Kind of funny, I just saw the Bassresource video on how not to get hooked when landing fish. Too late. This was my hand in the ER Sunday night. I landed a little un an didn't notice the trailer hook hadn't penetrated the fish anywhere at all, so I was holding the fish and reaching to get the bait out when it gave a good thrash and the next thing I know I am feeling a tug on my finger that wasn't quite right. I looked down and the spinner bait hook was still in the fish mouth, the trailer hook straight through my fingers with some blood seeping out of the holes.
Now I live out in the sticks, so the ER is a half hour away. I go home and my wife drives me to the ER. Of course, I try to remove this myself a couple different ways but nothing works, so i figure let the Medical professionals handle it instead. At the ER, the Doc says, no biggie, we'll just cut the shaft on the long end and slide the other end out. So he numbs up my finger with a Lidocaine block, gets out these little tweezer cutters and begins. No luck, hardened steel hook. So they try wire cutters. No luck. I take the wire cutters away from them, put one end on a table and put my full weight down on the handle trying to get it to even dent the hook. No luck. But the nurses are about to pass out watching me work on it myself, while cracking jokes about how its my mess, I'll clean it up.
One nurse says "so how did you you do that?" and I can't resist... "Well, I was chasing this Bear through the woods....." and the look on her face is quite funny. "Fishing. Last cast. Caught one, wasn't paying attention and this trailer hook (I hold my hand up and slide the lure back and forth in the eyelet of the hook that's through my finger) went through this finger." She turned white and left the room.
So anyway, they can't figure out a way to cut it and I tell them to get some bolt cutters. Only problem is it's Sunday night, July 4th weekend, 930 and the maintenance folks are out having fun and no one can find the keys to the room where the bolt cutters might be, let alone know where the bolt cutters actually are. So I lay back and go to sleep. My wife tells me later that every now and then I would do that jerking thing you do when you're in between sleep and waking and the spinner blades would tinkle. When I woke up I got the cutters and removed the rubber keeper altogether so I could get the spinner bait away from the hook. That was at least some progress and made it easier on my hand not having to hold the spinner bait.
Eventually the maintenance guy gets there, like around 11, and I really did appreciate him coming in. It was that or drive home to get my bolt cutters and DIY it and then probably drive back to the ER for some sterilization stuff or whatever just to be on the safe side. Doc comes in with bolt cutters, asks me to grab the hook where its sticking out the farthest, he places the jaws either side and with a quick squeeze a "tink" emits and I am holding the protruding hook and barb end in on hand, shaft in the other. I sit down and he slides the rest of it out and I am free.
But heres comes the worst part. He tells me to let my finger soak in antibiotic/sterile fluid for fifteen minutes and then I can go. Then he comes back in two minutes later and says he wants to flush it out some too. So he puts a syringe with a rubber tube attached that's about the same diameter as the hook in some saline, draws it up nice and full and shoots it in the top hole as I hold my hand over the bowl. No big deal, I feel it run though and dribble out the bottom. Then he flips my finger over and stick it in the other side to go back the other way. He started squirting that stuff in there and my finger exploded into pain like it was on fire and then it shot across half my hand, other digits and thumb shaking like I had just got shocked. I nearly passed out, and up until that point, this was no big deal, despite what it looked like. My wife jumped up and grabbed me because she thought I was going to fall over. Ouch.
So anyway, Doc says "Ok, it's sealing up, I'm not going to do that any more." Thanks Doc. Best news I had all night. Anyway, after all that, once that hook was out, (and they stopped shooting saltwater in the hole) it stopped hurting in about 5 minutes. I left with the spinner bait intact and a band aid on my finger.
Moral of the story? I guess it's be careful, cause the hooks these days are pretty stout and if you get one stuck in you, it might be harder than you think to get it out. I am just glad my lack of caution didn't result in something worse than a hole in the fleshy part of my finger. It was't too bad, I was back playing my guitar the next afternoon. I had never been hooked at all before, I hope I never get hooked again.
Lesson learned.
