Friday, November 27, 2009

Amputation by table saw

   Inasmuch as I hate to admit it, I amputated my ring finger right above the last knuckle back in October.   Boy oh boy did that hurt!   Lucky for me, Dr Devries, a hand surgeon at the sports injury medical center was able to pin it back on and sew it up to heal.   It's been several weeks now and my finger has been healing up and I should be getting the pins removed in mid December.   That ought to be another real thrill.

   But, the moral of this story is that it really should never have happened in the first place.   I was cutting a hold-down kerf about 1/4" thru a 3/4" small strip of wood that was to go around the underneath side edge of a chest of drawers, and then it happened.   I didn't need the kerf to go the entire length of the board so I eased the middle down on the saw blade, poised 1/4" above the table saw deck.   I proceeded to move the board against the blade for a bit and then for some reason, I decided to go the other direction a bit.   Well, any good woodworker knows that you don't push wood backward thru a table saw......what a dumb move.    Of course when the wood was jerked from my hand by the saw blade, down went my fingers and the ring finger got it.   Now I have a healing time to go thru and hope for some resemblance of a finger as a result.   The doctor put 2 s/steel pins in it thru the end to hold it together during the healing period.   What a pain.

   Again, the moral of the story......don't do that!   Practice safety with your tools....all the time.

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