SARANAC LAKE, N.Y. – Sometimes fishermen get hooked in a painful way.

Gary Nye, a physician assistant in the emergency room at the Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake for more than 20 years, has treated numerous anglers who’ve come in with the treble hooks from fishing lures stuck on their thumbs, arms or legs, ears, noses, eyelids, lips, the side of their necks, the back of their heads – nearly every body part.

He said he’s taken lures off several patients’ penises and scrotums, adding those incidents occurred when the individuals were fishing and wearing small bathing suits, or skimpy, loose-hanging shorts with nothing on underneath.

"Usually alcohol had something to do with it,” he said.

As a testimony to Nye’s services and other hospital staff to Adirondack area anglers, the hospital in 1990 began asking individuals to contribute the lures staff removed for posting on a bulletin board where they could be displayed for all to see.

Today, there are more than 100 lures displayed on two, side-by-side bulletin boards in the main lobby area of the hospital. One board notes lures taken from anglers from 1990 to 2000. The other, 2000 to 20??. On top of the display boards is a sign that says, “THE ONES THAT DIDN’T GET AWAY.”

The board includes a hunting arrow with a razor-sharp broadhead, but Nye and others interviewed said they could not remember the story behind it.

Gary Nye, a physician assistant, has worked at the hospital for more than 20 years and has personally removed a number of lures that were stuck on anglers.

Betsy Fuller, a nurse in the hospital’s ER for 20 years, said among recent patients was one who removed his wet boots after fishing and then happened to step on a lure. A set of treble hooks became embedded in one of his heels.

She remembers one individual who came in with treble hooks from a lure stuck on both thumbs.

He was fishing at Colby Lake across the street from the hospital, reached into his shoe to get a lure and it got stuck on one of his thumbs. As he tried to take it off, he ended up getting the lure’s other set of treble hooks caught on his other thumb.

She’s not sure, but she suspects alcohol was involved in that incident as well, she said.

The lure display was the idea of Dr. Michael Pond, the hospital’s former medical director, who is a fisherman as well. The hospital, a short drive just west of Lake Placid, has the only full-service emergency room within the Adirondack Park.

Sometime in the late 1990s or 2000s, he said, “someone cut out and stole four to five antique lures out of the case. I mean, these were absolutely gorgeous and expensive lures – Pikie Minnows and (other) things. (They) were made out of wood and painted.”

As a safeguard against further thievery, the two display boards are now encased in glass and under lock and key.

Nye said he’s removed lures embedded in patients ranging in age from 2 to 90.

So how does one remove a barbed hook stuck on an angler or any other unfortunate individual?

“95 percent of the time I can get the hook out without snipping the barb or pushing the hook all the way through,” Nye said.

He said he usually begins by putting tape over the lure’s other hooks to prevent further problems. Then, an anesthetic is injected into the wound.

The anesthetic serves two purposes. It deadens the pain and it also results in fluid around the wound and the barb. He said he then grasps the hook with a needle-holding device.

“And then with a little twist and flip of the wrist, the hook comes right out,” he said.

Nye said not all the lures could readily be removed by emergency room staff.

There were a few cases where a hook went into the “globe of an individual’s eye.” In those cases, he said, the patients were immediately referred to an eye surgeon.

A thank you note from an appreciative patient is part of the display.

Nye estimated about 85 percent of the patients with fish hook problems are “out of towners.”

One patient, Herb Beadle, of Sodus, N.Y. sent the ER staff a thank you note, enclosing the lure (an orange Flatfish) for display on the board. His note reads:

“Just wanted to say thanks again for the treatment you folks provided last Saturday while removing the fishing hook from my thumb. I was very pleased with the friendly, professional and timely care you all provided.

“I wish we could get care like that here in the Rochester area.”

Every patient is asked if they want to donate their lure afterward, but not all do.

Some anglers want their lures back,” Fuller said. “I’ve had some say it’s their lucky lure and they don’t want the barbs removed.”

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