My grandma calls my mom to tell her she has just had a minor fall, so my mom and I rush over to help her right away. We notice that she has bumped her head and it is bleeding slightly. Even though she is in a good mood and says she feels fine, we decide to take her to the emergency room to get it checked out.
At the hospital, my grandma is shown to a bed in a large open room with several other patients. In the bed closest to hers is a man in his twenties or so who looks really nervous, so we decide to start up a friendly conversation while we are all waiting.
Man: “Yeah, I’m here because of an avocado.”
Grandma: “Wow, must have been some avocado! How did you manage that?”
Man: “Yeah, man, avocados are like, really dangerous! I was just gonna make some guacamole — it’s so good, you know? So, I opened the avocado, and I went to take the pit out with a big knife like chefs do on TV. I hit the pit really hard, but the knife bounced and got my finger instead. I’m really afraid of blood, and so is everyone else in my family. It’s just, like, really gross and everything. So, I barely managed to call 911 before I passed out, and they brought me here.”
Grandma: “I had no idea avocados were so dangerous! Don’t worry, though; you got to the right place, and I’m sure they’ll have no trouble patching up your hand.”
Man: “I hope so because I’m starting to feel kinda woozy again.”
Just then, the man’s doctor arrives and starts getting ready to stitch up his hand. We chat amongst ourselves for a bit and then glance over to see how he is doing. The doctor is sitting in a chair beside the man’s bed, facing toward the foot of the bed, and bending over the man’s hand while he works on it.
The doctor is so focused on his work that he isn’t paying any attention to the man’s face, but from our side of the room, we can clearly see that all the color is draining out! I thought people only turned shades of green in cartoons, but let me tell you, it really happens to this guy. As he is getting paler and greener, we try to get the doctor’s attention, but he is concentrating really hard and doesn’t hear us.
Finally, we see the man start leaning to the side as if he were in slow motion, and then he starts to tip over!
Mom, Grandma, & Me: *Shouting* “Doctor! Your patient passed out!”
The doctor looks up for the first time, surprised.
Doctor: “Oh, well, would you look at that.”
He calls for a nurse, who arrives immediately and takes care of the poor guy. She stays with them the rest of the time to make sure he doesn’t pass out again!
Shortly after, another doctor arrives to take care of my grandma. After doing some tests, they find that, fortunately, her injury is minor and will cause no lasting damage, so they are able to give her a few stitches and then send us home.
As we are getting prepared to leave, the same nurse who helped the man earlier comes to check on us, and we ask her how he is doing.
Nurse: “Don’t worry; we got his hand all stitched up and he’ll be just fine. It was actually a pretty small cut. I’ve seen much worse avocado injuries before.”
Mom: “Really? Are people that bad at opening avocados?”
Nurse: “Oh, yeah, avocado injuries are really common, especially here in California where people eat them so often. Our nickname for the ‘syndrome’ is Avocado Hand.”
It was hard to keep from laughing at the man with the Avocado Hand! We’re just glad he ended up okay, and fortunately, my grandma made a full recovery, too. For years afterward, the story of meeting the Avocado Man at the hospital was one of our family’s favorites. Moral of the story: just take the pits out of your avocados with a spoon, people!
