Trail Clearing Injury

*** WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST SHOWS IMAGES OF A MINOR INJURY SUSTAINED AS A RESULT OF FOREST TRAIL CLEARING. SOME IMAGES REVEAL A SMALL AMOUNT OF BLOOD AND GORE THAT MAY NOT BE SUITABLE TO ALL VIEWERS ***

This is the sort of blog post I would normally put on my sustainable forestry website. But as I'm only writing on my campaign blog for the next little while, I'm placing it here.

Yesterday I decided to clear some trail I'd previously marked. Most of the work simply involves removing forest litter (fallen trees, branches, and leaf piles), cutting saplings along the trail line, and sawing branches that prevent passage along the trail corridor.

Here's a series of photos about my trail clearing and a small injury sustained, of course, just at the end of the job.

Here's the trail entrance before I begin clearing.

Here's the after photo with forest litter cleared. The next stage
of trail clearing will involve leveling out the grade of the trial
surface.

An old hemlock log fallen across the trail route.

I hack away at the log with axe. The log was so decayed
I could have done the job with a sledge hammer.

I lift the cut log out of the trail section. Look ma! Only one hand.
Those old hemlock logs can be pretty light.

With the log out of the way, this section of trail is clear.

It was sawing the very last sapling - being careless - that I cut
my leg with the pruning saw. More hacking than sawing, the
sapling gave way and the saw followed through and sawed into
my leg. Blood soaked through the cut pant leg right away. Uh-oh....

Glad I had some gauze wrap in my first aid kit. I quickly wrapped
a section of gauze around my leg to stop the blood flow. Then I
picked up all my gear and walked back to the Forest Management
Office (FMO). Alone in the bush, walking is better than crawling.

Back in the FMO I got my bottle of hydrogen peroxide along with
gauze roll and package of sterile gauze pad. It was time to get
a good look at the wound and make a proper dressing.

I used my handy-dandy Leatherman multi-tool scissors to cut
away the gauze wrapping.

I got lucky. The cut was so close to the shin bone it didn't cut too
much flesh. The pressure from the first aid gauze helped to stop the
bleeding. Just a shallow flesh wound.

I poured the hydrogen peroxide over the wound to help clean
it and prevent infection.

I folded the sterile gauze pad and placed it over the wound.
Then I wrapped the gauze roll around my leg to hold the
sterile pad in place.

The extra wrap end is cut in the middle then
stripped into two pieces. I wrap the bandage
ends in opposite directions around the leg and
tie them together.

I double knot the bandage strips and tuck the loose ends under
the wrapping so they're out of the way. The gauze wrap shouldn't
be too tight - just enough to hold the gauze pad in place.
I'll live. Now back to work!