My sewing machine sits on a small roll-top desk which doesn’t have good access to the back if you drop anything and it rolls under, so I tend to ‘grab’ dropped spools of thread etc. with my knees. Well, yesterday I dropped a pair of needle-nose tweezers I was using to remove fine bits of thread from a piece. Yep, the points went straight into my inner thighs about three inches above my left knee. Ouch.
Dangerous weapon
After the initial ouch, I thought that I probably should go to the bathroom and check if it was bleeding. As I stood up I felt blood running down my leg, so I suggested to my husband that he should come and investigate. Sure enough, I was bleeding profusely. He was very cool, calm and collected. He immediately got me to hold a tissue very firmly over the small pin pricks made by the tweezers, while he went and got an Esky ice brick out of the freezer and tied it tightly over the wound with a towel. Then he made me go lie down on the sofa with my leg elevated. Classic ICE procedure — ice, compression, elevation.
Later he told me that my femoral artery is in the vicinity of where I stabbed myself, and suggested that perhaps we should go down to the hospital to at least get a tetanus injection. So that’s how I ended up testing our local hospital’s emergency room!
The nurses dressed the leg, put a patch over the wound (it had well and truly stopped bleeding — being frozen for a couple of hours will do that!), and gave me a jab. Then it was home to put my leg up some more and to eat take-out pizza!
I’ve now taken the canvas-type apron from the kitchen (which I rarely use — the apron, not the kitchen!) and will now wear it when I’m sewing so that if my reflexes want to catch things with my knees (I doubt it after yesterday’s experience), there’ll be a little more protection than just some tracky dack* cloth.
Update: Pictures of bruise and ‘snake fang’ marks of tweezer entry points some 36 hours later (striped lines are marks from dressing patch).
*US-ians: tracky dacks = fleecy track suit pants
Rhonda Bracey: At Random 