Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Sliced and Diced

I have been working with sharp blades for almost ten years now. Fast paced cutting action, slicing your body parts to a fraction of a hairs breadth. 4 microns even! I have mad skills, least I thought I did.

Today for the first time, I cut myself. Not bad, but deep. And the bastard would not stop bleeding.
It was one of the cuts that creates a nice flap of skin, I jammed it back down hard and kept pressure on it, so I think it will be all good. I think the flap has stuck down :-)

No I am no hard arse, but I see quite a bit of gore and gross stuff in my job, and I am used to that. But seeing my own vital fluid rapidly ooze out of me left me feeling a little queasy. Also that I could easily have lost the top of my finger had I been any slower, that contributed a lot to my queasiness. Cup of coffee and a sit down cured me of that and back to work I went. I fainted last time I had a blood test, I didn't even look at the blood! I had not fainted since I was 19.

I cut myself because got out of rhythm, cut, turn, pull, blow. Its an OSH nightmare actually . A lot of us use our fingers to pull the sections, as it requires dexterity. Most of us don't wear gloves while doing it for the same reasons. You need those ridges on your finger tips, then applying the most delicate touch, pull the sections away from the blade as you cut slice after slice.

Don't worry about me going gloveless, all the bits of body are nicely sterilised by an overnight process involving dehydration, solvents and petroleum products. Yay Chemicals!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, you've caught Polly-itis :-) Try not to kill yourself!

Nina said...

Oh my goodness. Susie DANGER indeed.
Holy hell. I love the gore and body part descriptions- especially the skin flap oozing blood. lol.