January 21, 2007

• why I appreciate third-degree burns

  I neglected to mention earlier, when I posted the dog race update, that I’d burned myself last night.  It was a freak accident. 

  I was putting a stick of wood into the stove when my grip slipped.  One end of the wood lodged against the bottom of the opening and the other end jammed the back of my hand against the top edge.

  My reflexes worked fine.  When my hand automatically tried to withdraw, it wrenched my shoulder.

  I thought fast, tried first to push forward to unstick the wood and free myself.  When that didn’t work, I pulled back, tore a little skin loose, and got my hand out of there.  The injury was ugly, glistening red muscle showing in the center of a charred area, but it didn’t hurt.  That’s how I knew it was a third degree burn.

  I left the woodstove just as it was, hurried into the kitchen and started pouring cold water over my hand to keep the burn from spreading.  That worked.  There has been no pain, and that’s what I appreciate about third degree burns.

  I told Doug what had happened, showed it to him, and he winced and went, “eeeeww.”  Then I headed to the bathroom for first aid.  I disinfected the burn, applied a big knee-sized bandage that refused to stick, then got out an ancient roll of white cloth-backed adhesive tape and wrapped it all the way around my palm. 

  While I was in the bathroom, smoke was escaping from the open door of the woodstove.  Doug got up from his computer game long enough to turn on the exhaust fan and shut the stove.  When I got back out here, I fixed the fire and went back to reading my book.

  The tape has now picked up a dingy coating of soot and ash, the edges of the bandage have curled back over it, and it looks like the antithesis of a sterile bandage.  I’ll have to change it, I guess.  Still no pain, no redness beyond the bandage, no swelling, no problem using the hand. 

  Once again I’m glad I took Red Cross First-Aid back before the lawyers and bean counters took all the skill out of it and made it into, “stabilize the patient and call 911.”

  K300 UPDATE:
  
  photo credit:  Kara Erlwine/K300.org

  Martin Buser won, getting into Bethel at 2:22 this afternoon with nine dogs.  Jeff King was second, eight minutes behind him with nine dogs.  Rohn Buser was out of Tuluksak 2 hours and 48 minutes behind his father Martin, in fourth place with thirteen dogs.  Rohn was half an hour behind  Jon Little with 9 dogs, four minutes ahead of Ed Iten and his team of 9.

  Unless someone made a mistake in recording the standings, Ben Bruce, in 18th place, returned to Aniak this morning about 8 hours after he had left that checkpoint.

   

  • 7:02 pm
  • 6 Comments