Just got word last night that my Uncle (two years older than I) cut his left hand off with a Skill Saw while building a deck for a client. He’s a GC/remodeler. Details to follow.
WSJ
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Replies
I don't know what to say.
I'm sorry doesn't sound like enough.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
Jesus, Jon--That's a bummer. I hope your uncle is within range of a major trauma center with micro-surgery capacity. It is sometimes possible to re-attach severed fingers, maybe hands too....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
WOW - that's terrible!! I think it's good that we all share the accident stories because it helps keep us on our toes. I hope, like Dino said, they can fix him up.
Oh, crap. I get too casual at times. This is a good reminder to pay attention. Wishing him the best.
GEEZ, please pass along the best of wishes for a hopefully speedy and full recovery! I would like to hear the details when you can.
Aryn
It is difficult to describe the emotion I felt on reading your post .........
My eyes closed with a simultaneous expulsion of breath.
As someone mentioned I hope there was an ace trauma doc closeby.
As grisly as it may sound would you please post the details of how this happened. Maybe Breaktime U will be able to educate somewhere to prevent this sort of tradgedy ?
Healing thoughts to your Uncle.
On a hill by the harbour
I'm sorry to hear this.
I hope everything works out.
When things settle down come back and write out the details and prognosis.
Until that time he, you, have my very best wishes for his healing and a good outcome.
A saw has no respect for no one..... This should always be kept in mind when running any saw, i hope he`s going to be ok!
As someone said, sorry, doesn't seem to say enough.
One of the hospitals here in Louisville replaced a hand on a man a few years ago. He had lost his in an accident several years prior. The gave him a new hand from a doner long after he had suffered the loss. He was featured on the national new last year throwing a baseball in one of the opening games.
Amazing stuff.
Keep that in mind as you try to help your uncle. Don't give up.
Dave
Made me wince a bit. Nasty nasty injury.
I hope he can recover OK.
A fella I worked for briefly a couple of years ago was cutting off timber piles with a circular saw. The saw had a faulty guard that kept sticking open. He knew about it but didnt get around to getting it fixed.
He was in a squatting position, cut a pile off and then "rested" the saw on his thigh.
The saw made a helluva mess of his leg. Took about 70 or 80 stitches to get put back together. He had the saw fixed after that.
Stories like this one and my employers experience, plus a close call myself doing something stupid make me very careful now. By the time you realise what happened........its all over.
Everything, 100% of it, depends on how you look at it.
DW
Hey Dave,
A buddy of mine recently cut off three of his fingers on a table saw. They air lifted him to the Frankenstein lab in Louisville and by the time his wife could drive from Lexington to Louisville to pick him up, they had re-attached one of the fingers and rebuilt another from the other two and attached it. He didn't even get to stay overnight in the hospital- outpatient surgery. He lost his index finger, but they rebuilt it so the index is still the first finger even though it's in the bird finger position. He missed less than a month of work, and you have to count his fingers to tell anything ever happened. Hopefullly, Workshop Jon's uncle is around pro's like these guys.
That gave me the willies just reading about it. I've had part of one thumb reattached. It's not even close to functioning normally, but I have figured out how to work with it, even though it's a daily reminder of my stupidity.
Your uncle has a really long, hard row to hoe, and I wish him all the best. The offering to be a venting board suggestion is good. Though my diability is like a hangnail compared to his, he can call me, I've talked to others with finger injuries. They can all flip me the bird freely with either hand now<G> Don't worry, we can fix that later!
Made me feel sick with sympathy. I feel for your uncle.
You're right on with that title. That's exactly when accidents occur, when you're not paying attention.
Ron
I too really hope he found great DR. nearby.
I know it CAN be done (re-attach, that is) the brother of Eric Rudolph ( the bomber that hid in the woods forever from the FBI) in NC, cut his hand off with a circ saw, in protest (idiot) and they did reattach it...
best wishes for your Uncle.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations.
Jesus! I hope they can fix him. I hope he's going to be alright and I hope it doesn't completely screw his livelyhood. Pass my best wishes on to your Uncle and his family.
Alot of us here are a blink away from something similar everyday. Its more of a shake-up than a wake-up. I for one will be fixing that loose saw guard of mine tout-suite!
Don't know what to say, but - Hoping for the best.
It's good to share these stories (as difficult as they may be) to keep us all on out toes. I worked a couple weeks ago with a guy who lost two fingers to a table saw. He is the first to admit that it was just stupidity that caused the accident.
I try to make a habit of making this statement to myself before any cut or operation: "WHEN this cut goes bad, where will my hands go? " This way, I'm mentally preparing myself that the cut WILL go bad and I'll already have a escape route for my hands. You've got to be prepared to sacrifice the work BEFORE you make the cut.
Hope your uncle can move on regardless of the outcome.
J Painter
That is one of those things you think only happens in the new far away from where ever you are. Then you hear about it directly. I am sorry to hear of this incident and will keep him in our prayers. Hope it comes out well. DanT
Geeze, I hope he is OK. Hopefully they can re-attach it and he won't lose function.
As a couple people have already mentioned, this is really a painful safety reminder.
I have had a couple close calls with a table saw. Those moments where you say to yourself, "well that was stupid," and you're just REAL thankful that you didn't take off your fingers or hand.
If I get beyond a certain 'tired' level, I just have to stay the H#ll away from serious tools. Either come back to it when I'm more alert, or have someone else take care of it.
jt8
Dear God i wish him the best. keep us posted
Sorry to hear about your uncle. I hope all works out for him.
Sorry for the accident. I know 2 friends that have this type of accidents and I really feel for your uncle.
I know that you're very upset to go into details right now, but when you feel OK to talk about it please tell me (us) how it happen. What type of saw he was using and what kind of wood he was cutting.
Thanks.
YCF Dino
Hey, everyone I am new to the site so be easy on me. I have been snooping in on all of y'all (from VA) for maybe a year now.I have worked just about all type of construction and now work as a construction manager building cell phone towers.I still do a lot of remodeling work on my own home and some rental property that I own.
I felt the urge to finally jump in after reading about this terrible accident.I hope a quick recovery for your Uncle!
Working in the tower business is very dangerous work.One thing that we do is have what is called a tail gate safety meeting.We have a quick talk about different things on a job site and how we can make it safe.This meeting is less then 15 min. but I think it helps to keep safety in your head!
Hi Vince.(talking about towers)
The tallest tower in NJ is in Alpine. I was ask to give a quote for painting the tower as soon the tower was repair by other crews.(re-enforcing and bracing)
In my visit to the site I saw crews working on different levels welding I- beams. After I race my concerns about the lack of safety nets and safety floors that they will prevent objects from landing in someone's head....I was not even allowed to be on the site (never mind the bid)
Few days later the Job was shot down due to an accident??????
If I was the Judge I will call it a homicide.
99% of accidents can be prevented if we look back before we move ahead. Do you know that in US alone we have 85.000 power tool accidents a year?
YCF Dino
Edited 9/4/2004 10:20 pm ET by YCFriend
I have seen this situation too many times. It may be human nature to dress up the truth in court. The kid who pistol whipped the elderly couple while laughing at their pain shows up well scrubbed, dressed like a choir boy with his 'family preacher' in tow to tell the jury what a good and gentle boy he is.
Similarly the same boss who laughed at the risks on a job, denigrated safety standards and called any who wouldn't work on his defective idea of sound scaffolding 'wimps' suddenly shows great concern for safety when OSHA or the victimized workman's lawyer shows up. By the time he shows up in court his select crowd of character witnesses is ready to sing hallelujahs and lay down palm leaves at he enters the courtroom.
It is not uncommon for any scaffolding that played a part in an accident to be immediately disassembled. Sometimes before the ambulance arrives. All the better to deny any responsibility.
This is one of the reasons I like the unions. Most unions don't walk off on short notice. Safety is one of the few reasons they will. Try to address safety as an individual and you are given the 'my-way-or-the-highway' speech. In tight times it is risk your life or starve.
With a strong union the steward steps in and has a talk with the foreman and the scaffold is reinforced or redone. Safety standards enforced. Minimally the equipment in question is avoided. Sorry sir we can't work off that scaffold. If pressed the labor can slow down, sick out or walk. Whichever seems most effective. If it becomes a regular thing the workers walk as a group. I saw this once.
Fact is that OSHA has been gutted, this started under the Reagan administration. OSHA has been undermanned, outgunned and underfunded for decades. Someone has to die, literally sometimes, to get any action from them. Even then it is usually a fine small enough to be considered just another cost of doing business. What is a couple of thousand dollars when you save millions avoiding safety standards. Unions have become the workers, at least those few who still have access to unions, last line of defense for safety.
Vince-
Welcome to BT and I hope you feel free to participate often. Most of the guys here don't bite , and ( I think ) the rest have had their rabies shots.
I think you wanted to post this to Workshop Jon, not me. He's the one who has the injured uncle.
It helps to get your series of innoculations... Not whatja could call cake and pie...
Better safe than sorry...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
All,
Just an update. Spoke to my Uncle last night. Asked some probing questions. My take of the accident.........
*He was working with a PVC type product he had never used before. Had his regular wood blade in the saw (positive vs. negative rake angle on the tips).
*Never properly educated himself about the differences between cutting plastic and wood, (they grab with the wrong pitch cutting tool if you use an excessive feed rate, ESPECIALLY with a positive rake).
*Placed his hand in the path of the blade while cutting (a YOU NEVER DO THAT move)
*And was rushing because it was getting close to lunch time.
*On top of that, there is no reason not to have SOME KIND of major medical policy if you work in the trades. Less than $75./month.
Do I feel bad for him? Of course, but geez, a Pro should know better, Which he admits. He was just taking shortcuts.
WSJ
So, what is the prognosis for his recovery? (or did I miss that earlier in the thread).
Matt
So, what is the prognosis for his recovery?"
Dirsh,
Assuming no infection sets in, his pinky, ring and middle finger will be useless, but there. Index, maybe some use, and thumb should function. Again assuming no infection. The blade took out a lot of bone and three and a half joints
WSJ
Well good. Sounds like he may still have a functional hand even if ithe use is somewhat dimished. This is the kind of thing I have nightmares about... Matt
Thanks for letting us know more about what happened so we can avoid doing similar things. Hope he is progressing and healing.
What type of power saw he was using? Table-radial-miter-Circular saw?
Thanks.
YCF Dino
Best wishes for your uncle.
First off, best wishes to your uncle.
A XGF who got a nasty, nasty burn (exploding pressure cooker) had the following experience:
It was really helpful to have a friend say, "When you want to bitch about how much it hurts, how tried you are of treatments, how much you want to go out in the sun, etc, just call me up and bitch. I won't try to fix it and I won't try to minimize what you're going through. I'll just let you vent."
Don't know if you could be that person for your uncle and maybe someone could fill that role.
And I'll add a encouraging note and first aid reminder:
I had CPR/FA student whose husband had a hideous traffic accident. Before losing consciousness, he looked across the road and recognized his arm 30 feet away. It was successfully reattached. He had good function and was continuing to regain sensation.
THEREFORE: Bring ALL the pieces to the hospital. Call ahead so that can start assembling the team. Keep it cool, but not immersed in water. Water immersion cause osmotic damage to the tissues. Wrapping in plastic and then wet towels is good. Or plastic and then ice and water is better (stays at 32F, can't freeze the tissue). Ice and salt (can go below 32F) is not good.
I worked with a guy almost 15 years ago who had a scar all the way around his hand, right across the back and right across the palm. He had slipped and stuck his had out to prevent falling onto a running table saw and cut all four fingers off at the palm. His hand was surgically reattached and worked just fine. My understanding is that this result is typical now, and hopefully your uncle will recover completely.
ALL,
Thanks for all the responses. Still in a bit of shock still myself as we used to be like brothers. Spoke to him today. Pain is really bad. Sounds like the saw jumped up and landed on his hand.............???? Three hospitals and a "flight for life" later, and NO INSURANCE!!! Prognosis is 50/50.
Thanks again
Jon
Sorry to hear about your uncle Jon. No matter how much those around me want to hurry the process of getting the job done, it's little incentive to become careless so I work my own pace, safely. I'm training a kid right now and whenever I set him up to make cuts, I always, always tell him why to hold the saw a certain way and what the saw will do if he gets bound up or it kicks back. I hate seeing blood. No matter how many times I'm on a ladder cutting tails or something equally precarious, I'm always aware of what could happen if I lose my balance or the ladder shifts. I hope there's a way your uncle can get all the top notch help available. No insurance sucks and only adds to the incentive to work safely. Best wishes to you and your family...
Very sorry to hear of any such accident. It's the "what if's" that always give me sweaty palms whenever I use my table saw, circ saw. If these things happen to the pro's ....
No insurance, not even disability? Yikes. All the best to your uncle.
Paul
I'm not trying to be funny or anything, but have a serious question....
When you cut your fingers or hand off, do most people pass out? Either from the pain or the shock? This thread is putting horrible (but necessary) pictures in my head, and I'm just wondering what this sort of traumatic event would be like to experience. I'm hoping that most pass-out from an injury of this nature.
My heart and prayers go out to WorkshopJon's uncle.... what a horrible thing to have happen to someone.
Had a buddy in high school remove the ends of 3 fingers on a jointer. I took him to the hospital 17 miles away. He never passed out but felt little pain until he got to the hospital. DanT
That's what I was afraid of. On my first framing crew, I saw a guy "rest" a circ saw against his thigh with the guard pinned. Literally 100's of stitches....some to repair the muscles, others to close the wound itself. He was in a leg brace and on crutches for months. But....he was awake for the whole dang thing. There are parts he said he couldn't remember though.
In my experience, not extensive but I guess a couple of dozen cases of being near the person injured I have yet to see or even hear about people passing out unless it was from concussion or loss of blood. Seems most people remain awake and, to the extent the don't 'freak', lucid.
From the comparatively minor injuries I have had I note that seldom is pain an immediate concern. Similarly even major injuries I have been around all seemed to have a 'grace' period where people, including myself, tend to stare, shortly after the nearly compulsory expression of dread, typically 'Oh Shiite' or similar, at the injury with a profound level of disbelief. Only later does the pain become an issue.
The one exception I know of is knee injuries. The one that happened to me had no delay. The millisecond it happened I knew I was injured and had no grace period. The pain restructured my priorities and curling up on the ground moaning in pain had the top slot. I folded like a cheap deck chair and stayed down for several minutes. Only then could I gently limp off.
Your description of your knee injury sounds just like my reaction to my back "slipping out" once or twice a year.
This whole thread has been a good wake-up call. When these pop up from time to time around here and I usually read them through. For whatever reason, this one's really got me thinking about how horrible it would be for a tradesman (anybody really) to lose a hand or a few digits. But it does happen.
Now, your line of work.....that scares me!
Something about injuries to major joints registers more immediately than even major flesh wounds and amputations. Really got my attention.
As for electrical work it's not a big problem. A dose of 120v first thing in the morning is like a strong cup of coffee. Cheap to. Of course there is also something about a shock. Even the slowest individual immediately pulls back and develops an aversion. Something very deeply wired into the system.
Not uncommon for me, even after a long history of shocks, to have my Kleins go across the room if I get a strong shock I'm not expecting. The carpenters always give me a funny look when I go pick up my pliers that has missed them by a foot or two.
Key here is to limit not the shock but how you are shocked and the duration. Hand-to-hand being the most dangerous. I try to teach my help to use the back of the hand when first grabbing things. If you use the palm and get a suppicient shock your hand can reflexively grip the surface and lock on.
I had it happen once while doing plumbing. I found it ironic that after all the dangerous situations I have been in I got my worse shock doing plumbing. I couldn't let go and was in a confined spot gripping a copper water line with wet hands. I couldn't let go my hands were not under my control . In a line straght out of an old 'Star Trek' episode it was the classic Scotty line: 'Shes not answering the helm captain.'
I finally thrashed my way free. Had black, blue and yellow streaks and blotches all over my body for days afterwards.
Muscle tissue instantly contracts when exposed to electricity thus your experience grasping a 'hot' water pipe. Remember touching a frog's leg muscle in biology class with a wire hooked up to a battery? Not being a pro in electrical work but having done numerous projects through the years has seen me get bit a few times but I'm extraordinarily careful. I have no qualms working a hot circuit if I know it's hot but I still work one handed in those situations. The back of the hand trick has kept me from sharing your 'glued to the pipe' experience thus far and will continue to do so, hopefully...
Very few victims pass out from this type of injury, unless they go into what's called 'Vagal Shock'--a type of psychosomatic shock caused by overstimulation of the vagus nerve that happens to some people who get queasy or faint at the sight of blood, especially (but not necessarily) their own.
Pain is generally delayed, as several have noted, until the victim's adrenal rush subsides. This can take from several minutes to over an hour, depending on the person and the circumstances. The reason a knee injury (for instance) hurts right away, is that the level of actual damage is much lower than in an amputation, and the body's glandular reaction is proportionally less. So the victim doesn't have the masking effect of a big shot of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
Many amputation victims are able to function well enough to perform necessary first aid on themselves and recover the severed body part(s) if they are alone when it happens. There are countless stories of people arriving in hospital ERs with their own fingers or hand carried in the other one.
Bear in mind that there is a major difference between arm/hand/finger amputation and lower-extremety amputation: the major blood vessels in the legs are so big that a person can literally bleed to death in a very few minutes from cleanly severed femoral artery. Even just breaking the femur can cause substantial internal hemorraging and hypovolumic shock due to the large number of blood vessels in the bone itself and the large size of the bone.
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
The feeling is just a dull thud at first. then it gets hot like. later on the searing begins.
That is with fingers - i haven't tried the hand
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
hmmmmm
the "thud, hot, searing" sequence sounds just like when I break something. Like my nose (2X), my fingers/knuckles, both little toes...
Yeah, even sounds like thunk...then you think, was that me? Later, throbbing keeps the beat.
Like I said, I get the willies just thinking about a hand. Don't worry, we can fix that later!
I wanna sit on my left hand everytime I read in this thread.
thoughts when it happens? me, Myself, and i had this conversation-
That didn't really happen did it?
probably did, but you're gonna have to look to be sure
Yeah but I don't really want to look - it might be worse than I think
Well, the blade is spinning backwards now and there's a couple spots of blood on that wall over there - probably a good idea to take a look
yep, it's been got. I wonder if I drive to the hospital, will I end up passing out on the way. probabluy not butif I do, it'll be an even bigger mess.
dial phone...
"Honey, how would you like to drive my and my finger over to the hospital"
Man oh Man! A whole hand!
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Sorry to hear about the uncle. Hope everythings comes out good for him.
Guess I will share what will keep me thinking for a good long time after today. Hired a cub to help build a room addition. Scary already huh? Did the 2x4 out the windo with a diagonal brace for scaffold. I was on the ridge and he was standing on the scaffold passing up the cut rafters and nailing his end. As he steps onto the cantilevered part the 2x10 walk plank I start hollering to get back. In his SPLIT SECOND of confusion he takes one more step forward and it tips. As he is falling he still has the air gun in his hand, with finger on the trigger. Gun went off twice before he hit the ground. Both nails FLEW by MY head. When the 2x10 came crashing back down after letting him go it hit so hard that it knocked our brace loose and it fell to the ground missing the cub by less than a foot. happy to say no serious injuries, just a bumb and small cut on him, it was only 6 feet. This was indeed a real eye opener as to how relaxed we sometimes get, and I just assumed he would know where he could and couldn't walk. I think i will share this thread with him on tuesday as we drive over to get "my" saw repaired. No one uses "my" saw they use the other one. "My" saw had the guard get broke a few years ago, so I just flip it over when I use it. Bad idea, gonna get that fixed and try to prevent the work comp from going up before someone gets hurt. Getting to big to be a small time poor boy with questionable tools, and a nice truck.
What all do I teach these cubs about safety? Is it worth a whole day of talking and looking at pics, just to educate him?
Sorry for taking the thread off course, but trying to be a real breaktimer and not open a new thread when there is already one going . I read that recently on here.An inch to short. That's the story of my life !
bstcrpntr --- I hope to grow into this name.
Boy, you definitely told it like it is. I took a couple of steps as my mind was racing through all of that so I knew my leg was still there but I wasn't ready to see the muscles moving around inside when I finally looked down.
The pain didn't set in for me until that first anesthesia needle hit paydirt.
Shudder!!!
I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your uncle John. I hope his recovery is substantially better than expected.Kevin Halliburton
"The Greek comic poets, also, divided their plays into parts by introducing a choral song, ... they relived the actor's speeches by such intermissions." Vitruvious, (Book V)
A little levity and a word of caution:
In college, I worked with a couple crews & one crew leader was especially safety conscious, he'd start the job by saying "You can rebuild anything but your own body" with no sense of irony (from the roof you could see a business that made prosthetics!).
I just had a client who lost BOTH hands in a shear in a metal shop & he managed well with "high tech" hooks!
I'm presently a DIYer, restoring and adding on, who dabbles in all "trades" but doesn't do roofing, I nearly fell off that one years ago. My project is in a fairly remote location and I've thought occasionally that, working by myself, I could end up in dire straits if I were injured.
KEEP A PHONE NEARBY (I was gonna say keep a phone handy, but I won't).
BEST WISHES (and apologies for the bad jokes ;)
my saw gaurd is coming unpinned today. a bad habit that my old boss learned me. as if it just doesn't work as good with the gaurd down.yeah right. as my father in law told me; it's there for a reason, use it. he told me this just after he told me of a friend of his who was cutting a fence out on his farm. he made his cut, a vetical one, and then let his arm rest as the spinning blade went into the face of his young son who was standing behind him.not good. best wishes to your uncle.God bless.
RTC
"have a serious question....
When you cut your fingers or hand off, do most people pass out? Either from the pain or the shock?"
DieselP,
I lost the tip of my right index finger to a joiner in '86 and had a ~100# tool somewhat land on my right ring finger about 5 years ago.
Answer...You hardly feel a thing. Just stare in disbelief and watch the blood flow. The following night is the worst, and it takes days to weeks for the pain to reach a non-meds level of tolerance.
WJS
Edited 9/6/2004 2:54 pm ET by WorkshopJon
Thanks for the update and the actions leading up to the accident. It's difficult stuff to hear, but I think we all benefit from hearing about these types of injuries.
And judging by everyone's descriptions of horrible accidents....I don't want none of that!
Jon, my best to your uncle. I used his story as the impetus for a safety meeting with my crew today. We all approached the job in a safer mindset.
AndyArguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.
Sorry about your uncle's accident. He's in our prayers.
I had an uncle when I was a kid, they lived in the mountains of N. Calif. He had a steel set of pincers for a right hand. A radial arm saw at the saw mill took his arm. Hopefully they will be able to do more for your uncle then they could for mine.
Jon,
So sorry to hear about your uncle. He's in my thoughts for a good recovery.