So, for the past month I have been redoing my kitchen on the weekends. Mind you I'm not the ideal candidate to operate powered woodworking tools. At about 11:15 am, I was plugging along. My second cut was supposed to be 26 1/8" long. It turned out I was a hair too long, so I got out the old belt sander to shave it down. In a rush to get this done, the belt sander ran its coarse off the edge of the ply wood and managed to takeall of its 80 grit and proceded to suck my finger through the belt sander.
After seeing a shit ton of blood, I grabbed my finger, walked into the house, and told the wife, "get the car, we're going to the ER". My 60+ year old neighbor who is missing a few teeth, was nice enough to watch my two little girls until my mother-in-law made it over.
Now mind you, my wife is notorious for fainting. I get in the car, lay the seat back and continued to apply pressure while she drove. About 1/2 mile in, I noticed she started to make her fainting face. It resembles a fish sucking their lips in, and a touch of going crosseyed. Here is the problem, we were in a double left hand turn lane with an 18 wheeler turning in the outer lane. At this time, she was starting to go, leaving me to grab the wheel to avoid the semi truck but not the center divider. When I screamed at her to stop, it was a no go. She managed to drive on the curb similar to my early days of skateboarding doing a 50/50 smith grind and then proceded to drive into the rear end of the blue Camery directly ahead of us.
So try to visualize what's going on. I'm bleeding, holding my finger together, and the guy in the Camery has pulled into a parking lot to the left of us examining his car with his hands in the air as if "what the hell". After the collision, I slammed the shifter into park, while my wife, god bless her, is passed out with her fish lips at the wheel. Her foot firmly planted on the gas, pinned at red line. After 30 seconds or so, she managed to come to and got me to the ER. If you are wondering, the guy in the Camery drove away as there was no damage to his vehicle. Like anyone else, I hate hit and runs, but this time I really didn't care.
Now, back to my finger. When the ER Doc too off the bloody dish towel, it was evident this thing will never look the same again. They injected me directly into the nerves in my finger with lidocane which was more painful than my finger going through the belt sander. The official prognosis is my finger nail was entirely ripped out of the finger and a 1 inch gash was fileted open. The Doc managed to sew it back together the best he could, but said I need to see a specialist on Monday. The Doc says because it was on top I shouldn't suffer any long term nerve damage, however, my days of using a portable belt sander are behind me.
My wife is kind enough to be typing this for me, so please bare with me if my responses are very short for the next few weeks. My left hand feels like someone took a 10 pound sledgehammer to it and my typing skills are that of 90 year old man with arthritis.
Hope everyones Saturday was better than mine!
Jarrett
After seeing a shit ton of blood, I grabbed my finger, walked into the house, and told the wife, "get the car, we're going to the ER". My 60+ year old neighbor who is missing a few teeth, was nice enough to watch my two little girls until my mother-in-law made it over.
Now mind you, my wife is notorious for fainting. I get in the car, lay the seat back and continued to apply pressure while she drove. About 1/2 mile in, I noticed she started to make her fainting face. It resembles a fish sucking their lips in, and a touch of going crosseyed. Here is the problem, we were in a double left hand turn lane with an 18 wheeler turning in the outer lane. At this time, she was starting to go, leaving me to grab the wheel to avoid the semi truck but not the center divider. When I screamed at her to stop, it was a no go. She managed to drive on the curb similar to my early days of skateboarding doing a 50/50 smith grind and then proceded to drive into the rear end of the blue Camery directly ahead of us.
So try to visualize what's going on. I'm bleeding, holding my finger together, and the guy in the Camery has pulled into a parking lot to the left of us examining his car with his hands in the air as if "what the hell". After the collision, I slammed the shifter into park, while my wife, god bless her, is passed out with her fish lips at the wheel. Her foot firmly planted on the gas, pinned at red line. After 30 seconds or so, she managed to come to and got me to the ER. If you are wondering, the guy in the Camery drove away as there was no damage to his vehicle. Like anyone else, I hate hit and runs, but this time I really didn't care.
Now, back to my finger. When the ER Doc too off the bloody dish towel, it was evident this thing will never look the same again. They injected me directly into the nerves in my finger with lidocane which was more painful than my finger going through the belt sander. The official prognosis is my finger nail was entirely ripped out of the finger and a 1 inch gash was fileted open. The Doc managed to sew it back together the best he could, but said I need to see a specialist on Monday. The Doc says because it was on top I shouldn't suffer any long term nerve damage, however, my days of using a portable belt sander are behind me.
My wife is kind enough to be typing this for me, so please bare with me if my responses are very short for the next few weeks. My left hand feels like someone took a 10 pound sledgehammer to it and my typing skills are that of 90 year old man with arthritis.
Hope everyones Saturday was better than mine!
Jarrett
