Believe it or not..............
Iditarod musher attacked by his own knife becomes laughing stock
Dallas Seavey crowned youngest Iditarod champ in history
Iditarod musher Mitch Seavey suing knife company over blade design
When Iditarod dog drive Mitch Seavey was attacked by his own knife in 2011 and injured enough to be forced out of the race, he was upset. He did what people do in America these days when they are upset. He filed a lawsuit against the store that sold him the knife and the company that manufactured the knife.
No one paid any attention. The suit was stupid.
Then an Anchorage newspaper picked up the story in May of this year. Now the 52-year-old Seavey, the 2004 winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, is being mocked all over the 49th state and in goodly parts of the rest of the country.
Design flaw?
At dinner the other night, a former leader of the Alaska Legislature described the Seavey suit as part of what is wrong with the country. If judges would toss out this sort of frivolous crap, the now retired politician observed, the civil court system wouldn't be bogged down the way it is today.
Frivolous crap?
Well, yes, as some online commentators appeared to quickly figure out as the Seavey story rippled across the internet. The Seavey case, you see, hinges on the idea the lock-back Kershaw knife he was using had a design flaw that caused the lock to fail which caused the blade to collapse on Seavey's hand, nearly severing a finger. But there are a whole lot of problems with Seavey's argument, starting with the one quickly noted by a participant on thehighroad.org, a popular forum for shooters and other firearms owners.
"Sounds like the 'musher' Seavy (sic) oughta invest in a line cutter, a fixed blade or carry a live Boy Scout to safely perform his cutting for him," posted someone with the handle ApacheCoTodd. "I...would guess from this poorly (written) - though sadly standardly poor - article, that he was using it to hook towards him as a line cutter rather than hook away as a gut hook is intended. I'm sure the knife, the manufacturer and unfortunately, the retailer sold it as a gut-hook folder."
The "gut-hook" feature, as it is called, is incorporated into the blade to make it easier for hunters to eviscerate big-game animals without cutting into the intestines, spilling intestinal fluid and ruining the meat of the animal. The "gut-hook" feature is not designed for cutting the twine holding together bales of straw.
Folding knives fold
Others were quick to pick up on the significance of this. "It's a gut hook, not a cord cutter. Hence, I read that as he was using the knife in a manner for which it was/is not intended, implied, nor advertised to be used," posted ugaarguy on the same forum.
He's right, and there is problem No. 1 for Seavey. He was using the tool -- in this case a knife -- to do a job for which it was not designed. It would be sort of like using a bobby pin to clean the wax out of your ear and then suing the manufacturer when you injure your ear drum.
As someone calling themselves Shnick posted on another forum devoted to bush craft, "I feel bad for the guy, but when you expect certain conditions you don't buy a folder. I own several folders and each one has talents and limitations. I do not however own a gut hook knife ...These guys are using it as a cordage cutter, not it's original intended use. He probably didn't have it locked in the first place ... Gloves, mittens, driving snow, it could happen."
And therein is problem number two. Everyone -- or at least everyone who has spent much time in the outdoors, especially in Alaska -- knows that folding knives fold, and that when using a lockback folder, YOU SHOULD TREAT IT AS IF IT HAS NO LOCK. Seavey ignored this rule. He treated his folding knife like it was a fixed-blade knife, and it attacked him for the oversight.
He says it was because the release for unlocking the knife is poorly placed on the handle. Because it was poorly placed, he believes, he accidentally hit it, the blade released and -- viola! -- he was in pain and bleeding all over his dog straw. There are two problems there --the first being that Seavey bought the knife and should have noticed when he bought it where the lock mechanism is located.
Big Teddy
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