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Melissa Norgart was attempting to remove an avocado pit with a long paring knife when the knife slipped and sliced through her left hand. “It went halfway through my palm,” Norgart told South West News Service. “It made a sound like when the killer stabs someone in a horror movie.”
After being rushed to the hospital, she was told that the knife had cut through an artery and severed a digital nerve. Even after a plastic surgery and nerve repair, she says she still has numbness in her ring finger a year later.
Although Melissa’s story may sound like nothing more than a freak accident, these types of cases are becoming exceedingly common. In 2018, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported that there were 8,900 avocado cutting-related emergency department visits that year in the U.S. alone – that’s nearly 24 visits per day.
Here are some important safety tips how to cut an avocado to avoid injury: