Table Saw Accident

About a week ago, I really screwed up.

For over six decades, I've been almost religiously and ridiculously protecting my hands and fingers at all cost because I am a classical pianist.  No matter what activity I was doing over all these six decades, protecting my hands and fingers was always foremost in my thoughts.

For at least five decades, I've been a carpenter too so I've always been extra cautious around all tools especially power tools.  I've built homes and everything associated with homes and only suffered relatively minor injuries.  

The worst injury to my hands (until last week) was a drywall injury.  I was cutting drywall in freezing temperatures...  work gloves on my hands...  and accidentally severed the top of my left thumb with the utility knife...  my gloved hand had my thumb placed on the steel straight edge, unfortunately, slightly over the straight edge and in the path of the cut..  I only cut part of the nail and some flesh but the thumb was flat on top where the utility knife had passed through it.  That time, I only cut off about a 1/4" of my thumb and, eventually, the flesh healed and even grew back so I was lucky with that relatively minor careless injury. 

I've had badly broken fingers due to basketball injuries but I always knew those broken fingers would heal so they weren't all that emotionally traumatic.  These broken fingers also provided time to work on dexterity and technique with my uninjured hand on the piano so something good always came from those broken fingers anyway.  If anything, I always seemed to come away from the broken fingers with significant improvement of my piano skills.  

Once the warmer weather arrives, I always pull my table saw out of the shed and start on home renovations as my health and spinal injuries allow.  Until last week, I think I probably ran thousands of board feet safely through my table saw in just the past month.  My table saw gets a lot of use!  For each cut, I'm always focused on safety and I think about the usual mistakes and pitfalls before and during each cut.  Even during my accident last week, I was focused on what to beware of for this particular series of cuts. 

Last week, I was ripping relatively narrow strips of wood out of short pieces of treated 2x4s to replace some rotted lattice on an arbor at our side door.  I purposely cut the 2x4 to length first so I would only be ripping relatively short pieces which is safer than ripping narrow eight foot lengths.  For this type of cut, there are two main dangers...  1)  because the lattice is on the thin side (3/8"), I couldn't keep the blade guard in place...  the guard would only make this type of cut more dangerous...  and 2)  you need to be careful that the thin piece doesn't bind and kick back at 100mph and/or lift and kick back at 100mph.  Kick back is extremely dangerous and even a blade guard doesn't minimize this risk at all.  I made sure I was not standing in the path of any potential kickbacks and I was laser focused on how to properly push the 2x4 through the saw.

I ripped two short lengths...  no problems.  I was carefully paying attention to the possibility of kick back.  I was focused on keeping firm contact on the strip of 2x4 with my custom push stick.  On the third or fourth cut, I think I was so focused on the kickback and binding possibility that all my attention was on my right hand and keeping firm contact of push stick on the 2x4 that I misjudged the distance between my left hand and the blade.  My thumb came in contact with the blade and I instantly jumped back about two feet...  my right hand went to the safety shutoff and slapped it off then instantly wrapped around my injured left thumb.    

Having difficulties with coordination is one of my common Systemic Mastocytosis symptoms so this isn't a complete surprise but it should not happen when I'm focused on safety.  I think the main problem was that I was completely focused on the potential dangers that were the responsibility of my right hand since those were the common threats but I could have also had some coordination issues on this morning.

Fortunately, Sheila is still working from home so I called to her as I entered the house and let her know that I needed help.  We rinsed it off in the kitchen sink and quickly decided we needed to head for the hospital immediately.  

Our road was closed (construction) so we had quite a long detour and then we hit construction on the highway but we made it to the hospital within about 45 minutes since the accident.  I kept pressure on my thumb, wrapped in a towel, and kept it elevated over my head.  The hospital checked me in quickly and almost immediately moved me back to a bed in Trauma.  

Until now, I had the bleeding under control because I kept pressure on it and I kept it over my head.  Now it was about an hour or more since the accident and they were wheeling me to x-ray.  During the imaging, I needed to lay my hand on a table...  unwrapped....  and then the bleeding really started to flow.  After a few images, we wrapped my hand in the towel again and I was wheeled back to Trauma where Sheila was waiting for me.  I was able to put pressure on my thumb again but now every time I had to show someone the injury, the blood would flow quickly.

Once the radiologist reported on my x-rays, they started collecting everything they would need to patch me up.  The x-rays showed a broken/chipped bone (I haven't seen the x-rays yet) and, of course, part of my thumb is missing.  By now, I think we were about an hour and a half since the accident. 

When I was younger, I had seen many bloody scenes with traumatic, catastrophic and even fatal injuries and this kind of stuff never really bothered me back then.  Since retiring though...  I'm far weaker, in far poorer health, and I'm now definitely a bit squeamish about my own injuries as well as very squeamish about seeing others in distress and pain.  All injuries now seem to bother me and this particular injury was really turning my stomach. 

It was around this point that I realized I had now missed a dose of medications so I asked the doctor working on me if it would be okay if I took some of my medications.  Of course, I had to explain why I felt it was a priority at this point in time then had to convince the doctor that my condition (Systemic Mastocytosis) was still stable.  I explained that I simply wanted to stay ahead of my body potentially crashing into anaphylaxis.  I didn't do my usual dose but instead opted for emergency medications.  Trauma impacts my illness significantly so, as she was working on me, she ordered some medications that I had requested.  

She gave me two shots of Lidocaine which numbed me up and caused a bunch of swelling which slowed down the bleeding quite a bit.  Then she brought me to a sink and asked me to wash and scrub the wound...  uggg.  That was not pleasant.  The sight of part of my thumb missing was making me sick to my stomach.  The wound was not all that pretty either.  My thumb was a chewed-up short hunk of flesh.  I'm only missing about a half inch of my thumb but that is enough to completely change the appearance of my thumb.  I no longer recognized my own hand.

I went back to my bed after scrubbing the wound and the doctor continued working on it.  I got some stitches, it was splinted, and it was wrapped up.  On the way home, we stopped to pick up a prescription for an antibiotic as well as some first aid supplies.

Later that night, the medical reports were posted to my online account so I got to read about the injury.  What really hit me hard was that after six decades of doing everything I can to protect my fingers and hands, I was reading reports referring to this injury as an "amputation".  An amputation of my thumb.  This is something no pianist ever wants to see, nor hear, nor read.  Just this one word was making me sick to my stomach.  While the thumb is wrapped up, it is easy to fool myself into thinking that, in time, this will heal.  When I change the dressing and see my thumb, it is like a slap in the face and a punch in the gut...  it makes me sick to my stomach.  Seeing the term "amputation", makes it impossible to not see the reality of the situation and it was making me sick to my stomach.

Within a couple of hours after the hospital and now at home, the Lidocaine had worn off, my adrenaline was back to normal, and the pain set it.  My thumb throbbed at a level bordering on unbearable...  for days...  in fact, whenever I stand, the throbbing still worsens.  About once a day, I accidentally jam my bandaged thumb into something sending tears streaming down my face.  The pain is still always there and the wound is still oozing.  Changing the dressing is excruciating.  

We change the dressing daily and my thumb is still extremely hyper-sensitive.  Just the lightest of touches is enough to bring a tear to my eye.  The constant pain has lessened...  the throbbing has lessened...  but both are still there.  Doing anything that raises my heartrate causes the throbbing to jump to unbearable levels.  Then again, this is only day six.  Part of my thumb is missing.  There are probably a bunch of nerves exposed that used to be buried under capillaries and flesh.  My thumb is still slightly swollen.  The wound is still pretty ugly.  That being said, as ugly as it is, it seems to be doing relatively well considering  what it has endured. 

I see my primary care doctor in a couple of days.  I finished my antibiotic but I'm still taking Aleve to alleviate some of the pain.  Changing the dressing is still a bit disgusting and painful.  When I do change the dressing, after washing it up (extremely painful), I let it sit out in open air for an hour or so.  The stitches are supposed to be removed by my primary care doctor in a couple of days but this is not looking like it is healed enough for that.  Time will tell...

I still have a lot of carpentry work to do around the house and that includes using a table saw, as always....   I'm not looking forward to using any power tools again especially my table saw but, honestly, the table saw is an indispensable tool.  I'm now two or three weeks behind in my lawn care and landscaping so that will be the first thing to attempt to tackle when I can start doing things again.

That really was a stupid mistake.  

I'll spare you all a photo of the bare, raw injury but here is a photo of the injured thumb wrapped and in a splint with my "good" thumb next to it showing the comparison of lengths....