It's funny. the idea for this topic came to me this morning when I was lying in bed, and then it came up in real life at work later that same day, when My friend and coworker Madison (not her real name) sliced her finger while cutting limes. This, of course, started a discussion on the best way to proceed.
Should I go to Hospital? This is pretty much a no-brainer. You should never go to the hospital. So you just sliced your index finger down to the bone with a 10" chef's knife? And you want to leave the restaurant at 8pm on a Satuday night when we're overbooked? Yeah, you're pretty much over.
One night I was polishing glassware - actually, I was at Husband's work, helping him polish glassware so that we could get out and go get some gin, when I broke a glass in my hand. The stem shot through the fingernail of my pinkie all the way down to the first knuckle. I didn't really think anything of it - I just wrapped a napkin around it and kept polishing, and it kept bleeding and bleeding. It wasn't until a few weeks later, when I discovered the stem had cut so deep it had split my fingernail, which took about 6 months to finally grow in straight, that it occurred to me that I might have thought to go get some stitches. But if I had gone to get stitches, Husband and I would never have made it out for a cocktail.
Where a normal person might rush to the emergancy room when they nearly slice off a digit, this would never occur to a line cook. When a line cook or apprentice cuts themselves, they will receive a derisive laugh and be tossed a tube of super glue from the chef. The chef will also instruct the employee to scour whatever he'd been cutting to make sure there's no blood or other biohazards in the carrots or whatever he was cutting. The apprentice will be granted a cigarette break, during which time the other cooks will complete his task and clean his workstation, and when he comes back to the line, the super glue had better have dried, and the cook will then proceed through the end of service without ever mentioning his inability to properly handle a knife.
No amount of super glue-related hubris will hold a match to what I saw a line cook Mr. Darko do. Mr Darko (who, by the way, was tall and skinny) cut himself while chopping something. The cut was bleeding prolifically. With a perfectly straight face, Darko lit the blow torch used for creme brulee (this is a reall blow torch - a chef would never, and I mean never ever, use the sort of creme brulee torch you buy in specialty kitchen stores) and held it to his Global paring knife. The blowtorch was held to the paring knife until the stainless blade was glowing red. Darko continued with his stoney face, he set the blow torch aside and held his rocket hot paring knife flat onto his wound. The entire staff seemed to be wathing him in amazement, in awe, as we listened to the audible and palpaple sound of his skin searing and shrinking and frying under the heat his knife. The blade stayed on his wound for at least 30 seconds, at which time Darko set down the paring knife, held his cauterized wounded hand under some cold water, and turned right back work. The staff still seemed to be dumbstruck, watching as he returned to normal and continued working.
"Actually, it was pretty hot," I say to my coworker years later, as I recant the story."I've never seen someone cauterized their own wound with such determination and confidence. Yeah, that was pretty hot. I have respect for that boy."
