low_delta

This is one of my favorite stories of my Dad's.

When he was in High School, he was playing a game called Splits with a friend. He was using his hunting knife, which was not a very large one - maybe a blade of five inches. The way it is played is the two opponents stand with their feet together, about three or four feet apart. One person throws the knife at the ground, and the other person has to move his foot towards the knife. The first person whose feet are so far apart that he can no longer stand, loses. The knife must land no farther from the foot than the length of the knife or it doesn't count - otherwise, you'd just throw it in the bushes and win.

You've already figured out where this is going, right? Sure enough, my dad got the knife in his foot. Through his foot, actually. So he pulled the knife out, and went into the school to find help. The coach was the only person there with any kind of medical knowledge, so...

Where's Coach?
Down there, I think.
Coach? No, he's not here. Try up there.

After not very long, the blood was bubbling out of the hole in the top of his shoe, so there was a bloody trail from one end of the school and back.

He finally found Coach. He told my dad that it was probably clean since it had bled so much, and he put a piece of butterfly tape across the cut.