ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (KDVR) – It’s a surprising statistic. Avocado-related injuries are on the rise.

Sarah Sperlbaum recently added to those numbers.

She says she was making guacamole, and used a large, sharp knife to try to get the pit out. Instead she sliced open her finger.

“It would not stop bleeding,” Sperlbaum said. “I’m screaming and crying during all of this because it was pretty scary.”

She ended up getting stitches, and went to see Dr. Ryan Endress, a hand surgeon at the Burn and Reconstructive Center at Swedish Medical Center in Englewood.

“Over the past 20 years or so, the incidence of annual injuries has risen tenfold. There’s 6,000 plus avocado hand injuries in the year,” Endress said.

Endress says the most common injury occurs the way Sarah’s did, but other people try to use a steak knife and stab the pit. Sometimes they stab all the way through their hand, and these injuries can be severe.

“It’s very common to cut nerves, tendons, even blood vessels in the hand that require going to the operating room to fix under the microscope,” he said.

Endress says don’t ever hold something in your hand that you are trying to cut, place it on the counter instead.

There are also tools you can buy to help you get the pit out of an avocado safely.