PSA: Don't dig through old fill dirt with your bare hands

I was out at a site near the Ohio River back in June, just a volunteer gig helping screen some dirt from an old trash pit. Nothing special, just looking for bottle shards and maybe some bones. About an hour in I grab a handful of dirt and feel something sharp slice right into my palm. Pulled out a piece of broken glass but it was deep, like really deep. Had to sit there while someone drove me to urgent care, got 6 stitches. The dig supervisor said they've had people cut themselves on everything from rusty nails to old can lids out there. Has anyone else had something similar happen on a dig? What kind of gloves do you guys use that actually let you still feel small artifacts?

3 comments

3 Comments

ross.lily1mo ago

Buddy of mine on a different dig grabbed a handful of what he thought was just mud. Turned out to be a broken whiskey bottle buried sideways. Needed 10 stitches in his thumb.

logan6581mo ago

Thing is this happens WAY more often than people think. @ross.lily I've seen three separate people come into the ER over the years with the exact same story - grab what looks like dirt, end up with a chunk of old glass in their hand. It's like people forget that broken bottles don't decompose, they just get buried and wait. You'd think after the first few times you'd see a pattern but nope, everyone thinks they're the first one to ever make that mistake. The worst part is that whiskey bottle glass from the old days is usually thick and has that sharp edge that just shreds through skin. Lucky your buddy only needed stitches and not a surgery to fish the pieces out.

keith_bennett1mo ago

Not enough people talk about tetanus shots in these threads. Seriously when's the last time you checked yours? That rusty nail or old glass isn't just going to slice you up, it's sitting in dirt that's been marinating in who knows what for decades. Old fill dirt can have all kinds of nasty bacteria in it too, not just tetanus. My buddy got a nasty infection from a scratch on a bottle that turned out to be from an old privy pit. Soil where people dumped trash for years is basically a biohazard. At least carry some antiseptic wipes in your kit and make sure your shots are current before you start rooting around in that stuff.