“But I Still Have My Hand!”

My brother's boss gave him a compound hunting bow that had been sitting in his shed for awhile, collecting cobwebs. Seemed to be in excellent shape, and is/was an expensive model when it was new. Jed just recently got around to setting up some hay bales in the back yard for target practice, and the bow was sitting under the car port just waiting for someone to 'play' with it.

Corinne and I were out there chatting, and I was amusing myself by pulling the line back as if I was going to shoot it — but without an arrow — and then slowly returning it back to the "unstretched" (idle?) position. Mainly I was just feeling how much strength was needed to pull it.

She told me she took archery in high school, and that it always gave her a big bruise on her left arm.

After I'd pulled it a couple of times, Corinne said, "Let it go!" So without thinking, I did.

The string tried to take my hand off. Really. It caught and cut my left wrist right at the joint, and dug in deeply. Any deeper, and it would have been sawing through tendons. Then the line snapped.

I didn't scream or jump around, so at first Corinne didn't even know anything was wrong. Within a seconds a big, black bruise formed just past the cut, and a little blood started flowing. Yes, it hurt.

Four hours later the bruise is completely gone, but the cut is really ugly. It doesn't hurt any more, but my wrist is a little swollen.

I knew there was a reason I wasn't supposd to just release the string without an arrow in it. Oh that's right... the bow bites if you don't feed it.

If nobody minds, I'll just stick with my cycling.