My worst accident so far

[sawdust1]

In 26 years as a furniture maker the only time i had to visit A&E was when a fat 3inch splinter went right thro
a finger. The other half had just gone off on the school run so i had to wait 1/2 an hour, when they got home
her and the kids thought it was a joke.
After a lot of pulling it was decided that maybe a trip to the hospital was best.
The most annoying thing, i was making a ping pong table for the kids, it was never used and after 3 years was
put on the bonfire.

 

[lee celtic]

Worst woodwork related for me was at collage.. The tool rep had just been to deliver my order which included a set of 4 chisels. I re ground them then added an edge and began to pare down a block of Mahogany I was using for a pivot on a tilt top table like this one..

The Pivot was to tilt the table and allow it to be placed in a corner. It consisted of a block with two round pins that two rails pivoted on. I had one done earlier with a collage supplied chisel then flipped it over to do the other with my new 18mm. I had oil on my hands from honing. I gripped the handle and placed my shoulder on top of my fist to add weight and then wrapped my index finger of my left hand around the blade to guide it. then pressed down a little.. the chisel slipped in my hand and to stop myself headbutting the bench I stuck out my left hand.. The chisel entered my left index knuckle cutting deep.. I ended up having a 7 hour op in Salford Royal to repair the tendons and stuff.

Though once they figured I wasn't squemish they let me sit up and watch.. 8) it was 6 weeks off collage but I made up time and made some cash too.. while I was off several people left and I finished off their tables and sold them to Waring and Gillow.. paid off my material bill for the two years I was there.

 

[yetloh]

Glad you're OK. I seem to have a switch in my brain that sets an alarm ringing when I put a digit in front of a chisel so, (tempting fate) I 've never seriously injured myself with one. I did have a nasty accident with a router resulting in the loss of three finger tips.. Routers shred flesh so if you are really going for cut flesh, a chisel is certainly the best option

Jim

 

[n0legs]

You ain't got time for this. You've got a waterwheel and a window to sort out :lol:
Hope you heal quickly mate :wink:

 

[sploo]

Glad you're OK. I seem to have a switch in my brain that sets an alarm ringing when I put a digit in front of a chisel so, (tempting fate) I 've never seriously injured myself with one. I did have a nasty accident with a router resulting in the loss of three finger tips.. Routers shred flesh so if you are really going for cut flesh, a chisel is certainly the best option

Jim

Yea... routers... one of my thumbs is a little shorter than the other from that

The only other bad one I've had was from a plane iron - nicely sharpened, and I absentmindedly turned it over (end on end) in one hand to clean the top up, and cut a deep slice into a finger #-o

Funnily enough, both were due to being overtired and just doing something dumb. I suspect that's a common theme in A&E!

 

[JJ1]

Some of us don't even need power or hand tools for an accident 8) . I ended up severing the arteries, the nerves and three tendons in my right hand and I was only washing-up :shock: . Despite passing out three times and totally saturating three bath towels with blood I was still naive enough to think a quick trip to hospital, a few stitches and I would be home again within the hour. More like seven days in hospital, a 4 1/2 hour session in the operating theatre and then nearly four months of full time, 9.00 - 5.00pm, physiotherapy just to be able to use the fingers again :roll: Needless to say, I now have a much greater respect for large, glass jars 8)

 

[ColeyS1]

Could be worse. You could have stuck you finger in a bloody table saw. ](*,)

Are you speaking from experience? That sounds nasty !!!

Coley

 

[ColeyS1]

Glad you're OK. I seem to have a switch in my brain that sets an alarm ringing when I put a digit in front of a chisel so, (tempting fate) I 've never seriously injured myself with one. I did have a nasty accident with a router resulting in the loss of three finger tips.. Routers shred flesh so if you are really going for cut flesh, a chisel is certainly the best option

Jim

Oh my word- 3 finger tips sounds bloody horrific! Was it by any chance in an upside down router table position? Router tables scare me more than spindle moulder.

Coley

 

[ColeyS1]

Some of us don't even need power or hand tools for an accident 8) . I ended up severing the arteries, the nerves and three tendons in my right hand and I was only washing-up :shock: . Despite passing out three times and totally saturating three bath towels with blood I was still naive enough to think a quick trip to hospital, a few stitches and I would be home again within the hour. More like seven days in hospital, a 4 1/2 hour session in the operating theatre and then nearly four months of full time, 9.00 - 5.00pm, physiotherapy just to be able to use the fingers again :roll: Needless to say, I now have a much greater respect for large, glass jars 8)

Friggin Henry, another reason to not do the dishes did the glass jar slip or something?
Yesterday I was looking for light duty jobs and had a lampshade I'd been looking to paint for a while. I went to put it in the sink to clean it before spraying,only to have it slip out of my hand and put a small chip in the edge. After that I decided it best to have the rest of the week off. I've got morticing and lots of chisel chopping but have just got this feeling I'd be asking for trouble If I tried doing it 1 handed.
I'm looking forward to Monday, I like being busy, so this is an unwelcome hinderance.

Coley

 

[JJ1]

Friggin Henry, another reason to not do the dishes did the glass jar slip or something?

It was a big pasta sauce jar which had broken and was sticking up. I plunged my hand into the soapy water, a bit too enthusiastically, and it went straight into the palm of my hand.

 

[ED65]

Glad it wasn't worse for you! Given the location you could have nicked a tendon, or severed it like my dad did once. That would not have been and in-and-out-in-30 lemme tell you :shock:

And I don't think you could fix that with superglue LOL

 

[geoffshep]

I did the tendon thing, between some paving slabs. There were 2 groups of slabs, standing almost upright, at each side of the crate. As I was selecting a suitable slab, the 7 on the right flopped over against the others on the left, crushing my hand. I managed to extract my hand and initially looked at the bruising on the back of it, then realised that all my fingers had been cut on the other side - and I couldn't move the tip of my middle finger. I rushed off to hospital - fortunately only 5 minutes away in the same town, and the next day had surgery to rejoin the severed tendon.

These are the slabs, including a few traces of blood:

If you feel brave, click here to open a picture of the hand:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a297/ ... lqmt9j.jpg

 

[Jacob]

I did the tendon thing, between some paving slabs. There were 2 groups of slabs, standing almost upright, at each side of the crate. As I was selecting a suitable slab, the 7 on the right flopped over against the others on the left, crushing my hand. I managed to extract my hand and initially looked at the bruising on the back of it, then realised that all my fingers had been cut on the other side - and I couldn't move the tip of my middle finger. I rushed off to hospital - fortunately only 5 minutes away in the same town, and the next day had surgery to rejoin the severed tendon.

These are the slabs, including a few traces of blood:



If you feel brave, click here to open a picture of the hand:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a297/ ... lqmt9j.jpg

We had some large slabs delivered recently. Apparently loading/unloading standing on edge (strapped to a pallet) is more resistant to accidental damage to the slabs - but not to us labourers. The driver was very insistent that we should make sure they stayed well leaning one way or another when we cut the straps so they wouldn't surprise us. Good advice!

 

[RobinBHM]

I did the tendon thing, between some paving slabs. There were 2 groups of slabs, standing almost upright, at each side of the crate. As I was selecting a suitable slab, the 7 on the right flopped over against the others on the left, crushing my hand. I managed to extract my hand and initially looked at the bruising on the back of it, then realised that all my fingers had been cut on the other side - and I couldn't move the tip of my middle finger. I rushed off to hospital - fortunately only 5 minutes away in the same town, and the next day had surgery to rejoin the severed tendon.

These are the slabs, including a few traces of blood:



If you feel brave, click here to open a picture of the hand:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a297/ ... lqmt9j.jpg

Ouch Ouch Ouch :shock:

It just goes to show how easy it is to have a nasty accident when there is no obvious danger lurking!

 

[MarkDennehy]

super glue is very useful in a crisis, saves a lot of time as well.

...except that you shouldn't use it for anything so large that you'd really want to use it. Small nicks, splits, that kind of thing, there's not enough of it to get a healthy person distressed (unless they're particularly allergic to the stuff), but any large amounts and you've just dumped a large amount of glue into your body which, as it cures and hardens, releases nasty stuff like formaldehyde into your bloodstream (humans, in general, don't do well with formaldehyde in their blood stream). There are medical-grade superglues that don't do that and which aren't hugely expensive (dermabond and the like), they have different chemical makeups and you can buy them off the net easily enough.

Personally:

• if it's a little nick that's bleeding, I'll glue it.
• if its big enough that it takes a fair bit of pressure to stop the bleeding, I'll use suture strips and dressings (hooray for St.John of Gods, they sell cheap dressings for fingers that are actually useful, I just buy big bags of the things every year or two).
• if it's a puncture rather than a cut, and it's not pumping blood or odd liquids I can't identify, I go to my GP (because inevitably it'll need antibiotics for infection).
• if it's pumping (or if it's now the wrong shape or if it won't move when it should or if it will move when it shouldn't), I go to the A&E
• if bits have been cut off, I run around in circles screaming like a little girl and wait for help to come to me.

I'd call it common sense, but if you can associate the word "common" with things that result in bits from the inside of you being outside and on the floor, and the walls, and that ceiling tile, and all over that chisel.... well, maybe you need a few more safety classes. And a doctor. Seriously. Look at that ceiling tile! That's not right!

 

[MarkDennehy]

Oddly, while I've had a few unpleasant moments like someone pinning me to a table by dropping a 19" rack of electronics on my hand (the corner punched through a half-inch of hand before stopping), and breaking all my teeth at once because boobs (and there's a rather long list so let's skip most of it) -- the *worst* injury yet was definitely from cooking (and not the time I ran a boning knife through three fingers while cleaning it). I was cooking steak and as anyone will tell you, the best way to do that is heat a cast-iron pan to rocket-hot temperatures by leaving it, empty and dry, on full heat for 20 minutes and then adding the steak (you oil the steak, not the pan). I'd done this, and flipped the steak and now it was time to put the steak (well, steaks, it was dinner for herself and me) in the oven for five minutes to finish cooking. And, naturally, being tired I grabbed the handle of the pan with my bare hand and lifted. Being branded hurts. There was much jumping and swearing and herself comes running in and I'm now tired, sore and ticked off so when she asked what happened I just said it was all fine and picked up the pan off the floor with my other hand.

See, it's the worst injury because I managed to prove just how dumb I can be, twice, in less than 30 seconds, and with a witness. Couldn't hold a cup of coffee comfortably for nearly a week too.

 

[bucephalus]

breaking all my teeth at once because boobs

I feel like this is a story that deserves to be told! :shock:

Gavin

 

[ColeyS1]

Well it sounds like I'm not the only one in the wars ! Had today off to try and help it heal quicker. I've been really careful with it so thought I'd take a peak under the dressing to see how well it's healing.

I wasn't expecting miracles but was a little surprised to see it still bleeding. Doc said to go back in 10ish days to have stitches removed. Surely I should change the dressing every few days if its still bleeding ? I've taped the dressing back on and strapped it up a bit to keep movement to a minimum. This might take a little longer to heal then I first expected !
Coley

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[skipdiver]

Looks like they stitched on the thumb of a giant when you weren't looking.

 

[No skills]

Coley

Injuries like this can take a few days to seal up properly, even then if you move or squeeze the mashed up bit too much the wound will reopen a bit and leak.

After reading this and other injury threads over time I've come to the conclusion I'm either too cavalier about my own injuries or other folk like being mollycoddled - not you with this accident certainly (you needed stitches to hold it together!) but I have visions of a&e packed with people with small splinters and nicks/cuts.

Ho hum.

Ps get well soon.