NIKOLAI — Iditarod musher Matthew Failor put a little too much muscle into trying to cut a zip tie on his sled bag at the checkpoint here Tuesday, plunging the blade of his knife deep into the skin above his knee cap.
"My sock started filling up with blood," Failor said. "I definitely tore muscle."
Failor had a new sled awaiting him at the checkpoint. His knife slipped as he cut one of the zip ties that held his sled bag in place on the old sled he would leave behind.
"It was just an accident. Unfortunately, a very stupid accident," he said.
By Tuesday evening, Failor used crutches as he walked out of the designated mushers' sleeping area at the village school and into the attached cafeteria, ordering a bowl of stew. Failor estimated that the self-inflicted gash was about 2 centimeters deep and 2 centimeters wide. He received five stitches from a local medic.
This is hardly the first knife accident on the Iditarod trail. Two-time Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey nearly lost his index finger during the 2011 Iditarod and he sued the Oregon company that made the knife that cut his finger.
Musher Jake Berkowitz was using a single-blade knife in 2012 to cut apart frozen-fish for his dogs when the knife slipped and stabbed into his left palm, severing an artery. He was withdrawn from the race.
Failor declared his mandatory 24-hour layover in Nikolai, a rest every musher must take somewhere along the trail. He said he planned to go to bed and see how well he could move in the morning.
"I don't think they're going to withdraw me. I think the ball's in my court," he said. "But I've got 16 dogs, and they deserve a good chance."