It came attached to our friend's son's hand.
The meaty portion of the hand where the muscle can really give hooks something to tenaciously cling on to.
Once we got the call, we sprung out of bed to gather supplies for our make shift OR.
Coincidentally, our niece had just arrived to stay with us for a few weeks to shadow Steve at the hospital for a pre-med requirement.
Steve called out to her, "Carly!! get down here. Your shadowing rotation is about to start right now."
Dustin, (with the hooked hand in his mid 20's), his 15 year old brother and his mom N arrived and I welcomed them wearing Steve's lab coat with a stethoscope hanging around my neck.
(I may not be a doctor, but I play one on TV)
It was not the simplest of procedures.
Not with the pliers and a wire cutter (the non-sterile kind)
The kitchen (again, did I mention non-sterile?)
And a shot of Jack Daniels for the patient.
The scene was ugly, but it did not deter G from
whipping out little ice cream cones from the freezer and passing it out to spectators.
I had one too.
You had to have been there.
There was blood.
There was Betadine all over the place.
There was wincing and a bit of yelling.
A few F-bombs that the spectators clearly enjoyed.
At some point during the ordeal, Dustin asked for something to bite down on and I handed him an apple.
An apple!!!!
The spectators all started laughing rather hysterically. I shushed them.
He declined the apple and directed my attention to a hand towel on the counter.
(he had no idea how unsterile the towel he was asking for was)
So I quickly got him a freshly laundered one to stuff in his mouth.
With laser focus, Steve never looked up from his work.
While N held Dustin in place, Steve cut the ends of the hooks off in order to do the least amount of damage to the flesh as he worked the metal carefully out of Dustin's hand.
Hooks were flying all over the place.
One silenced G by hitting her on the forehead.
That made the spectators step back.
Finally Steve said: "The operation was a success, but the patient is dead."
G said, "but what about this cut on my forehead?"
Steve said, "that is called collateral damage."
You had to have been there.