So this thread has me laughing, and I must chime in with our own BBQ injuries since we all have them. We are a three person team, and all three of us have endured some sort of injury related to smoking meat...
The very first smoker we got was a knock off WSM, and the hubs had just added some coals to the fire, but they were not catching, so he doused it in lighter fluid...it didn't catch. He reached down into the bottom to light it by hand, with a small lighter might I add, and BOOM....fire ball up his hand and arm. We were all a few adult beverages in at that point so some ice water seemed like a good idea at the time. The next morning, when his hand was slightly purple, we realized the ER was in order. In the end, he had 2nd and 3rd degree burns on two fingers and his thumb, and required cadaver skin and silver treatments to fix it...(I do have pictures, but they would not go well with food).
The next summer we had just finished cooking on our large steel off-set cooker and I had the top racked pulled out a hair and I was scraping away to get the gunk off the rack. Well all the shaking knocked the door off balance and it came crashing down on-top of my head. Luckily I saw it coming, and got my arms out of the way, but the handle came down just behind my hair line...8 staples and 1 ER visit later, I had a nasty headache...
Our third member's injures are not related to fire or hot meat, but they did occur at a BBQ contest, so I guess it counts. I was not there, as it was a night before the typical competition day start (some people got there early), but as it was re-told to me there was a lot of adult beverages involved, and some WWE style wrestling in some wood chips...All I know is when we got there the next day, our team member was covered in cuts and bruises and could hardly walk. I think fnbish could probably chime in here to add some more details... :becky:
