ERs Are Seeing More and More 'Avocado Hands'

Home chefs may need some cutting lessons
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted May 14, 2017 7:37 AM CDT
ERs Are Seeing More and More 'Avocado Hands'
This April 20, 2015 photo shows cutting techniques for an avocado for a tossed salad recipe in Concord, N.H. Emergency room doctors are warning to be careful if you want to try this at home.   (AP Photo/Matthew Mead)

Avocados are all the rage. So much so that Huffington Post recently called the opening of New York's first avocado bar "painfully trendy." Turns out avocados are also, quite literally, part of a painful trend. Emergency room doctors are reporting an increase in the number of amateur chefs winding up with serious "stab and slash" injuries as they attempt to cut through the soft flesh and remove the hard pit, reports the Times of London. The injury even comes with its own name: "avocado hand."

"I had to go to the [ER] and get three stitches and I have lost most of the sensation in my finger," Freya Watson, a TV producer in London, tells Vice's Munchies. "When I was in the [ER], there was a woman with the exact same injury." Sure enough, people are posting pictures with hashtags like #avocadoinjury, and Simon Eccles—secretary and former president of the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Aesthetic Surgeons—tells the Times he sees four patients a week with avocado hand. So if you're unskilled yourself, maybe watch a few tutorials before attempting to dissect. (Here's why avocados are getting spendy.)

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