Man overboard!

[Impactfour]

As some of you know, I'm the captain of a relatively large oyster farming vessel. Just about everytime I tell someone about my job one of the questions I get is if anyone's gone overboard. Up until today the answer was no, despite the fact that our boat has no rails.

Well today if finally happened. I was reaching under the mainline (what our oyster cages hang from) to unclip the crane from some cages when the line somehow fell out of the back 'starwheel.' The line has about 250,000 oysters, plus the weight of all the bio-fouling on it, so it was under a lot of tension to say the least.

All in all I got pretty lucky, when I was thrown/dragged overboard I managed to land myself on a cage, and fortunately my arm didn't get stuck between anything, so I avoided snapping it. Unfortunately there must've been either barnacles or mussels on the line because it sliced the every living hell out the entire length of my forearm.

All and all things could've been much worse in this one incident, and as far as fisheries work goes my crew has had pretty good luck for the decade or so I've been working.

I've attached a photo as a visual aid since my text descriptions aren't always the best.

[JeepDVLZ45]

Glad you’re “OK”, bud. Must have given you quite the scare!

[Impactfour]

It honestly happened so damn fast that I was back on the boat before I really realized I was off it. I went to give a thumbs up to a coworker who was running over and that's when I noticed my arm.

[BrickHaus]

Am I the only one curious to see the gnarly gash?

[Impactfour]

I'll try to remember to snag a photo tomorrow afternoon. I just gave it a nice cleaning and applied liquid skin wrapped it up with some bandaging.

[Swedgin!!]

Holy “Close call”. Good to hear you made it back on the boat with just a gash. Props to your co worker for quick thinking. A stiff drink is needed after that incident.

[Impactfour]

Me too. I've had some friends get real jacked up, one of my buddies was on a lobster boat in a storm when a wave crashed through the window, sending pieces of plate glass through one guys shoulder and across one guys face vertically from hairline to chin. I suppose it's all pretty relative, but I've honestly gotten worse scrapes, bumps and bruises from ordinary work events.

Definitely due for a bit of tequila tonight, I've been rocking an adrenaline dump headache since 8 am.

[Heavy_D]

Glad your still with us, and avoided major injury or worse.

As a land locked Prairie Boy, The ocean terrifies me, ha.....

[Jimmydee]

What Heavy D said…

[JeeperCreeper]

I'm glad you're ok. Hopefully we see you at the field again soon.

[Impactfour]

I need to look at the pump event schedule, but I'm hoping to make that happen soon. I brought the pgp out at pumps and pistols and has a blast.

[NONOBLITUS]

Damn that’s a scary ride. Glad you’re ok man.

[redsquirrel]

Glad you were able to quickly get back onboard. Imagine you’d be fairly weighted down in the water with clothing you have to wear for the job.

[Impactfour]

One of our oyster cages was right below me when I went off the boat, so I was able to hop back up on deck before the water was past my ankles or so if I had to guess

[bouford]

good to hear you are ok! hope the forearm heals well and you don't need anything beyond first aid treatment

[Impactfour]

It's looking better than I expected. Barnacle and mussel scrapes are a lot like cuts from a knife or razor, they bleed a whole bunch even when they aren't deep. I just happen to have a whole bunch of them in one area.

[Cdn_Cuda]

Barnacles and Mussels slice right through you! Sharp buggers. Hopeful no stitches and lots of disinfectant!

[Impactfour]

No stitches, thank God because I'm terrified of needles. My routine has always been to clean with isopropyl alcohol, use steri strips to close the cut up and then apply liquid skin to speed up the healing. I basically repeat the process doing 12 or so hours on, removing everything to let it breath and then reapplying.

[shooter311]

Whoa, that could have been much worse, I am glad to hear you are relatively unharmed!

[Blackmagic71]

Scary stuff! Glad you’re ok!

[Axel]

Thank you for your service. I will remember this the next time I am safely enjoying shellfish on land

[Impactfour]

Another fun fact about oysters is that the average farmers oyster is handled about a dozen times before it reaches market. There's a reason those suckers are so pricey!

[Chuck E Ducky]

Glad you’re Ok other than a few scrapes sounds like you got lucky.

[Impactfour]

Oh for sure. It was a funny combination of luck. I've never seen the line pop out of the wheel unless we're moving or in strong winds, so that was unlucky, but everything else went about as well as I could ask

[Impactfour]

Did my best to snag a photo this morning. I'm pretty pleased with the job that my liquid skin routine did, I'm hoping it will be most sealed up by Saturday at this rate.

[BrickHaus]

I bet that was nasty if it had any depth to it. Ti's but a scratch now.

[Impactfour]

It was only deep at the spot towards the middle of those two deeper lines where a spot of flesh was kind of gouged out. Give it a couple of days and that will be all that's left at this rate.