Only a second...

Roger Tulk

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3,018
Location
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
AS I parked my truck in the driveway this afternoon, my neighbour Andy from across the street came to say 'hi.' I asked him how he was doin', eh? and he said "Not too good." Knowing he'd been injured a couple of months ago, I asked how his fingers were. He showed me his right hand. The middle finger cannot bend, and the forefinger looks like it's been mangled by a saw, which it has. His ring finger also has some damage.

I asked him how it happened, and he told me that he was cutting a short piece of wood in his table saw, with the blade far too high, and went to pick up the cutoff. He doesn't quite know how, but his hand fell or was pulled onto the blade, cutting the back of three fingers. He says his push stick was at his son's. I don't know, I use something for a push stick, even if I don't have an official one. He said he's been doing woodwork for 50 years, and never done anything like this.

He is a really, really nice guy, and I feel for him, but it shows you don't have to be bad to have bad things happen, and it only takes a stupid second to hurt yourself badly.

He may be a candidate for neurosurgery, depending on the injury, but he is going to have to learn to do some things with his left hand that he used to do with his right.
 
Can't have too many of these reminders, Roger. It just takes a moment's inattention.
I hope he makes a good recovery.
My FIL used to do some truly scary things around the table saw when he was helping out around here. I finally just started intervening: "here, I'll do that...". He still has his fingers, but not for lack of trying to cut them off!
 
BTDT...stupidly reached past the TS blade to keep a piece tight to the fence :doh: luckily the blade was tilted to 45° or my fingers would of come clean off...I survived with 24 stitches and a loss of some meat on the thumb and left with a partial tip for my index finger{all on the left hand, 3 fingers & thumb}...happened in a split second, never felt a thing until my hand hit my chest. Thought I dodged a bullet until I noticed blood on the table top, looked down at my chest where I had grabbed my hand with the other out of reflex and knew I was going to the ER as my index finger tip was hanging by a thread of skin...I still get goosebumps just thinking about it and this happened back in '95...

Stay safe folks!
 
Thanks for the reminder, Roger, and I hope Andy's recovery is swift. He's a great example of how even a seasoned woodworker can get bitten.
 
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