Well, it wasn't the best way to start my new part-time job. The other day, I was learning to use a piece of equipment and it attacked my left hand. My new co-workers quickly helped wash and bandage my hand to stop the bleeding. Then, one of them accompanied me to the emergency room so that I had another hand to squeeze while I got stitched up.
After 24 years of working in labs without much more than a paper cut, now this.
You don't realize how much you need both hands until one of them is out of commission.
That's my report for now. Forgive me for the short post, but typing is not the easiest thing at the moment. I'll be OK again soon.
5 comments:
I hope that your hand is better today...I understand how important it is to your work...best wishes on a quick recovery...stuart/sun
Thanks, Stewart!
I fully sympathize, but on the other hand (ahem) injuries can provide fun dinner conversation… par example:
So…back in my custom cabinet-making days---
There I was cutting a length of 1/8th-inch thick aluminum on a table-saw because the architect had “designed” a mechanism that didn’t exist in the entire world and upon which the integrity of his design utterly depended---therefore we, not he, had to figure out how to make it work otherwise we wouldn’t get paid, hence my sudden introduction to metal-working.
The blade was actually specifically designed for aluminum work and I’d used it before without incident—it had a very straight profile with a slight shoulder and a negative rake to the carbide teeth.
I used an industrial wax to lubricate the blade, but even so there was a fair amount of resistance and as the cut progressed so did the “chatter”—a combination of air-flow from the spinning blade and the relative hardness of the aluminum reacting to the impact of the blade’s teeth which were moving at around 110 mph.
As the aluminum strip began to bounce I reached for a push-stick to keep the metal down and prevent a ragged cut, but just as I did so the sweat from my hand holding and feeding the metal into the blade overcame my grip and guided by the slick and the polished aluminum strip, my fingers slid straight and true into the saw-blade (I have to point out that the necessary cut could only be made WITHOUT a blade-guard).
I didn’t feel my flesh being cut; the blade was too sharp and moving too quickly for that sensation to register. And interestingly I didn’t immediately feel the impact as the teeth hit the bones—but I heard the sound, ‘CRACK!’ like a hammer on concrete and that’s what I reacted-to.
Instinctively grabbing the one hand with my other, I switched-off the saw with my knee (a facility that I’d rigged myself—the saw manufacturer, Delta, had the switch positioned for dwarves with unusually long arms to save on the expense of an extra 18–inches of wiring I guess) and the cause of my trouble--that stupid piece of aluminum--just sat there unharmed, mocking me.
I was actually pretty calm, but I was a bit freaked-out too. (This wasn’t my first experience with psychotic power-tools—--before this incident a drill-bit had chewed half my thumbnail off and a pneumatic gun had driven a 1-1/4–inch long staple into my hand, but this seemed a bit more radical).
With the insistence and assistance of a co-worker I unclenched my hand long enough to shove the damaged parts under the tap and appraise the situation.
I’d seen worse, but that had been on other people—it is a relevant distinction.
So I made a fist again, though this time with a variety of gauze and cotton wool. My hand now looked like a bloodied Shari Lewis “Lamb Chop” sock-puppet, and off I went to the E.R.
There was much filling–out of paperwork that took about an hour, after which I was put on a gurney which struck me as being very caring but unnecessary—I wasn’t losing copious amounts of blood or having a baby, I was still in charge of my mental faculties and was willing to follow any nurse, anywhere, and under my own power.
But not wishing to make waves I accepted the free ride. I lay on the trolley for an hour in a hallway, before being taken to Radiology.
By now I had been keeping my left hand in a clench for at least two hours straight, fearful that if I relaxed one iota, some piece of me might fall off.
“Open your hand” said the X-Ray tech as she held me by my wrist in position under the camera. I tried, but muscles were frozen after over two hours of constant clenching. “I;m trying” I said, and I really was trying, but my hand wasn’t responding.
Ms. X-Ray didn’t have time for this sissy shit—“Open your damn hand!” she barked and then immediately pried my grip open. The pain came from the forced relaxation, not from the injury, and it didn’t last.
X-rays complete I was shoved out into a hallway, on a drip, on my gurney. And there I lay for an hour like the unwanted marzipan on the petit-fours tray, briefly perused but invariably ignored.
Finally I was noticed and as I was being wheeled along I was promised a room.
Which happened to be a medical supply closet. Where I lay for five hours (I know because although the saw-blade had eaten my fingers, it hadn’t eaten my watch). During that time the closet was visited twice and only one of the visitors even acknowledged my existence—with an “oh!” before hurrying out with vital supplies.
Finally with a cheery “oh, there you are!” from a nurse I was finally deposited in a room with a bed. In the wing where they kept all the criminals—my roommate had been shot by the cops because he’d been shooting at some other guy who had stiffed him on a drug deal.
Anywhoo… I spent two days overall in hospital on an antibiotic drip.
The secondary bone of the second digit on my left hand had a simple fracture, easily fixed by a simple splint. The index finger of my left hand lost ¼ -inch of bone and the fingernail and the saw-cut was repaired with five stitches which frankly was incredibly cheap of them—I’ve had an E.T. finger ever since and it’s a bit weird.
BUT… I went back to work after two days, with two broken fingers and a still infected wound which I had to bathe in Hydrogen peroxide and then re-bandage them during my un-paid lunch-break and go back to handling heavy material and using tools like nothing had ever happened, with only one hand, because in that type of business, then and now, workers like me and businesses like that couldn’t and still can’t afford health insurance and sick pay because risk is an abstract to those who risk nothing, and that’s how business is structured.
I could also tell you how I got stabbed in the eye-socket with a 12”screwdriver, carried -on working one-eyed, went to the ER the next day, got an eye-patch, some eye drops and went back to work half blind with no depth-perception for two weeks and unable to afford prescription drugs for the pain and continued to operate saws and other nasty machinery because I couldn’t afford not-to if I wanted to pay the rent.
Or.. well it goes on..
But on a brighter note, whilst I was laying in hospital on a drip with my fucked-up hand, my colleagues paid a visit and with them was a representative of our client and with her was her visiting girlfriend who happened to be a Las Vegas showgirl and she thought I looked really cute and vulnerable yet stoic or something with my bandages and my hospital smock and all and as soon as I was discharged…well… I popped some stitches in the process but the damage was done, and a good time was had by all.
So the moral is, don't eschew sympathy--it can have its rewards.
That's quite a story, 5th Estate!
My story pales in comparison. I was in the ER only about 2 hours total and went back to work for the rest of the afternoon.
Like you, I didn't really feel the pain at the time, due to the sharpness of the blade. But I knew that it was bad and my first instinct was to raise my hand over my head and apply pressure with the other hand until I could get help.
One of my co-workers came to the ER with me and held my good hand while I was being stitched up. The shots of novacaine hurt more than the injury itself.
On the first night, I was having flashbacks of the incident. But they seem to have subsided.
It's getting better every day...
"physician, heal thyself"! glad to read you're okay, 'doc. you were never cut out (!) to be a butcher, anyways.
KEvron
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