| |
Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Funny but serious story
Posted By: JIMMYG.
Date: Tuesday, 16 August 2005, at 5:17 p.m.
This story posted on the Bass barn is a true one I was one of the boats with this guy. He is hard core new fisherman who didn't take heed it what we told him about infections!
First off thanks for all the calls and well wishes from Barners on and off the board.
After having a great vacation and fishing offshore five days in a row, I had the miserable experience of spending 6 days in the hospital as a result of having a tuna dorsal fin shot through my acheilles tendon and stuck (broke off) down into my heel.
The short story goes a little something like this and you can take out of it what you want. On the last day, actually best day of fishing yet we went 3 for 7 on whites, had one small pup mako released that hit a spreader bar, and a 3 tuna. Not a bad day for two guys on the little Oh Well 26 Reg. We actually had 6 whites hooked up out of the 7, which made the day even better! We broke 3 off for making rookie mistakes which we'll know better next time. All the whites, ALL, came up on the Canyon Runners Rainbow squid spreader bars that Paul has stock in. We got their moneys worth out of them that day. Even the small Mako we released chomped down on the CR rainbow spreader bars.
Anyway, the end of the day was coming around and my shoes stunk like absolute catpiss covered in wet throwup that sat in a locked hot car over the weekend. So i took my shoes off and put on some flip flops (mistake 1). End of the day we get on a double header one fish in the boat, gets bled in the corner. We're working on the other fish on the other side of the boat. I have the rod in my hands not watching the fish behind us...why would i anyway. The boat rocks and the fish slides across the deck and bang like gunshot to the back of my leg, WTF was that! End result after I cranked in the fish and Paul sticks it. I throw the rod down and find out I have the dorsl fin sticking out of my leg and bleeding. I sit on the side of the boat pull out the top part of it no big deal, until I move and find out still more in there. Ah I just take a nice pair of 'clean' pliers and bait knife (mistake2)...which I did wipe off and dip in the salt water..start cutting into my leg cutting away little pieces of skin until i could get my nice 'clean' pliers on the next piece(mistake 3). Got that piece out. Still had the tip, which wound up being about an inch and half on the xray. I tried to dig deeper (mistake 5), all the time with a bait knife that I slit the tunas artery with or fix a bally up with. Finally I got some good advice from Digger that went something like "dude are you nuts, stop digging into your foot!" which I did. After digger pulls up closer for some help and to throw me some Bedidine. I soak my foot in a bucket in it...while still fishing. Digger of course tells me the right thing to do which was get right to the hospital, which I should have listened to 100% now. (Thanks for the advice digger, next time your word is gold) Oh yeah by the way...i did the not so smart thing of jumping into the water also, with a bloody foot to go get the floating bag digger put the meds in(mistake 6) because Lynchie has a candy arm and couldnt reach the boat when we passed. We still had lines in the water and released a pup mako, it was only a 10 foot swim out and back but still, dumb. Oh well. Anyway stayed out and fished another hour or so, then even stopped on the way in trying to fish a weed line so we could get a dolphin out of the trip. After that, had an uneventful trip home, popped a few Aleves and Big Paul got me home safe while I laid in the bean bag with my foot in the bucket, we flew our flags proudly and all the while Im soaking my foot in a bucket of Benadine. Cleaned the fish with my foot in the bucker even, Paul cleaned the rig up while he had a romantic talk with the Crystal train about horse ballyhoos. ;-). We both ended our great weekend and day with extreme pain.
I should have listened to digger and Paul and just went to the hospital, I thought no big deal it didnt hurt that bad. I drove home that night, did some wash, was exhasuted and fell asleep. Woke up to a puss ball in my heel. Popped that, got a shower and headed to Manhatten for work. Got to Manhatten, started to limp and couldnt figure out why, worked up there all day, started to get a fever...couldnt figure out why. Anyway drove home, drove to the emergency room, (AFTER I COOKED UP AND ATE TWO STEAKS OF THAT BASTARD THAT GOT ME, he was delicious!!) Headed to the emergency room and of course had to explain what a tuna was and what a fin was exatly, they didnt believe me until I sat there for about two hours and got a 103 Fever and my whole body swelled up to a sausage and i could hardly bend my ankles and knees they were so fat. (fatter then usual before the jokes come in) After seeing me swell up in two hours they finally helped me. A doctor came in and saw me, got the xrays and said wow you werent kidding. I said no A hole now please take it out. They hooked me up to two IVs and starting pumping me with antibiotics while I sat there in a cold room until 5am and finally got in the hospital. A doctor finally strolled in around 11 the next morning and told me, they had no clue what I had but it wasnt a normal staff infection, which I gave myself by trying to perform minor surgery on my own on the boat with a bait knife. My bad. They send me a foot doctor and he asked me to look at it, I say of course, He digs into my oozing puss hole with a pair of what looked like needle nose pliers, after i went through the ceiling twice he said 'man, this bad' NO SHEET you deek, Im glad I farted the first time he jabbed me now! (i thought i shat my pants it hurt so bad actually) He tried to stick them things in a third time I told him, no way. Finally a real doctor comes in and tells me what i have, which was a staff infection coupled with some type of fish slime infection that they found out after they brought in a specialist from Infectious Disease, who saved me bc he spent some time in South Florida and realized what I had and got me the right antibitics. They gave me antibiotics for 3 days until they got it under control and they were able to operate on me to go in and get it out. Luckily they were able to get behind my achielles and didnt have to butterfly my heal open, which was the last option. 4 days laid up swollen getting pumped with IVs, tetnus shots, and percosets will teach you a few lessons.
Finally after 2 more days, after the surgery they gave me the ok to go home. Monday night to Saturday night in a hospital bed. Fun stuff ! Now Im taking 3 weeks of mega antibiotics and i have 4 dissolvable stitches on the inside of my foot and 7 on the outside with a sexy drainage hole in the back of my heel !
So wear your shoes on the boat all the time, I dont know if the shoes would have helped me bc its higher then my shoe goes but Im getting higher boots now and they'll be on all the time. I definitely wont be digging and scraping into myself with a bait knife either. Luckily my captain got me home safe and had a first aid kit. Digger, Hucklebuck and a few of the cape may boys gave me good advice and were out there to help when we needed it. So thanks go out to them and we even have to send a thanks to Reg 23 who gave us some supplies in a gatorade bottle to help out. Over.
Hopefully by the weekend I can ditch these crutches and get back to fishing. I cant wait to beat the F out of the first tuna that comes on board with the bat...after that all the tuna will be tail roped and hung from the corner...another lesson I could have learned the easy way a year ago from Hucklebuck (if I listened) !
OK you guys can all laugh Im out of the hospital, let the jokes roll in.
[ 08-16-2005, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: jbones11 ]
| |
Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board is maintained by Patrick McCrary with WebBBS 5.12.