the a Viking reenactment group, this was in the days before English heritage took everything over and went around wrapping everything in cotton wool. We were young and quite unsafe, however not as nutty as the previous generation of Viking who used to tell us what wusses we were, then we went on to do the same to the next gen. That's the way it goes I suppose, I bet they use rubber swords and have to wear crash helmets in a few years.

Anyway every Sunday we used to meet in Epping forest to train, train being have lots of sword fights and run around the wood going berserk. Inevitably people got hurt and one day we had to take one of our number to casualty to get stitched up. So we sat there a dozen of us in Viking costumes, shields, spears, dane axes, chainmail ect in casualty one of our number with blood pouring down his face awaiting medical attention.

About a year or so later I was watching Casualty on BBC when guess what appears, a group of vikings sitting in casualty awaiting attention, one bleeding. I guess the scriptwriters must have gone around hospitals asking the doctors if they had any strange tales or unusual patients and we got mentioned.......... So I'd keep a careful eye on Holby City for a while, one episode a flint knapper with a cut hand may appear.

All healed up now, I was very close to cutting the tendon for my forefinger and was very close to cutting two big veins. I should have gone to A+E for stitches but it was late...blah blah...excuses!!
I'm getting some steri-strips for the future, and I'm hoping I'll never have to use them. [img][/img]
Also it's very hard to take a photo of your right with the left!

That was a doosy. Always worth having a good quality first aid kit nearby.

A novel way to cut yourself by accident I dicovered the other day:
I was knapping a "knapped square" for a display on architectual flints and had just finished. Being cold I took out a tissue from my pocket to blow my nose. At that point it felt like someting hard came out of my nose, and looking at the tissue there was a spot of blood and something dark!
A small flake of flint had found its way into my pocket and into the tissue and then when I blew my nose it had put a neat cut just inside the nostril which then bled like a crazy thing!

  cant help but smile  - actually I had a chuckle, - that's a new one I wonder if your the first,