Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Cut my leg while field dressing a whitetail...

Maybe 15-20 years ago here in Montana a guy did get his femoral artery while field-dressing a bull elk. He was alone and they found him just as bled out and dead as the elk, within a few hours after it happened. Cut away from yourself.

Being a standard native Montanan, I have never worn gloves but it isn't a bad idea. Another guy got bubonic plague from a pronghorn a few years ago and was just as dead.

I have nicked myself quite a few times while field-dressing and quartering but nothing serious. The worst bleeding, though, was when I was gutting a big northern pike my wife had caught and wanted to take back unfileted to brag on. Pike die hard and this SOB grabbed my left hand even though his insides were all about out. I had to pry his jaws off my fingers with my knife blade. They have some sort of anti-coagulant on their sharp little teeth and I bled for close to an hour....

If I'm going to get cut, it's probably when removing lungs/heart by severing the windpipe. It happens once in a while but so far (knocking on wood) never serious.

I cut a finger pretty badly while getting the liver out of an elk a few years ago. After all the cattle I've butchered working in a slaughter house it was a little embarrassing.

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Trivia-FWIW!

Thanks for the welcome, and thank you for all the responses. The number one thing I took out of this is the response who said to relax and hang out for a few minutes after the kill. If I had done that 1. I wouldnt have forgotten gloves 2. gone slower 3. asked my hunting partner for the sharper knife.

That's good advice, jml. It is also a good idea to not hurry. It always takes me longer than everyone else to gut my deer. I just accept it and take my time. I agree with Lawdwaz on the dangers while severing the windpipe. Sometimes both hands are up in the chest cavity at the same time, with the knife in one of them. There's probably better ways to do it, but I don't know them.

I'm a blood brother with many a deer.

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I've not had a chance to try it yet , but a neighbor at camp and his buddys kill a few deer a year . They gave up on the reaching in for the windpipe. A small 3" cut in the neck gives them access to the pipe .
Anyone else try this ?

I cut my hands once or twice a deer but that is it. I am pretty comfortable gutting a deer and I am very careful. I usually get a little sloppy/quicker when skinning.

I got in the habit of using gloves back when I was a deer biologist and was posting several dozen to over 100 animals each year. I still use them, but occasionally nicky myself, especially while field dressing elk for some reason. I carry a small plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide in my day pack and make it a point to clean the cut, douse it with hp and band-aid it when I am through.

I have never contracted tularemia or other forms of blood poisoning from field dressing or posting deer and elk, but several of my graduate students and colleagues did. It's not pleasant. If you notice tenderness in the lymph nodes in your neck or arm pits or start to see red streaks in the skin near the cut, run, don't walk to the nearest health care facility and get treated with a good broad-spectrum antibiotic.

Jml403:

Risk is minimal health wise, but do keep the event in mind if anything remotely strange pops up in the coming months. Cures are far easier if issues are caught early.

The most serious potential in field dressing is a self inflicted mortal wound. We've all slippped from time to time, but one should NEVER EVER be cutting or forcing a knife toward our own bodies. Fingers etc are not too bad, but wrists, forearms, and legs are another issue.

About 8 years ago a hunter in our county bled out right beside his cow elk. Speculation was he had clasped a leg between his legs as he was forcing a knife along in the skinning process. The slip punctured his femoral artery, and he was either not equipped or quick thinking enough to save himself. Probably dead after 30 to 90 seconds.

With quick thinking buddies around, one may have a chance. Out in a wilderness where help or a plane may be hours to days away, it pays to truly keep the risks in mind as one works. Glad you are OK, but do keep it up front in the memory banks as a lesson learned.

Sharp knives, because they cut easily, are the best to work with from a risk standpoint. When a surgically sharp knife makes a cut though, there are no ragged edges to help foster clotting. That being, cuts from sharp instruments will bleed for a long long time. I'm a hobby flintknapper, and obsidian breaks to edges only a single molecule wide. A quarter inch long 1/8 th inch deep cut in an index finger from obsidean can take a half hour to get shut down. Pressure can stop the bleeding, but the instant one turns loose or flexes the tissue, it's going again. The up side is those wounds will heal completely in 24 to 36 hours, because tissue damage is minimal.

Again BE SAFE out there. Tell your other half that the most dangerous component of your outing was the drive out and back. If we let risk control our lives, we'd stay in bed and not ever take a shower. 1Minute

Cut a finger slightly this year - now my hair is turning gray, falling out, and my gut is getting bigger. Be careful out there pilgrim....

JB,

Those big ol pike have a pretty good grip for dead guys 'eh?

Same thing happened to me about 15yrs ago. That might be why I enjoy eating them so much.

Several years ago, a good friend, an outfitter in Cody, Wy., and a friend of his went for an afternoon deer hunt up in Deer Creek country, south of Cody. My friend had gutted a lot of big game of all sorts during his career but made one little mistake with the deer they got this PM, a mistake that cost him his life. He severed his femoral artery and bled out in less than two minutes. His hunting buddy said there was nothing he could do. He tried to come up with a boot string or something but it all happened so quick that he was helpless.

I heard of a hunter from Thermopolis, Wy. that almost had the same thing happen. He severed the artery but had presence of mind enough that he quickly cut the inside of his thigh open enough that he could grab the end of the artery and walked out then drove himself to the hospital. Of course, I didn't witness this so do not really know whether or not it is true but it sure is one of the local legends.

Just goes to show that there is no such thing as being too careful.

I have been lucky, and careful. In all my years I have cut myself with a knife only twice. The first time I was a Tenderfoot Scout with a knife too big and a sharping stone too small. I still cary the scar.

The second time was a small little nick on the side of my left thumb while I was working as a butcher. It wasn't large but it cut to the bone.

A few years ago we had two guys on our deer lease cut themselves badly enough to need a trip to the E.R. and stiches. One was using his skinning knife as a screw driver.

The other was already late for a dinner date with his wife when he shot a nice buck. He was in a hurry to get it gutted and cut his hand.

The same E.R. nurse saw them and her comment to both was; "Well, it looks like the deer are winning today".

Unless I am saving the cape, I open the deer up from A-hole to chin.

Never Ever pull a knife towards you while gutting or cutting through the brisket or stomach cavity. Always push the knife away from you. I have heard of more than one hunter that was gutting an animal and the knife slipped and stuck in his thigh and hit the femoral artery . They bled out before help arrived.
Hope this helps.

Theoretically, Deer can potentialy carry a number of diseases or conditions that are transmittable to humans and these are transmitted in a variety of different ways including blood to blood from misphaps with a knife like the one mentioned.

Off the top my head, and in no particular order: TB, Brucellosise, Rabies, CWD, Anthrax, Lymes disease, tape worm, and liver fluke to name a few..

As part of our hunter education system, this subject is taught in some depth, including what signs or symptoms you might see on a deer that indicates the potential presence of one of these.

The risk isn't huge by any means, but being able to recognise when something is not normal while doing the gralloch, and getting into good habits such as wearing latex gloves, minimises what risk there is even further.

For any one interested in learning a bit more, take a look at the link below and click on "Carcass Preparation" on the left hand side...You will then see various sections including a couple on carcass inspection and basic hygiene.

http://www.dcs.gov.uk/BestPractice/default.aspx

Edited to add the following link is to a discussion on a British deer stalking forum and it contains pictures of the results of one such carcass inspection...

http://www.thestalkingdirectory.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4357

Personally, that is one carcass I would not eat as there are a couple of indicators of possible TB....

I got myself really good in my hand this year when I was boning a deer out. Just going too fast with a really sharp knife and I paid for it.

I sliced open my left thumb last deer season with a sharp hatchet while busting open it's rib cage

I used to cut myself almost annually reaching in and cutting the trachea/esophagus. Now we always use the neck cut. It's easy and gets all the pipes out - right up to the point of cut. I usually make the cut right in the center of the white patch on a whitetail. The cut can actually be just a poke - maybe an inch wide. Then stick your finger in and pull out the tubes. Cut them while on the outside. Then pull the whole works back through the inside when pulling the chest contents. It can take quite a bit of tugging to get the pipes if you severed them way up in the throat. Sometimes helps to loosen them up from both ends with your fingers.

I've seen people try this and dang near cut them from ear to ear. Dang unsightly, that.

Craig

Watch out for folding knives that don't lock.