.25″ in by .045″ Diameter
That’s how big the Black Locust thorn was, that was buried in my index finger, at about a 45 degree angle. I got it Saturday. I was playing disk golf, and I threw a bad shot teeing off for hole 4. It landed in the edge of the woods. I’m usually a stickler for throwing it where it lies, and it was behind some thorn-covered saplings. So, I tried to do a short swing, but didn’t, and a thorn met my finger. I pulled out the little pieces that I could reach. After hole 5, we pulled out the first aid kits, and I tried with a tweezers but couldn’t get it out. So I dressed it, and went back to playing. I made some pretty lucky shots with my off-hand.
I tried repeatedly to dig it out, bought some tweezers—for ultra-fine work, tiny eyebrow hairs, ingrown hairs and huge, sharp, broken-off tree thorns. They weren’t fine enough, so after digging and poking, and cutting and snipping, I got out a stone from a bore-sizing hone, and sharpened the tweezers to a nice point. Finally, Monday evening, I got a good grip on it, and pulled…out. Ouch! But is was relieving to finally be free. It didn’t really bleed. I poured some more alcohol over it, and bandaged it up with triple antibiotic. Now, it hurts slightly if I poke it right. Based on how much room I guess is in my finger, I wonder if it didn’t hit the bone. Whatever, I’m glad it’s out. It has sealed over pretty good, and doesn’t seem to be infected. I guess keeping it alcohol’ed and antibiotic’ed was good. Also, the thorn made a nice tight plug.
Leave a Reply