The Danger of Being a Butcher
HAVANA TIMES — When I became a butcher, I knew I would have to face the band saw for the rest of my life—or at least for the rest of my working life, unless I changed jobs.
A huge amount of meat to cut, my insignificant fingers, and in front of them a machine that neither reasons nor negotiates, with razor-sharp teeth that cannot tell the difference between beef and human flesh.
Every day, I had to pass my hands by it over and over again—two hundred or three hundred times, maybe more—sometimes within a centimeter of the blade, sometimes even brushing against it.
As the months went by, I grew more confident. I thought, “What happened to others doesn’t have to happen to me. That guy was talking while he was cutting. This one forgot to install the safety guard. The other simply had bad luck.”
I watched the months turn into years. I looked at my hands with pride, seeing nothing worse than minor injuries: the occasional knife cut, a scrape, a puncture from a bone. Everyday wounds that healed quickly. Small annoyances I had learned to live with.
Nothing serious. “I’m far too careful. I’m the master teaching these young guys,” I thought. Until, in the blink of an eye, one careless moment made me ignore the danger.
There were fifteen minutes left before it was time to go home. The meat display case was almost perfect, with only a few finishing touches left. Then I picked up a piece of osso buco and placed it on the saw.
Some of those cuts come with a cord tied around them to make handling easier. It was a strong cord, difficult to cut even with a sharp knife.
I should never have tried to cut the meat with the cord still attached. It became tangled and violently yanked my right hand toward the serrated blade. It all happened too fast to react, but I managed to pull my hand back just in time, at least enough to prevent even worse damage.
The blade cut my thumb. When I pulled my hand away, I instinctively grabbed it, covering the wound. I covered it so completely that I couldn’t even tell what had happened. Besides me, there were three other people in the butcher shop. They looked at me, waiting. I told them I had cut myself, but even I didn’t know how serious it was.
Finally, I gathered the courage to uncover my hand. Blood immediately began to flow. I raised my hand, trying to stop the bleeding. I didn’t scream. I didn’t complain much. I changed my clothes and took an Uber to the hospital. I felt strangely sedated, even though the pain was intense.
The people around me seemed to move in slow motion. I felt dizzy, but I managed to make it to the hospital to be treated. I received three stitches—perhaps as a reminder that when you work with a saw, you must always exercise the greatest possible caution.
The very thing that caused the accident was also the reason I didn’t lose my finger. The cord became jammed in the saw blade just in time for me to pull my hand away before inertia could finish the job it had started.
Oh, my goodness! I am glad your injury was not worse, and that you are still able to write!