Warning: This article contains a graphic image of a knife injury to a hand that some readers may find distressing.
A PATIENT PRESENTED to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin after slicing through her left ring finger while preparing an avocado.
The 32-year-old woman required surgery and has since made a full recovery but doctors are highlighting the case as an illustrative example of ‘avocado hand’.
‘Avocado hand’ is the term coined by various UK media outlets for the apparent increase in injuries being inflicted by people preparing avocados.
The Irish Medical Journal has now published details of a similar case involving a woman in Ireland. Doctors at Beaumont Hospital described the phenomenon of avocado hand as follows:
Classically, the patients hold the avocado in their non-dominant hand while using a knife to cut/peel the fruit with their dominant hand. The mechanism of injury is usually a stabbing injury to the non-dominant hand as the knife slips past the stone, through the soft avocado fruit. These stabbing injuries have the potential to cause significant neurovascular, tendinous and/or bony injuries.
In this specific case, the woman presented to the emergency department at Beaumont Hospital with the knife still impaled through her finger and the avocado.
The knife was removed with the use of an anaesthetic and the wound was washed out before tetanus and antibiotics were administered.
The woman was then transferred to theatre for the wound to be examined and it was determined that a nerve in her finger had been cut.
The nerve was repaired and the woman was released later that same day.
The doctors who authored the report have said that the case should serve as an example.
“The public needs to be educated on the potential dangers of preparing avocados,” they said.
In case you’re wondering, here’s how Jamie Oliver says you should do it.
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