St. Cloud Hand Surgeon Urges Safety Measures for Injury-Free Pumpkin Carving This Halloween Season

(KNSI) – A St. Cloud area hand surgeon offers tips to keep all your fingers while carving your jack-o-lanterns this weekend.

Midsota Plastic Surgery hand surgeon James Drinane says he always has new patients around Halloween. “We see a handful of pumpkin carving related injuries every year. And these are typically preventable injuries.”

The most injuries are to the tendons, nerves and arteries in the hand and fingers. Drinane says there are two typical ways people hurt themselves. “The most common way they injure themselves is they accidentally stab themselves with a sharp knife while they’re cutting the pumpkin either with the hand inside the pumpkin or the knife gets stuck. And then when it becomes dislodged from the thick skin of the pumpkin, it cuts them.”

Some things that people can do to make pumpkin carving safer are “To use a pumpkin carving kit, which comes with knives that are specifically designed to cut pumpkins, where they have a little bit of a hilt on the handle. And they have a nice wide handle. It doesn’t slip as easily as a kitchen knife,” said Drinane.

He mentioned always supervising children and teens when carving. Another tip is to cut out the bottom of the pumpkin so that when you put the candle in, it goes over the top of the flame, and you won’t burn yourself.

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