About really serious injuries

[roaduck]

My lovely pet Dragon is a seamstress and upholsterer and she ordered this pair of English - Made in Sheffield 12 inch - William Whiteley 1920NP-12 industrial shears and they were triple wrapped with a red warning label on each inner package "Sharp Scissors"

Needless to say she got nicked just by lightly brushing the blade and it just goes to show how careful we must be around bladed objects in general.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

My lovely pet Dragon is a seamstress and upholsterer and she ordered this pair of English - Made in Sheffield 12 inch - William Whiteley 1920NP-12 industrial shears and they were triple wrapped with a red warning label on each inner package "Sharp Scissors"

Needless to say she got nicked just by lightly brushing the blade and it just goes to show how careful we must be around bladed objects in general.

Aren’t you the guy who drinks a bottle of vodka and climbs on top of a moving train to see if he can duck before the tunnel comes?

 

[Quaznoid]

Add it to the list of things I don’t worry about it.

 

[abies]

I guess the OP is referring to a hand injury, and I also guess that the person got it by running his thumb along the blade edge to see if it was sharp. And I guess it was, in fact, so sharp that he didn’t even feel it slicing through his flesh, so he didn’t very quickly stop doing it.

For what it's worth, it was a hand injury — all of the shaving related injuries I've seen are hand injuries — but I don't think it was from what you mention. It was on the back of hand, toward his lower thumb. Most of the razor-related injuries I know of personally involve a thumb somehow, in one place or another, now that I think of it.

When I searched for "frequency of razor related injuries" the search results are swamped with papers and articles about injuries related to public hair shaving, which is not at all what I expected. I guess it makes me feel better knowing the most common shaving injuries are ones I don't have to worry about.

Interestingly I found this scientific article basically saying shaving frequency predicts staying alive and some other good things (although some of them depend on your preferences) so I guess there's that:

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/157/3/234/71268?redirectedFrom=fulltext

 

[Roedeer]

I worry more about some idiot tiktoking while they are driving. At least the razor is nominally under my control...

That's what I thought. You can mitigate the risk of low-probability stuff, like dogs or children bursting into the bathroom, by locking the door. The only "idiot" you have to worry about is yourself, and the neural feedback from a facial cut starting is very fast.

On the road, you could be an international motor racing star, with lightning reflexes, and still get killed by some random fool.

As for TTOs, there's not a very positive feeling of "lock" on my Wilkinson Chinese one. I feel uneasy about TTOs opening up a bit (or a lot) mid-shave. I'm a lot happier with screwing the handle firmly onto my 3-piece.

 

[Alum Ladd]

I was once nearly killed in a freak knitting accident.

 

[roaduck]

Aren’t you the guy who drinks a bottle of vodka and climbs on top of a moving train to see if he can duck before the tunnel comes?

I was very reckless and foolish in my teenage years Mr. Shavington doing mad drunken dares and extreme sports stunts etc lol

 

[Alum of Potash]

Worst shaving-related accident I’ve had was back in 2014, when I was doing some honing rework of a junker straight razor. I was gripping the sides of the hone with my fingertips, and the tip of my ring finger gradually moved just above the honing surface. On the next pass of the blade, a cornea-sized piece of skin flew right off. Lots of blood, but I soldiered on by wrapping paper towels on it until the blood had stopped long enough to properly bandage it. A few days later, the bandaging had fused in with the wound and was impossible to remove. That’s when I decided to go to the emergency room. There, they took my vitals and told me that I had high blood pressure. After a lot of discussion, warning, and advice about this, the doctor finally took a look at the wound and applied a medical solution that dissolved the dried blood and allowed him to cut the skin (with another kind of razor) that had grown around the bandage. “This,” he told me, “this is nothing. It’s the high blood pressure that you need to worry about.”

Ever since then, I’ve only held the hone with my palm and fingers completely outstretched, with the hone resting on the palm and fingers.

 

[GR5233]

Not something that I really worry about on a daily basis when shaving but I do try not to do anything stupid while shaving either.

I feel uneasy about TTOs opening up a bit (or a lot) mid-shave

I’ve had it happen to me a few times and usually it’s been a case of not tightening it up enough after swapping blades or working itself loose over the course of a few shaves. Usually the razor will let you know if there’s something wrong.

Common sense would say knife was sharp. Common Sense is Uncommon.

So true. It would also say that a gallon of milk has milk in it and that a bag of shrimp has shrimp in it but some people don’t have enough common sense to figure that out. If they’re an adult and can’t figure that out they deserve what they get

 

[Mr. Shavington]

I was very reckless and foolish in my teenage years Mr. Shavington doing mad drunken dares and extreme sports stunts etc lol

I’m glad to hear you take more care of yourself now.

 

[Mr. Shavington]

Interestingly I found this scientific article basically saying shaving frequency predicts staying alive and some other good things (although some of them depend on your preferences) so I guess there's that:

https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/157/3/234/71268?redirectedFrom=fulltext

I suspect, like most of these epidemiological (i.e. purely statistical) studies the correlations they report do not imply any causal link. So shaving probably doesn’t prolong life, but rather that people who shave frequently tend to take better care of themselves overall, and/or have higher paid jobs that require a neat appearance and have better healthcare, better diet, less anxiety, and live in a safer environment as a result of their income. These studies are usually only telling us that people with more money tend to live longer, which we all know. You are not going to live longer simply by shaving more often - it’s just that the kind of people who shave more are also the kind of people who earn more and live in better conditions.

This is a pet peeve of mine - all these news stories saying that doing x gives you a 30% higher chance of premature death. Total rubbish and wrong mathematics, but publishing this stuff helps get funding for the universities (hopefully to spend on doing some real science).

 

[Kyle89]

I've almost been hit by cars/scooters more than I"ve cut myself with shave blades. I do keep duct tape in my honing kit for straights just in case. I do figure a nasty cut that might require medical intervention as an expected outcome at some point, and that's fine. I just try to be mindful and understand with the tools that I work with.

When I used to work with exotic animals I had a few injuries that needed attention at the ER, and used to have fun explaining to hospital staff about what happened. It will be the same deal- a fun conversation starter explaining what the heck happened.

 

[ewk]

One of my sons finished cleaning up from his shave, yet forgot that he left the blade on the hand towel on the counter. Another son, unaware of the loose blade, used the towel to dry his hands causing a pretty serious and painful laceration across the palm. It was deep enough to require stitches, and he does not have feeling on one side of a finger.

 

[DesertIguana]

Well think most of my Razor misadventures fall into several categories.

Dull Blade should have been changed. Preventable.

Dull Mind not paying attention. Preventable.

Blade Cut on Finders or Hands. Preventable.

Tiny Nicks or Weepers. Mostly Preventable.

 

[abies]

I suspect, like most of these epidemiological (i.e. purely statistical) studies the correlations they report do not imply any causal link. So shaving probably doesn’t prolong life, but rather that people who shave frequently tend to take better care of themselves overall, and/or have higher paid jobs that require a neat appearance and have better healthcare, better diet, less anxiety, and live in a safer environment as a result of their income. These studies are usually only telling us that people with more money tend to live longer, which we all know. You are not going to live longer simply by shaving more often - it’s just that the kind of people who shave more are also the kind of people who earn more and live in better conditions.

I interpreted that study basically in the same way as you — although it's also possible that there's a direct causal effect in the other direction, that people who are ill with a serious illness might not be able to shave. I suspect it's an empirical data point for clinicians to keep in mind as they're observing patients.

I was mostly amused by it and thought a shaving forum might be interested in it. I also suspect it indicates it is unlikely that shaving is *unhealthy*.