How To Remove A Fish Hook Embedded In Your Thumb.

If you are a doctor or nurse and you happen to have a little Lidocaine and some needles and syringes laying around your house, it can be quite easy to remove a fish hook that has been embedded in your hand, finger or thumb.  As you can see here, the barb on the tip has been embedded and the hook cannot be simply pulled back.    One could potentially inject the numbing medicine around the tip of the hook, push it through to the other side and use wire cutters to snip off the tip and remove the hook.    Now, if you are not a doctor or nurse and you don't have Lidocaine syringes and needles in your tackle box, you'll probably have to go to the emergency room, spend $1000-$2000 to wait three hours in the waiting room and two hours in the ER room as you continually get triaged down the list as a never ending assortment of drug overdoses and chest painers roll  in by ambulance.  If you had overseas insurance and you happened to hook your finger during a fishing trip to the Egyptian Red Sea, you could probably get the hook removed in 15 minutes for $30 cash.

But, what ever you do, don't try getting a Lidoderm preauthorization.  You'll just end up pulling out all your hair.  And for Heaven's sake, if you see this thigh in the ER (he's an ER doctor old medical school friend of mine), don't do what he does and fix your chainsaw injury in the comforts of your own home!

This is not medical advice.  I have never removed a fish hook and have only gone fishing about twice in my life.  Call your local doctor or game warden if you're looking for help with the great outdoors.