Remember , AZ has Cactus

[azdigger 1,474]

OUCH....

[Morlock 1,624]

I've had my share of run ins with cholla. Very unpleasant. I'd hate to be that guy.

[BMc 1,025]

52 minutes ago, azdigger said:

OUCH....

Is this Adam or Bolderdash? If so, big nuggets can't be far away! 

[wet/dry washer 197]

got one in the neck, walked two miles to truck, eleven miles to get pulled off. that was 1974, up two eight years ago would get a few blackhead pimples there. guess they finally worked there way out.

 

[azdigger 1,474]

At the fall outing in 2017 I reached under one to dig a target and got one pod in the hand....don't get close to them if I can help it.

[Old Tom 1,083]

I wonder just what kind of protection those latex gloves will provide the EMT's?  Probably keep from getting their blood all over the poor guy.   

   Old Tom

[Uncle Ron 1,486]

Teddy Bear Cholla... nasty critter and I've sported more of them than I like to think about...There's all kinds of pain in the world, but Cholla has a special perch in Hell!  The guy in the picture was riding a mountain bike a few years ago, missed a turn on the trail, and, well, you can see the outcome ... I Always carry a stiff comb and a pair of multi-tools ... They've been put to use many, many times!!!!  BCOT ... Cheers, Unc

[Dakota Slim 1,013]

Cholla are just plain nasty. My first bad experience came when one stuck to my pick handle while beeping at LSD. I didn't realize it until i went to grab the pick and ended up with a handful of it. It was stuck good -- to all my fingers, the palm of my hand and my thumb. I quit going anywhere that I knew they grew when I had a dog. Now I have no dog and I still won't go. 

[Bedrock Bob 3,905]

Teddy Bear Cholla is wicked. It sticks hard, breaks off and goes with you. Here we have a completely different kind of cholla that won't let you go. If enough of your body gets stuck you can't pull yourself out. It is tough and ropey and won't break off. You just wind up pulling yourself deeper into the cactus as you struggle. The Apache and Navajo would throw a man into a cholla instead of killing him. They often perished before they managed to get loose. 

I know a climber who fell into a big cholla at the base of a rock face. He landed flat on his back and it broke his fall perfectly. But it took hours for rescuers to get him loose from that cactus and weeks to get all the thorns out. If it was not for the cactus he would have surely died from the fall. But he spent hours of agonizing pain being extracted from that cholla.

I know another guy who was standing next to a cholla relieving himself and his arm bumped into it. It pulled him off balance and he fell into it. He could not get out of it by himself. He was so stuck to the cactus that we had to pull him off in sections with kitchen utensils. His skin would stretch out like rubber when we pulled the cholla out of him. 

 

[LowPoint 1,248]

Boy does this photo bring back a painful memory for me!!  When I was about 10 while spending the summer months down at my grandparents ranch in Skull Valley I got the bright idea  to go up on the mesa above the house and fly a kite ( best wind up there ya know).  I was dressed all-summery,..(for back in those days) levy pants cut down as cutoffs, short sleeve T shirt, and ratty-thin-soled tennis shoes.   Well, up on that mesa where small patches of about a foot-high cactus somewhat like the one pictured;..some where closer to the ground than others.  I got the kite up a ways and then made a run for it (forward) to get it even higher, skipping and dodging the cactus plants and ground-level cactus patches as I ran.  I was doing just great, and even got the kite high enough up to run thru a whole ball of string.  I tied on the start of another ball of string and started letting it out as I (without thinking) began to back up.  I hadn't made more than a step or two backward and something stumbled me; upon which I fell backward onto the ground and smack dab in the middle of one of those cactus patches. It was made up of both green and dead cactus joints or fingers (like jumping cactus) each being from 1" to 3" long, and just full of daggers.  My entire back, back of my arms and shoulders, and the back of both of my legs where just covered about like the dude pictured.  As I recall for a young and energetic 10 year old I was in extreme pain.  I managed to painfully-struggle-my-way down off of the mesa (cactus-hitch hikers and all), where my grandmother and my mom had me lay flat on my stomach while they both took plyers, and even tweezers to pull all of them out,.....one-at-a-time.  I think that the worst pain came from the backs of my tender legs,........................"YEP", that's a memory you will never forget!!             "AND" definitely keep dogs away from these patches, as their first instinct is to pull the cactus finger out (from where ever) with their mouth; so it is now stuck in their mouth,.........."or" they try to shake one off of their feet and the thing flies thru the air, and if you are within it's path of travel,..you now have one jabbed in you,................"YEP,.. been-there,.....-it-done-it-to-me" 

[Bedrock Bob 3,905]

Yeah, they can really hurt a dog. I have pulled the individual thorn clusters out of my dog's mouth several times. They will gag, fight and exhaust themselves trying to get those things out of their mouth. And trying to get it out of the dog's mouth always buries a thorn in my hand too.

[chrisski 812]

I only had about 1/100th what the pic had, so I bet that is a day to remember. 

When I go detecting, I wear snake chaps, leather boots and leather gloves.  The Cholla do not penetrate the snake chaps, but they were still going through the leather boots and gloves.  I took a spray can of clear truck bedliner and sprayed lightly my leather gloves and boots.  The Chollas don't penetrate through that.

I do wear glasses and a hat, in part to keep the cactus needles from getting in my head when searching the hard to reach places.

I will also add a comb to my detecting pack.  I do have a small set of needle nose from Harbor Freight to pull needles out.

[Swampstomper Al 1,336]

Ya don't normally hear "Florida" and "cactus" in the same sentence, but we do have a few varieties..
That's all I really have to say; y'all know the rest of the story in one form or another.. 

Swamp

[Relichunter2016 707]

This just looks bad.....

[Morlock 1,624]

It's a wonder this guy wasn't killed. That is the scariest cacti I've ever seen.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/11/us/cactus-car-saguaro-arizona-drunk-trnd/index.html

[H-2 Charlie 183]

[H-2 Charlie 183]

[garikfox 76]

Oh noo's! ouch! poor doggies