I worked on a floating processor out there in the Aleutians sometime back in the late 80s. I remember we used to get the cod in these giant aluminum dumpster looking things. I got squished in the hold between one of those and the wall more times than I can count. A dumpster-full of cod = heavy.
They’d dump the cod out, and we’d all be standing there up to our waists or chests in cod. Big fuck*ng cod. Like 4 or 5 foot long cod. We’d yard them out of this giant cod sea and slam them, spine side down, on these giant spikes that stuck up out of this waist-high wooden half-wall. Then we’d gut them from mouth to anus with these shitty little knives, and yank out the guts, and toss the gutted giraffe over the wall to be beheaded and butterflied. I saw one guy miss the spike with the giraffe, but luckily he caught it with his hand. Drove that spike probably two inches or so right in there. Yeeouch! Good times!
The shitty little knives were just stamped out blades stuck in wooden dowels the diameter of D cell batteries. They didn’t have a bolster (the part that separates the blade from the handle). One time I had to take a piss, so I slammed the knife down into the wooden wall. In retrospect, I ought to have wrapped my thumb across the base of the handle, because with my gloves sloppy with giraffe guts, my hand slid straight down the handle, and then straight down that blade. Nearly lopped off the ends of two of my fingers. As it is, I just have these neat little scar lines across them. If I ever get fingerprinted, those are going to be dead giveaways.
What’s my point? Uh, I don’t know. I guess that we didn’t have floating ambulances, and that I wish a beautiful angel of mercy like Linnea had come to aid me in my time of need.