power fingernail trimmer

[footfootfoot]

one handed typing for me this week.

ran my left ringer ever so lightly across my friends 10" inca jointer. As they say, size isn't everything; a 4" jointer would have been adequate to the task.

Did a fairly good job of nail trimming and a bit more. Luckily, it was just a warning shot across the bow, (still plenty of good meat on that arm)

The lidocaine is wearing off. It feels more like an impact injury than a cut, probably because it is an impact injury.

For the gruesomely minded I'll scan the finger when I change the dressing.

So remember kids:
Don't try this at home. I am a trained professional.

[glatt]

Sorry to hear about the accident. I'm glad you shared it though. These stories always keep me on my toes around power tools.

[BigV]

For someone with a spare foot, you picked the wrong appendage with which to caress a running jointer.

ouch.

My sympathies. Don't forget your medicine, or you'll be very rudely reminded by the nerve endings in the remaining good meat. They can hold a grudge a long time, and there are a lot of them. And they're all pissed.

[Beestie]

Yikes. I know what that feels like. I worked at a deli when I was in HS and a customer asked me to slice some pepperoni sticks. So, to save time, I grabbed all 3 sticks and ran them over the meat slicer. The sticks were too long to use the blade guard and, sure enough, my hand slid down the sticks right as they were about to cross the blade. Of course, the customer wanted thick slices and ziiiiiiiiing, there went the tip of my bird finger.

I looked like Dan Akroyd imitating Julia Child.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by glatt

Sorry to hear about the accident. I'm glad you shared it though. These stories always keep me on my toes around power tools.

Imagine how much harder that would be if you had three feet?

Originally Posted by bigv

For someone with a spare foot, you picked the wrong appendage with which to caress a running jointer.

ouch.

My sympathies. Don't forget your medicine, or you'll be very rudely reminded by the nerve endings in the remaining good meat. They can hold a grudge a long time, and there are a lot of them. And they're all pissed.

"you'll be fine with tylenol" --the PA who 'debrided my wound'

Right now the nerve endings and I have a tenuous detente...

Originally Posted by beestie

...I looked like Dan Akroyd imitating Julia Child.

tears. lmao thanks, better than tylenol!

[wolf]

Sorry to hear about your mishap.

I avoid power tools for a reason.

Hope all heals up well.

[Sundae]

I'm going to offer my condolences while there is obviously no picture attached. Although I just know I'll look and regret it when one is!

Hope they heal quickly/ grow back (whichever is most likely)

[footfootfoot]

Thanks all for the good thoughts.

picture will most likely not be coming until it is less gruesome. The numbskull who dressed the wound, did so incorrectly and the bandage adhered to the wound. My primary said to just wait until the scab pushed the dressing off.

So, it will be a lot less gnarly by the time that happens.

I hope.

Thalns again everyone

[Tonchi]

You have tempted me to tell a power tool story

This takes place in Albuquerque in the early 70's when I was part of a rather large group of singles who skiied and did a lot of the same things. Our "Social Chairman" was a guy named John who owned a house with a pool as opposed to most of us who lived in apartments, so the action tended to end up around his back yard. To say the least, everybody drank. A LOT. Especially John. Which is probably why he put up with the constant crowd coming and going at all hours, but he was a really nice person about it.

John decided to build an extension to his house and do it himself to save money, but he managed to work that in with the partying around the pool at the same time because he was usually up on a ladder in the same general area. Thank God I wasn't there when it happened, but you can see where the story is going. Even if you get down off the ladder to do it, it's not the best idea to use a power saw to cut the framing when you've had about 6 beers by then. Lucky for John, when the saw slipped and cut off all his fingers on the left hand there were several other men there who caught him and tried to render the appropriate first aid. Except nobody KNEW what to do and everybody was drunk on their ass, including the victim, and their "aid" didn't exactly meet Red Cross standards. They did tourniquets and wrapped up his hand in towels and rushed him to the nearest hospital. As everybody was getting in their cars, one of them realized the fingers were still on the patio and the scramble to find them and take them to the hospital began. These guys were so drunk that while going back out the door with the severed digits, the person carrying them tripped and everything ended up in the flower bed. They couldn't find one of them afterwards so they took what they had to the hospital. I don't remember all the details, but it seems that the ones who stayed behind to search finally found the missing finger hours later, but it had not been on ice and could not be reattached because the tissue had deteriorated. Even in the early '70s when this took place, the surgeons in Albuquerque had experience with injuries like these (it was at the military hospital and a lot of veterans of Vietnam there) and they amputated one of John's toes to act as the 4th finger when they sewed it all back on. It was a blessing that it looked as normal as it did, all things considered. I saw John again on a visit to Albuquerque about 10 years after his accident and he was using the hand pretty well although it never recovered 100%, which was to be expected. I don't remember if he said he had built his own house up near Rio Rancho or not

[wolf]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

picture will most likely not be coming until it is less gruesome. The numbskull who dressed the wound, did so incorrectly and the bandage adhered to the wound. My primary said to just wait until the scab pushed the dressing off.

When I was a child I had an injury to both knees (still have the scars) caused by the school bully shoving me down in front of the school ... in a construction zone. My knees were basicaly shredded with the fine addition of a lot of grit and small bits of gravel being forced in and under the skin. There wasn't enough remaining intact skin to stitch, so the docs picked out most of the crud, slapped some 4X4s and a lot of cling bandage on it.

Anyway ...

As should have been expected from putting dry bandage onto wet wound, the whole thing stuck pretty severely (if you think it sucks to have the stuck bandage thing going on now, at the age of 7 your pain tolerance is one hell of a lot lower, and your squick factor a lot higher when it came to bits of your own body going awry).

Anyway, I seem to recall that the solution to the dressing change dilemma was to drip small amounts of warmed water onto the scab to loosen the dried blood until it was possible to peel the bandage off.

Medical science and the understanding of infection control was, of course, much more primitive in the 1960s. Check with your own physician. See if he'll hook you up with a bottle of sterile saline solution for the same purpose.