Hey, come out and play! My friend was injured last night due to a
fight (or violent confrontation, if you will) at a pub. It happens,
part and parcel of the night scene here. He required stitches from the
self-injury which sliced through the area between the thumb and first
finger to the bone.
The incident happened late Saturday night (er…which makes it early
Sunday morning) – there was an altercation over some…well,
non-performing loans in my friend’s portfolio. Naturally, I won’t name
my friend to avoid incriminating anyone, and also since he,
er…instigated the matter by smashing a mug of beer into the skull of
the other party. The other party did not even put up a fight, there
were just two of them, grossly outnumbered, and the second person in
the other party instantly distanced himself from the confrontation.
Where did my friend sustain his injuries then? Well…not satisfied
with letting the other party get away by just “buying him a drink” (as
we call it here), he drove home and got his weapon of choice:
This is called “kwan tau” in Chinese. “Kwan tau’s” are black market
items and is usually sourced from profit oriented blacksmiths.
Now, this may look unwieldy, but not in the hands of an experienced person. It comes up to my neck and has a blade that is very
sharp. It has a good base for defending against attacks in the right
hands. This kwan tau has seen many gang related altercations, it is
only produced when necessary. It is said that the blade has been
“blessed” with the blood of a live chicken, which is supposed to give
it Strength +2.
Back to where my friend wounded his hand…it’s actually a
self-injury, as previously stated. He went back home, grabbed his
sword, and in his haste to exact righteous punishment, accidentally
severed the bit between the thumb and first digit by grabbing the sharp
end of the blade instead of the handle. He then returned to the pub,
totally disregarding the injury (balls of steel) and parked outside the
pub to ambush them when they came out.
He was holding it vertically in an attempt to conceal it when the
other guy came out of the venue. The other party did not see the
approach until the last minute – and by that time, the kwan tau has
been raised to the attack position and my friend was preparing to
engage the other party. You should have seen the scared shitless
expression on the other guy’s face! Haha! My friend managed to slash
one of his arms before the other guy promptly made like an Olympic 100
meter sprinter and ran as fast as he could. 🙂
Thus, that’s the rather anti-climatic end to this particular
engagement. It is somewhat difficult to chase someone who does not want
to suffer grievous bodily harm while holding a kwan tau (it’s very
heavy). Anyway, my friend adjourned to my place, dripping blood all
over the staircase and staining the walls red from his self-injury. I
gave him a towel to clean up the blood and another one of my friends
helped to clean up the drops of blood that leads up to the third floor
(where I live), to eliminate incriminating evidence.
My friend then improvised a bandage using toilet paper (yes, I do
have TP now), which didn’t help to stem the blood flow at all. It was
decided that a trip to (a private hospital, which will remain unnamed)
would be necessary. However, my friend decided that *cough* dissolved
in 30 ml of boiling water, self-administered through a vein would be of
better help. He’s been through a lot of violent altercations, so yeah,
if he’s not worried about it, then it shouldn’t be a problem.
It was 3 hours later before we finally made the trip to the hospital
for stitches. There was this funny conversation with the triage nurse:
Nurse: Hello, what’s the matter?
Friend: Knife wound.
Nurse: ………
Friend: Oh, I just accidentally cut my hand while doing woodwork, need stitches for that.
Nurse: Okay, follow me to the doctor’s consultation room.
Me: Excuse me, we’re his friends, can we come in as well?
Nurse: (looks at my digicam and giving me a strange look) Well…sure.
(Enters doctor’s office)
Nurse: Doktor, patient ini kata tangan dia terkena pisau bila gergagi kayu, you believe it or not?
(Doctor, this patient claims his hand was injured while doing woodwork, do you believe it?)
Me: (makes a wisecrack about that comment, lest the nurse think we are linguistically challenged and is unfamiliar with sarcasm)
Nurse: ………
Doctor: How did you manage to cut yourself like this?
Friend: I was, you know, sharpening my knife for the Ching Ming festival when my fingers slipped.
Doctor: (dubious look at our motley crew)
(Doctor proceeds to prep my friend with a local anesthetic and starts stitching)
Nurse: Who are you? A reporter?
Me: No, I just like documenting things.
Friend: He has a webpage where he posts stuff like this.
Friend #2: Yeah, he keeps a blog.
Me: Shh…mai kong chu lai wa eh website eh mia.
(Shh…don’t mention the name of my website)
Photos of the stitching:
Preping for stitching…
The stitching is done using a metal hook with a running thread.
Suturing…
Bandaged!
Video of the doctor stitching and suturing the wound:
Doctor stitching wound video clip [sixthseal.com]
I happened to notice what looked like “Water for Injections BP” at
the bottom of the tray where the procedure was done. I checked for CCTV
systems and other possible recording devices in the room and did not
see any. I was filming and taking photos the whole time and stealthily
moved nearer and nearer to my friend till I was sitting right beside
him, obscuring the view from the back (Nurse #1). The doctor was
preoccupied with the stitches and Nurse #2 was helping and I gauged
that their point of view would not include the tray.
I allowed myself another furtive glimpse at the bottom drawer and
mentally noted the position of the one that I could safely remove with
the least noise and disturbance to avoid unwanted attention. I moved
closer yet, and snapped a photo, before putting the digicam down on my
lap, and in the very same movement, blindly reached out for the
memorized position coordinates while pretending to be engrossed with
the doctor’s work. It did not make a noise at all, when removed from
the container.
I held it in my right hand, palms fully extended, with it pressing
against my thigh to conceal it, before pretending to reach into my
right pocket for my cell phone. I was actually transferring the item
I…er, relieved from the hospital’s inventory into my pocket. Easy. 🙂
I was pleasantly surprised when I inspected the item once we got out of
the hospital…it’s not “Water for Injections BP” but Xylocaine 2%
lignocaine injection in a 5 ml sterile pack containing 100 mg of
lignocaine. =D
This is the very same local anesthetic that the doctor used on my
friend, and he mentioned that it felt totally numb when the solution
was administered. I don’t think anyone would consider lignocaine to be
recreational, but veritas will be self-administrating and posting up an
experience report, just for fun. I guess being numb for a while in a
localized area can be considered “recreational”, so I’m looking forward
to it. The experience report will be up once I show my filial piety by
getting some insulin syringes (the doctor used a large gauge needle
though) from the pharmacy for my, er..late grandfather who has
diabetes. 😉
The doctor also prescribed a blister pack of Olfen-50 (Diclofenec-Na
50 mg tablets) for pain management. My friend took two and donated the
rest of the strip to veritas for his fun experiments with
pharmaceuticals. I’m not familiar with this particular substance and
I’ll have to research this to see if it has any recreational potential.
I also made a crack about why no oxycodone (Oxycontin) was prescribed
and the traige nurse glared at me. Oh well…
Saturday Shenanigans indeed…
