Amari - It Was An Accident

The spatula fell. It just slipped from a hand, heading for the stove.

It's easy to see how this could happen. Amari was clipping along at 7-8 knots, heaving with swells sometimes from the stern quarter, but randomly abeam as well. Below, you cannot see it coming, only having to react with knives and utensils and smoking hot grease sliding about on a gimballed stove.

No amount of protocols can prepare you for random.

As the spatula fell its handle struck first the stainless steel handrail just in front of the cast iron skillet we had just fried our fish in. The flat part inexplicably landed in the oil and the ensuing bounce flipped up a splatter of searing pain across Dottie's arms, her face, her eyes.

Now on the floor, screaming, hands to face, tossed by the rolling seas between bench and table we grabbed for towels, deck cloths, anything. There were still lighted flames on the stove.

The hot oil to the face, arms and shoulders leaves a long lasting pain that takes hours to recede. She needed something ice cold to out on it, and we had a freezer but no ice.

But we do have meat in the freezer.

So she pressed a pound of bacon to her face like a wide meat cloth until it warmed too much to do any more good. "What else you got in there?"

Out came the fish, so four separate WaHoo packets were enlisted into emergency medical service against her face. Ibuprofen helped as well.

We confirmed that she could see. She managed the pain with another round of ibuprofen before bed, and thankfully it's all okay now.

But there is nothing to do about random. The galley is a dangerous environment of sharp knives, flames, and burning hot pans. With so many dangerous (actually) moving parts, it's easy to see why the galley area of the boat is where most accidents happen.

Be careful out there.