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Not a counselor story, but a camper story.
I went to a salvation army camp for poor (read: inner city) kids when I was about 13, a few nutjob kids but mostly ok and we had a good time. Being a rural kid out was my first experience being around black and latino kids, that was a bit of culture shock there.
One of the things they had my cabin group do was some trail maintenance. We were riding in the back of a trailer full of brush with all our saws and loppers, and a low hanging branch was about to smack us all in the face. Being a caring and responsible child, I reached out to grab it and snap it off. My new friend was standing next to me, and had a similar reaction. Except he was holding a lopper. He attempted to cut the branch, and ended up clamping his looped down right on the fleshy base of my thumb. Bam, 2 inch cut right to the bone. If he had caught me a little bit further up my thumb he probably would have cut it off. I screamed, he screamed, blood everywhere. To the kid's credit he immediately sacrificed his shirt to make a bandage for me, and I headed over to the medical cabin where everyone was at lunch so I sat there dripping blood and didn't get cleaned and properly bandaged for about an hour. I didn't get stiches or sent home, healed up alright but I still have a big scar.
Later that week I made out with a girl for the first time, my mangled hand may scored some sympathy points. Altogether 10/10 camp week.
