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I've been tumbled around a thousand times after falling from my board & no harm done. On this occasion a fintip had broken during my session leaving a treacherous jagged edge and this was the result, a deep puncture to my knee. You may notice the tail fin behind is showing similar stress marks to what the broken one had prior to heading out.
I was quite shaken to see my injury and there was little more I could think of but to stem the bleeding. I'm very grateful a fellow kiter was at hand and took responsibility for my situation, running for help from the lifeguards, even packing up all my gear for me and returning with my clothes as it was clear I was heading straight to emergency. I owe you one Craig, thanks heaps!
There's 2 lessons to this experience. 1)Gear maintenance, there were signs of a tired fin with many stress marks so thorough strength testing or better still, a full set replacement would have been reasonable. Of course even a fin in good condition is a risk and keeping the edge rounded & smooth is a good idea. 2) There's obvious hazards to kiting and we need to be on constant lookout for one another, even the more experienced guys can come unstuck. I know this has been covered previously, I don't think it can be repeated too many times.
Safe kiting
Col
Wow - thanks for sharing .. glad to all panned out ok, and good on Craig88 for helping. 
Hmmmmm, Surfboards are inherently dangerous. Ask Tommy Caroll. BTW nice stitch job.
That was a bit too harsh too, fins slice regardless...Accidents do happen no matterf how fresh the gear is. Agree too with the very fine stitching! Heal up dude, start shopping for new fins. So much to choose from regarding build and flex.
Your fins are always stressed and getting tired fins 
Bit of back luck thrown in their too, you can fall off a hundred times and nothing happen , then one day the dice roll the wrong way.
That's right, some have sh1t for brains while others are just plain old trolls, lol
Slave, while I enjoy your banter and thoughts on some things, sometimes you are just mean. Here is my take on surfing with a kite. If I was out somewhere with no backup fin and it was damaged as above, I would keep going. Whether or not the fin is jagged doesn't really matter. Fins cut either way. It would not effect the ride as much as if you were purely surfing and didn't have the kite as power. If I had a spare in the van I would swap it out. But if the waves and wind were good I would keep going. I would hardly call that foolish. Your mileage may vary.
Thanks for sharing COL, all the best for a speedy recovery.
Sh!t happens when kiting and in life in general, we all take risks and in hindsight some of the decisions we make are better than others.
If you were to treat this like a paid job and fill out a risk assessment/JSA/take 5 you'd still end up kiting.
The children on seabreeze are being a little bit hypercritical on this one, I guess we all need something to do when not kiting 
Finger is doing great Slave, thanks for asking :)
I know you think about safety a lot, and that is a VERY good thing. My point is this, if you land on that fin whether it is jagged or not, it's going to cut. In saying that, I do like the twin fin idea of riding the board without two of the fins. Small mushy day and it would be quite fun I imagine.
Carry on....
Thanks for the well wishes. It's good to have the conversation. I just want to clear up one important point as some may have misunderstood. Perhaps my fault.
If you look at the tail fin you will see it's stressed condition. How many of you will discard their fin at that point. I myself wouldn't have. Until now.
That was the condition of the thruster, as far as I knew.
The 1st I knew that the fin was actually broken was as I was fumbling around on the beach, after the event, a bit dazed and confused.
cheers
Col
I was just reading a few topics and Wow a topic in my name, well that’s a first 
but Col, its 66, not 88, i dont think i could handle being 22 years younger 
It was a no brainer that you needed a little help, its what we do. It was all in the timing, 5 minutes earlier I wasn’t there, 5 minutes later i would have launched and been on the water. (Which i was 10 minutes later)
As for me "running" well it was at best a slow jog.
And as for the blood, man for a little guy we could have painted the Pasha Bulker with the flow
Glad your on the mend Col, for an old guy you rip on the waves so hope to see you back out there soon.
Oh, just 1 quick question re the knee photos, pre and post stiches, did you get a stand in model or a quick leg tan at the hospital?
I don't think i would be as concerned about kiting along side someone with a fatigued fin as i would someone that doesn't wear a leash
That is an awesome gouge! Reminds me of some of the injuries in the hunger games movie I watched yesterday.
