Dumb work injuries

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
It was my reward last month when I finally managed to put an excellent edge and new bevels...

IMG_5135.jpg


... on my Victorinox 10".

IMG_5134.jpg


Another highly satisfying wound. It took work... and a moment of distraction... to get there.
 
There’s a limit to where I’d be proud of a cut for what it says about my sharpening, and where it starts to show very ill cutting technique, you know... 🤔
 
Many many years ago, I looked down by the ovens, the new cook we had hired was lighting the pilot, turns out it was the oven, it blew him to the other side of the kitchen, I'll never forget the look on his eyebrow-less face, he was gone the next day.

This happened to me with a salamander and a nice lighter
 
🤢

Some of the stories here really make me shudder...

It didn't happen to me, but it was hood cleaning day at a tourist trap I was at and the pantry guy is "in a rush", so he puts two sheet trays on top of the deep fryers and they slip while he was standing on top of them. Thing was off for maybe 10 minutes before he plunged waist deep. Chest really, since his knees buckled to catch his fall.

That is just horrific... can't imagine the pain you would be in.
 
Last year on mothers day (pre-service) I melted my wrist off with bacon fat due to a concaved sheet tray. Pics if you really want, but fair warning, it was pretty gnarly. Bright side was all the street cred I got for working the service after lol
 
Did myself a good one tonight. I cut the tip of my right index finger d___ed near off; it's at least a flap rather than totally open (sorry, gross) but it's going to be annoying for at least a week. How did this happen? While blazing through a sack of onions with my AS nakiri? Nope. Furiously chopping a case of Romaine with my brand new 270? Nope. Wielding my 12" Sab on the line? Another nope. I somehow slipped while cleaning my peeler between the first and second waves of dinner. It went beyond the category of "well, I knew better than to do that" past "wasn't even thinking" all the way to "how did that even happen?" I can't even figure it out. Might have been a hole in the towel. Worst of all, it's my personal peeler, but it's a bloody (ha) peeler -- I could have chucked it in the dish pit and retrieved it later. Anyone ever done something that feels that level of dumb?
a couple months ago I was working a brunch shift. we were cleaning up, and I knocked my knife off the board. Knowing my trash can was next to me, with god knows what in it, I tried to catch my knife (which I had JUST sharpened the night before, she was shaving hair with the grain...) needless to say, I sliced the hell out my finger. probably needed stitches, but I'm not a *****, so I stepped outside for a few minutes and held pressure, and elevated it above my head for a while. eventually, it stopped bleeding, but the SOB hurt!

Another time, we were in the **** big time on a Friday night. I just finished cooking a steak in a saute pan with butter and duck fat (we don't have a grill station, so at the time, steaks came off saute). the duck fat was still smoking. I went to move the pan out of the way so I can start a pasta, and when I did so, I hit the handle of another pan and the oil came back and splashed on my hand. INSTANTLY blistered. took several weeks to heal completely. Luckily the restaurant's owner is a physician and he was there that night and was able to fix me up enough to get through the rest of the shift.

Lastly, I was in dry storage last weekend getting a #10 can of tomatoes so I can make Picante sauce for brunch. We keep the canned tomatoes on the top shelf, stacked 3 high, and to get to the shelf, you either have to move a bunch of stuff out the way, or stand on a cart that we use to store rice and stuff in. Being the lazy college student I am, I stood on the cart, reached as far as I could to try and scoot the tomatoes closer to the edge from the bottom so I could grab one. Sure enough, the cans on top fell and caught my middle finger. Cut me pretty good, right behind the fingernail. fun times. fun times.
 
Stone burn doesn’t even hurt, it’s just annoying. I sometimes wrap up client knives in white paper towels, and I always have to be super careful not to have little spots of red on the white if I have a stone burn. Just that has made me a lot more careful about where I put my fingers. 😂
 
I don't know how I missed this thread. Here's a few of my favorites from 15 years in the industry:

While I was in culinary school a kid in our sister class asked the crazy French chef how he could tell if the deep fryer was hot. The Chef told him, "Stick your hand in there and find out." He did, it was.

I once pulled a giant colander of cooked pasta out of a boiling steam jacketed kettle. One of those 5 gallon countertop models. The brake mechanism failed and the whole thing tipped over. It went down the fronts of my legs and filled up my shoes. They were lace ups and it took several minutes to get the shoes off. I had to get skin grafts on both feet.

There was a guy at the last place we called 9.5 because that's how many fingers he has left after he lost the last two knuckles of his index finger to a meat slicer many years ago.

I had a cook reach for a falling knife one time. He caught it, kind of, with his forearm. There was blood everywhere and it went deep enough to hit tendons. He had to have surgery.

9.5 one time convinced me to help him lift a 36" mixing bowl full of paella off of a 35 gallon steam jacketed kettle. I told him I didn't mess with steam jacketed kettles due to the previous pasta incident and he said, "The steam has been off for ten minutes, don't be a *****." Ten minutes wasn't long enough.



IMG_20171130_211807.jpg
 
I once pulled a giant colander of cooked pasta out of a boiling steam jacketed kettle. One of those 5 gallon countertop models. The brake mechanism failed and the whole thing tipped over. It went down the fronts of my legs and filled up my shoes. They were lace ups and it took several minutes to get the shoes off. I had to get skin grafts on both feet.
Same type deal happened to Mom in the restaurant, boiling water down your shoes, thats got to be one of the most painful things that can happen to you.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top