Has your Knife ever saved your bacon?

I was being stupid back in my 20's and "rock climbing" in Pa. In the winter. With ice. I was pretty high up and standing on a ledge with another ledge transition in front of me at face height that I needed to get on top of that happened to be covered in soft ice/hard snow. I pulled out my Air Force pilots knife and sunk it in to the ice for a hand hold and pulled myself up to my knees. I puckered afterwards and never did it again. It would have been a long carry out had I fallen.

No, but I have cut bacon with my pocket knife. Wait, does opening a wine bottle in the outdoors to share with a beautiful woman count?

Speedo66 said:

Wait, does opening a wine bottle in the outdoors to share with a beautiful woman count?

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I would think so. I carry a SAK, just in case of emergencies like that.

Yes, in 1991 I held off 5 Monrovia Nuevo Varrio gangbangers who jumped me with a knife that my dad gave me before he passed away.

With me warning them off and not allowing them to encircle me no one wanted to be the first to rush me.

If was a liner lock folding knife and was the sort of knife you gave to a teenager with the expectation that they'd probably lose it, but I actually managed to hang on to the thing. I still have it.

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My knife (a different one, this time a Kershaw) saved someone's bacon before as well. My partner and I responded to a motor vehicle accident where the SUV was upside down. A passing driver called it in. It was teetering on the edge of the ice of this small (but large enough to drown in or suffer the effects of hypothermia), newly made frozen pond on the side of a crossroads in SW Dallas County.

It was about 11 years ago where one of our snow weeks in the Dallas/N. Texas area had started with rain, which then froze and then piled snow on top of it. The little roadside pond that in the large depression in the ground was actually shallow enough to stand up in if you desired, but having a jammed seatbelt on one of the elderly couple and having the other one panicking represented a real chance of drowning or hypothermia.

The engine was still at least 5 mins out with road conditions, so it was just us and so my partner grabbed the rear end of the car and used his weight to stabilize it some and I crawled in to cut them both loose while making sure not to accidentally stab or cut them in the process (since they were upside down and I knew that their body weight would instantly start to go the millisecond the belt was cut or the button release was hit) and to avoid cutting myself. Got them both out without anything further happening to them.

Speedo66 said:

No, but I have cut bacon with my pocket knife. Wait, does opening a wine bottle in the outdoors to share with a beautiful woman count?

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More than most people know.

My knife has saved two horses from injuring them selves or others.

First,
Somebody tied a horse to a RAIL instead of a post. they knew better but did it anyway.

The horse spooked and pulled back, jerking the railing right out of the post.

Now we have a spooked horse being chased by a railing that is tied to the horses head. It starts swinging its head and the heavy 8ft railing (with one spike at each end) trying to get away.

I ran over and cut the line and the horse was free. We got lucky that day. If it had gotten into another group of horses or hit someone with the rail, it would have been an awful day.


Second time was much less dramatic but could have resulted in injury all the same.

We used to use overhead lines at night to picket the horses. Its essentially a rope that goes above the horses then you use a separate line to tie the horses to the overhead line.

This horses line was too loose and when it went to scratch its head with its back foot, it got caught in its line and fell down. When a horse hits the ground some will lie still, others will thrash around until they free themselves or injure themselves or both.

I saw the horse start to go down out of the corner of my eye and by the time he hit the ground he got one good thrash out before I cut his line. Resulted in a severe rope burn on the pastern, just below the hock. Healed after a few weeks.

I saved my neighbor's cat from being hanged. I was in my bathroom and just happened to be looking out the window and saw my neighbor's cat on a leash tied up on their back porch walking along the window frame where there used to be a screen. When it reached the end of the leash, it tried tugging at the leash to go further, then slipped and fell outside the porch and ended up hanging there by its neck. I quickly put my shoes on and got a utility knife (yep, that's what I used!) and ran over there and cut the leash. The cat dropped down and quickly ran off. Then I had to tell the neighbor about it so they'd know how the leash got cut.
Lesson learned: Don't tie up a cat with a leash. Cats climb things. If they fall, they could be hanged, and may not be so fortunate to have someone see it in time to save them.

BTW, I guess I can't say that the utility knife saved my bacon. But it did save the next door neighbor's kitty's bacon, not to mention the 9 year old girl who owned her some grief.

I used one to prevent a bar right in college. I got pushed into a very large man setting at the bar. Though I said excuse me and offered to pay for his drink he wanted to pound me at that point I place my Smokey Mountain small 4 inch toothpick tip between his 3 and 4 ribs and told him I was really sorry but I was prepared to hurt him to get out of this jam. He soldered up real fast and let me go.

Saved a friend of mine from drowning. He always carried a buck110 knock off when he was working on his boat Justin case somehow he got tangled up in the nets or in the lines. One day he was pulling up his net during a storm and went overboard. His knife allowed him to cut himself free and climb back aboard the boat.

Yes. More than once. I don't care to talk about it. Bowies are not too big.

I've cut three or four horses loose when they got tangled or just decided to uproot the hitching post. Like Again pointed out, some horses will take it in stride, and others will try to break their own necks. One was tied to a lightweight corral section when he blew up, and started disassembling said corral. He began backing away from the section, dragging it with him. I managed to run over and cut the lead rope and free him, but missed the grab on the shortened lead rope and Dobbin went running around through the campground, stirring up the rest of our horses and pissing off the dogs. After we finally got him gathered up, his owner owner ragged on me for not "minding my own business."

I'm sure having a knife on me has deflected some aggression more than once, but I've never had to actually draw one.

A coworker got his hand wound up in a v-belt and pulley, he was hollering for help, I cut him loose with my Swiss army knife, he was lucky and only bad bruising of four fingers.