Allison’s mom passed away unexpectedly and we rushed down to South Carolina. We drove because Allison’s wallet had been stolen days earlier and she had no ID so she couldn’t fly. We didn’t know when we’d be back.
This is how I ended up fishing in South Carolina with my bare hands.
Allison had done an amazing job of handling her mother’s affairs along with her brother Jeff. Among countless other tasks, they organized a beautiful memorial visitation which was attended by so many who told Allison and Jeff how much their mother had affected their lives.
One of those countless other tasks was cleaning out her mother’s apartment, which is why I was shoving flattened boxes into the chute of a trash compactor.
The compactor was temperamental and the very last load of boxes had gotten stuck in the chute again.
“I’ve had enough of this thing”, said Jeff. “Let’s get out of here.”
If only I had listened to Jeff.
But no.
“Go on ahead and I’ll take a few tries at getting the boxes down the chute”, I said.
Just at that moment, a stranger appeared and asked if he could toss in a white kitchen trash bag.
If only I had asked him to wait.
But no.
“Sure!”, I said, and in went the bag.
I picked up a long piece of wood like an oar with no paddle and started to push the boxes down the chute.
If only I had done it more carefully.
But no.
The boxes weren’t budging so I put my full weight into the oar.
Suddenly, the boxes gave way and I fell forward, reaching my hand into the chute to break my fall.
I felt something sharp stab into my hand and immediately pulled it back.
Except it wouldn’t come back!
Something in that white trash bag had impaled my hand and I was stuck to it.
I thought it was probably broken glass, and I pulled harder to get it out.
It wouldn’t budge.
I could see the end of something pushing up the skin of my hand pretty far from where it entered, so it was in really deep.
I felt the bag with my other hand to see what I was attached to, and it was moving!
That’s when I realized the bag was full of live fish and one of them was stuck to my hand.
Unbelievable.
“I’ve got a hook in my hand attached to a fish in this bag and I can’t get it out!”, I yelled.
Or at least that’s what I imagine I might have yelled.
I remember there was a whole lot of yelling coming from my mouth, much more than it would take just to say those words, but I have no idea what I was actually saying. You’ll have to ask Jeff and Allison who came running to my aid.
I do remember eventually getting out the words, “Cut the bag so I can get this fish stuck to my hand out!”, which Jeff was furiously trying to do with the world’s dullest knife, while trying not to jostle my hand since I was yelling a lot about how much that hurt, too.
Eventually he succeeded and I grabbed the fish with the other hand and extricated it from the bag.
We had nothing to cut the hook and there was no way it was coming out of my hand without doing a lot of damage, so I calmly asked Jeff to take me to the hospital.
Haha, just kidding.
There was nothing calm about me.
I was holding onto a fish with one hand trying to keep it from wriggling the extremely painful hook stuck in my other hand, yelling who knows what and how far away is the hospital?
Jeff raced me to an urgent care facility two minutes away.
It sure felt like a whole lot longer than two minutes, though, and the whole time the fish was making the most horrible sucking sounds trying to breathe as I squeezed it to keep it still.
There was a lot more yelling and a phone call to the urgent care asking if they could cut a hook out of my hand or if I needed to go to the E.R.
When I finally arrived at urgent care, a cheery girl at reception said they were expecting me and they were happy I was there since it had been a really boring evening so far and could I fill out the information on this form?
“I’ll give you all the information you want as soon as this fish is off my hand!”, I said.
Jeff got my wallet and handled the info gathering while I went to the back to wait for the doctor.
When the doctor arrived, I asked if he could do me a huge favor and get a picture of this ridiculous situation with my phone, which he graciously did, and that’s how I got the pictures below.
Thank God, he cut the hook and the flopping fish was finally off my hand.
Except the hook wasn’t a hook!
It turned out to be a long barb that was part of the fish!
You can see the matching one on the other side of the fish in the photo.
After a couple of lidocaine shots which didn’t seem to help at all and some yanking around on the barb and the poor receptionist literally fanning me as I poured sweat and threatened to pass out, the barb finally came out.
I could feel it pulling on a nerve that went from the bottom of my hand to the top of my finger, literally stretching and twanging it like a guitar string as the barb came out.
So it’s taking me a lot longer to type this with one hand. But I can feel all my fingers and wiggle them a little, so, so far so good.
Thank you to Jeff and Allison and the fantastic staff at WeCare Primary & Urgent Care. Doctor Patel was so nice and so patient with all my drama. It turns out he had previously worked in Neurosurgery, Trauma Surgery, and an E.R. among other positions and was uniquely qualified among urgent care providers to perform this procedure, which by the way, was just before closing for the day. So that really worked out well!
You know you’ve had an interesting injury when the doctor asks for the pictures afterward.
And that’s my big fish story!
-David
