Carly Pearce told the story behind a recent injury that resulted in a trip to the emergency room in a clip she shared on TikTok over the weekend.

Pearce previously shared a photo on her Instagram story with her “ER buddies,” explaining that she ended up needing “a few stitches in my thumb.” The hummingbird artist revealed more to the story as she went through her makeup routine before another performance. Pearce was eating dinner after a show on Thursday night (August 7), and when she tried to open a glass bottle of salad dressing “snapped off and a piece of glass cut my thumb.”

Pearce said “at first, my fiddle player and my assistant thought it wasn’t that big of a deal. But all of a sudden, I thought that ketchup was running down my hand and it actually was blood.

“We had a few paramedics on site at the show, so we decided just to have a look at it to see if it had any glass in it or if it needed to be cleaned. And they told me that I needed a few stitches,” Pearce said as she recalled her conversation with the paramedics and her ambulance ride to the hospital. “And I said, ‘are you sure?’ And they said ‘we really do feel like it’s pretty deep, so we’re gonna take you over to the hospital. It’ll go a little quicker because we can tell them you’re on the way.’ Well, what I didn’t know is that ride to the ER was gonna be in an ambulance, and it’s policy that the patient has to sit on the stretcher and be strapped in. They come in, and they do, in fact, to an x-ray (to) make sure there’s no glass in there, and say that I do need to have a couple stitches. Now, I have not had stitches since I was a little girl, so I had forgotten that this little numbing situation is very painful.”

Pearce said in the aftermath of the injury, she has to figure out how to complete everyday tasks with a bandaged thumb. That includes applying makeup, holding the microphone during her performances and more.

“Where the stitches are, are right in the crease of my thumb. And so, I’m kind of figuring out how to do things not the way that I would,” she explained. “My assistant almost had to shave my left armpit because I didn’t think I could reach it. So what’s interesting is I have two shows this weekend. I hold my microphone with my dominant hand, which is my right hand, which is this hand. Now I am so grateful that it was not worse and that obviously I’m going to be fine in like a week, but it is interesting trying to figure out how to do all of these normal things like pull your pants up after you pee. So I have to wear this bandage on stage, and I’m wondering, should I bedazzle it?”

Pearce played two shows over the weekend after her visit to the emergency room. She took the stage on Friday night (August 8) at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, and on Saturday night (August 9) at Northwell at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, New York. The Grammy winner is part of Little Big Town’s summer headlining tour with Wynonna Judd, Ashley McBryde and Russell Dickerson as direct support, and Carter Faith and Shelby Lynne opening select shows. See the remaining dates below.

“So the moral of the story is, be careful when you’re opening things,” Pearce said. “And don’t go, like my mother says, that I do, like a bull in a china cabinet.”

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