1113
Links are NSFW: Graphic images. IAmA person that essentially severed all of his fingers on a tablesaw. AMA
I have never really talked to anyone about this, not even my parents, other than just telling the basic story (1000 fucking times). I generally prefer to keep my shit to myself. That being said, here you go, entire Internet. This is a pretty long read, so settle in.
Oh, and TL;DR? Fuck you, try typing this entire thing with a thumb.
I've done carpentry for about a decade, and am very comfortable around all the tools of the trade (except shapers, I won't fucking touch those arm-shredders).
I did maintenance for a retail store. The basement was a dedicated workshop/woodshop. On April 22, 2010 I had just finished ripping down a piece of lumber to replace a rotted section of a window at work. I killed power to the saw and reached down to grab the wood, i somehow misjudged where my hand was in relation to the blade.
I heard a crunching-ringing noise and my right arm went flying back behind me. I pulled it back and went to "shake out the pain" when i realized blood was blasting out of my palm. I severed every artery to every finger (2 arteries each) except my pinkie, which only lost 1. I also cut my index finger completely off right across the PIP joint (The "knuckle"), leaving it hanging by a flap of skin. The knuckle itself exploded, a lot of the bone scattered across the workshop. I'm sure there are pieces still lying around down there. I severed all of the flexor tendons and nerves on the palm-side of my hand. The tendons to my pinkie were spared, but most of its nerves weren't. Fortunately the saw blade stopped once it hit the rest of the bones in my hand.
Post accident damage report:
Pinkie - not devastated but still fucked up
Ring finger - fucked
Middle finger - fucked
Index finger - LOL
A good description of the pain would be to slap a brick wall with your flat palm as hard as you can. It just felt like something smacked the shit out of my hand.
I was alone in the workshop, i paused for about 5 seconds to check and make sure all of my fingers were accounted for. The first words out of my mouth were "God damnit, that sucks." I never felt panic throughout any stage of this experience, i don't think i've ever been so angry with myself though.
The best way to describe the bleeding was like a garden hose turned up about 1/3 of the way. It was literally pouring out of me and splashing into puddles on the floor. The ceiling of the workshop still has a straight 3-foot line of bloodstains right above where the saw sits and you can still see my blood-trail across the concrete floor and up the wooden steps, almost 2 years later. I lost about 60% of my blood all-in-all.
I went and grabbed my boss who gave me his jacket to wrap around my hand and a few minutes later we were on our way to the ER. I nearly passed out during the 8-ish minute drive due to how fast my blood pressure was dropping. We got to the ER probably 12 minutes after the accident, i had pulled myself together by the end of the ride and was no longer lightheaded. Boss' grey jacket was now completely red.
Fortunately for me, the only micro-vascular surgeon (exactly what I needed) within about 150 miles was just finishing a 12-hour shift at the hospital. After about 20 minutes of waiting in the triage, and started looking at my hand and ordered xrays. He was angry with the doctors me for not giving me any pain meds, since that meant he couldn't really probe around in my hand yet. By this point the pain was starting to set in, not terrible yet but really starting to throb. He told me that, from what he could see, I would probably lose all of my fingers. He left to go prep. My bleeding had nearly stopped at this point.
I spent another 15 minutes or so in the triage after he left hanging out and cracking jokes with my boss. I have always used humor to deal with everything, i know worrying about shit and FMLing doesn't fix anything so you might as well make the best of any given situation.
Chilling in the ER for about 45 minutes while they prepped OR.
They eventually put some amnesia-inducing drugs into my IV which made my head and neck itch like crazy and wheeled me into a hallway outside the OR. About 5 or 10 minutes after that, they finally pushed me into the OR. They knocked me out. It's strange to think that you might actually feel all the pain of a surgery at the time it is happening, but just not remember it afterward. Well, here are some of the pictures from my surgery that I'm sure you all want to see.
Surgery lasted 12 hours. Apparently every time he gave an update to the people waiting outside, the prognosis was different. IE: the middle finger could be saved but the others don't look good, then the middle finger was fucked but the ring finger should be alright, he's only going to have a thumb and pinkie, and back and forth like that throughout the night.
My parents made it to the hospital from the other side of the state about halfway through the operation. Just in time because the surgeon, during his hourly report to the waiting room, said he was going to clip my index finger off and call it a lost cause. The story I heard is that my mom jumped down his throat and told him that he was going to do his "fucking best" to save every single finger. I have personally never heard my mom curse.
I am now waking up in in the ICU in some of the worst pain i have ever been in, my right hand is swollen to 3x its normal size with tubes sticking out of my palm and wrist. The room was blazing hot in order to promote blood flow through the newly repaired arteries. The vent in the ceiling was blasting right onto my face, i felt like i was dying. I looked over to my hand and saw all of my fingertips sticking out of the bandaging, elation doesn't describe the feeling.
The pain was unbearable. My surgeon came in to talk to me, he grabbed my hand and tweaked it this way and that to show off his work to my family, everything went black for a minute. He was obviously still in "surgery mode" where he treats the hand like an object rather than part of a person.
They had me hooked up to morphine but apparently I am in the minority of people on whom it has no effect. They kept giving me more and more. They clipped a stitch in my palm to relieve some pressure, a large jet of blood shot past my face and over my shoulder, hitting the wall about 5 feet to the left of the bed. I remember complimenting the nurse on the distance. No relief in pain.
Shortly afterward they decided the morphine wasn't working. I remember watching the nurse inject something else into my IV line, Everything instantly went white as i overdosed.
I remember a thick white haze, i felt a hand on my chest and heard my mom's voice saying "breath" every now and then. I complied as best i could. I was told later that i was taking about 4 breaths per minute.
I came to in an ambulance. Apparently my mom demanded that I be transferred. The EMT looked down and asked how I was doing.
"Never felt better."
Blackness.
My next memory is being in another operating room. I distinctly remember the nurse saying, "This should help you forget what is about to happen," as she injected something into my arm.
It didn't.
They inserted a long needle into my armpit. It was a nerve catheter, basically an epidural for my arm. Like this, but into my arm. I was so out of it that the pain from the needle wasn't bad, but then the Dr. said "Hit it." and they flipped on the ultrasound. Absolutely the worst pain I have ever been in and hopefully ever will be in. They missed their mark and had to readjust the needle a couple times. They activated the catheter and my arm instantly went numb, absolutely no feeling whatsoever. No pain. Heaven.
They finally got around to giving me a blood infusion after a couple days. I went from zombie to human within minutes.
Holy shit this is turning into a novel, i will breeze through the rest. Here are some more pictures to reward you for making it this far.
Waiting to have stitches remove about a month later.
They thought i had contracted MRSA while in the hospital, a very nasty strain of staph. Turned out to be nothing. MRSA Scare
My favorite of the 4 braces i had to wear over 6 months.
I had 4 additional surgeries with a hand specialist at the new hospital. A few pins removed and a few screws inserted and suddenly i could move the knuckle again, only about half the flexion, but i'm sure as hell not complaining. The other joints in my index finger calcified and do not bend at all so i am always pointing at something.
9 months after the initial surgery, both tendons to my middle finger re-ruptured with a deafening SNAP during PT. No pain, just a lot of noise and a limp finger. I went back into surgery but they could only salvage one of the tendons.
My nerves are still fucked, i can elaborate on what nerve damage is like if you guys want. It is somewhat interesting but i had to edit it out due to character count. My index finger is about 3/4" shorter than it used to be.
I will say that even with my dominant hand fucked up for life and with hardly any dexterity, my outlook on life is much brighter that it was before the accident. I am a happier person overall.
Sometimes you have to lose a little before you really appreciate how much you have.
Oh and it took 3 months for the dream-version of me to develop a fucked up hand. I thought that was pretty interesting.
*Edited for formatting.
*Edit #2: By popular demand, my hand in its present state. Fucking sexy.
Thanks for the laughs guys. Here is a video of where I am today.
bigguspeepee625 karma
Somebody, buy this man speech recognition software for his computer!
Nessie328 karma
People who can go through hell and keep their sense of humor is why I love Reddit. Damn! I'd be devastated as not being able to play guitar. any more.
Dulljack561 karma
Look at it this way, now I have an excuse not to play guitar very well.
As far as girls are concerned, i used to be a rock god before the accident.
(i could barely play happy birthday. shh)
Fyreswing319 karma
Yeah I was totally in a popular band. Cough Severed these guys while fingering 8 chicks at the same time.
ridik_ulass31 karma
I love that you love this, I always feel no matter how bad shit is if someone can find the good in it , its better than no good at all , even if its just a giggle.
Dulljack99 karma
I imagine getting upset about things you can't change makes for some pretty miserable people.
ridik_ulass176 karma
when my cat died, it was Sunday and I didn't own a shovel ,local hardware shops were closed. So I dug the hole with the back of a claw hammer , it was late as we were looking for a shovel all day, and I didn't own a torch so when it got dark I had to use a candle.... A scented candle. it was winter and raining so the g/f stood over me holding a umbrella this was probably one of the most miserable experiences of my life , But I'll be damned if it wasn't the funniest.
Esham1237353 karma
great story! was anyone else really concerned for the wellbeing of the surgeon, who had just finished a twelve hour shift when this guy walked in?
Dulljack495 karma
The surgeon was a pro. I felt bad for making him work a solid 24+ hours. He finished the surgery at about 5:30am, plus he had come back in several times over the next 12 hours to leave orders and check up on me.
Quatroking318 karma
I'm going to hell for laughing at your tl;dr. But in all honesty, the docs did great work making it look nice. It's a shame they're just useless sticks of meat now tho. Either way, thumbs up with your recovery.
EDIT: PUN NOT INTENDED, FUCK
Dulljack333 karma
They aren't completely useless, i can still double-fist beers and that is what's most important!
futureproofrifle213 karma
i can elaborate on what nerve damage is like if you guys want''
Yes, please.
Dulljack327 karma
Almost 2 years later and my nerves still kind of suck. I can sense "hot" and "cold" and pain in most parts of my fingers, though the sensations are amplified 10x. Something that is pretty warm feels like it is melting the flesh right off of my fingers, something fairly cool is almost unbearably cold.
I can't actually feel things. I just basically have a variation of pins-and-needles to let me know when something is happening to a finger. Rubbing the front of my ring finger sets off the pins on the back of my pinkie and the side of my middle while i feel nothing on the actual spot i am rubbing. When i bang my index finger on something, the excruciating pain is all contained on the side and back of my middle finger.
With my eyes closed, i can't tell the difference between running my fingers over a sheet of sandpaper or a piece of silk cloth. They "feel" identical, just pins and needles.
You don't realize how much you rely on the little messages from your fingers until you can't anymore. I drop stuff all the time simply because i can't tell that it is slipping out of my hand until it is too late. Hell sometimes i don't realize i have dropped something even after i have. You have to keep visual contact with whatever you are doing since you can't rely on touch anymore. No more reaching around my computer to plug in a usb cord. It usually takes 3 or 4 tries to get my hand into my pocket because i can't tell when one of my fingers snags on the denim. It is really hard to eat the fries out of my McDonalds sack while driving because i can't tell the difference between the fries and anything else in sack.
For the first year, I had severe nerve pain that felt like i was dipping my hand into a deep-fat fryer for hours at a time. I would honestly be surprised when i would look and the skin was still there. There is absolutely no remedy or relief for that sort of pain. The pains still pop up sometime but they are usually fleeting now.
The nerve damage itself is really interesting but gets old pretty fast haha.
TooSubtle358 karma
In 2007 my hand/forearm went through a window, and I still have nerve damage all along the 'back' of my arm/hand to the tip of my fingers.
I describe the physical sensation of things touching that area as "like having pins and needles and then putting it in boiling water".
The best thing about the whole incident was my regular doctor asking me what happened.
"I got into a fight with a window"
"Ahh, windows tend to win-doze fights"
Dulljack158 karma
your doctor sounds like my dad
yeah it's impossible to really describe nerve damage to someone who hasn't had it, but i understand completely dude
biography51 karma
Did you see a hand therapist? You might be able to improve the sensation with some work.
Dulljack105 karma
Yeah I went to a CHT 3 times a week for about 14 months. He is the reason i have the mobility i do today
biography75 karma
They're amazing, sometimes you really need someone to get excited when you twitch. Inspired me so much I'm in second year at uni :)
Dulljack121 karma
It honestly made me kind of want to do therapy.
He always made sure that i was taking care of "his" hand for him. It's awesome to have someone who is just as motivated, if not more, than you are about your recovery.
futureproofrifle39 karma
Also, not a question; but that was a very interesting read. Thanks for the story.
futureproofrifle33 karma
Ah hell, one more while I'm at it. How long did it take to type that whole thing up?
Dulljack104 karma
Probably 3 hours of typing and thinking. Then it wound up being 18000 characters so another hour to edit it back down to 10000 :)
JackpotDen43 karma
If only my gf was as talented as you are at writing. She'd bitch at me a whole lot less and we'd be a lot richer.
Did you know a novella is about 50k words and a book is about 100k words? You could write a book in a few days.
EDIT : I derped and thought it was words, not characters. My bad.
tylerdurdenwasntreal202 karma
so did you have to learn how to fap all over again?
did you develop a new technique?
Dulljack809 karma
Haha actually, i had to go lefty for awhile which was weird but i got used to it. Now i am back to preferring my right hand but I guess i am sort of a switch hitter.
You haven't truly experienced the stranger until you've jerked with nerve damage.
Dulljack237 karma
At least have a professional do it for you.
Deconstructive surgeon at your service, reasonable rates.
Blaphtome33 karma
Forget about hands man; your story is the greatest justification ever for a fleshlight. Trust me you owe it to yourself. Bet if you sent your story to the Joe Rogan podcast you could get a free one.
Dulljack237 karma
I've got to say, my favorite part of this injury are the puns it opens up.
I'm legit giggling right now
*ninja edit: hilarious typo. Saw instead of say
redcashray121 karma
Glad you can laugh about your incident. Hands down the best way to deal. High five for you.
Proeiliator155 karma
What is your opinion of table saws that automatically shut down when your put your hand near the blade?
Dulljack371 karma
Any company that can afford those instant-stop saws should get one. A $2,000 tablesaw beats $180,000 in medical bills any day.
Yourmyfavoritedeputy123 karma
You're a fuckin badass..happened to my shop teacher, but no where near as bad, just the tip of one finger which was sewed back on. And my uncle loat half a finger, but a cat ran off with it, so it's gone. I would love to hear what the nerve damage is like
Dulljack167 karma
My shop teacher was missing half of a couple of his finger, we always gave him good-natured shit. "Hey give me 3.5!"
call it karma
Edit: i just reread this and caught the cat part. oh my god that is so awesome. hahahahaha
I'm sorry for his loss
SilverChaos76 karma
TABLESAWS.
NOT EVEN ONCE.
Real question, how have you had to adapt to having an impaired hand? Anything really difficult? Considering it was your dominant hand, I take it you've had to re-learn writing and everything with the opposite hand.
Dulljack114 karma
You can always find ways of working around a disability I guess. There is nothing i could so before that I can't do now, sometimes i is a lot harder but there is still a way. For example, i hold my mouse 90 degrees sideways now and use my thumb for the buttons and scroll wheel since i can't feel them with my fingers. I try using it regularly every now and then, i got pissed when i couldn't get it to click once and my finger wasn't even on the mouse when i looked down. I was just like, "oh."
I tried relearning how to write lefty, said fuck that and focused on finding a way to wedge a pencil back into my right hand. Most things are still easier to do with my fucked up right hand than with my perfectly good left hand.
My handwriting was abysmal before the accident, it is still just as bad but now i have a tendency to write everything in italics.
Fox-Hound70 karma
This will probably get buried under the comments but I hope you read this. IMHO this is one of the best IAMA's I've seen. Yeah it's verbose but in a Quentin Tarantino way. Thanks for the post, mate.
Dulljack63 karma
Oh don't worry, i've been up for 5 or 6 hours replying to every comment i see!
I really appreciate it, i wasn't trying to impress anybody. I've just gone too long without talking about this, to anyone.
bpoag66 karma
Worst pain I've ever been in: I fell arms-first onto a barrel cactus about 6 years ago. The way I fell meant there were a ton of needles (each about 1-2" long) embedded in my arm, from my wrist to my elbow. After they pulled all the visible needles out of my forearms, they gave me an ultrasound to see if they could spot anything else.
I wasn't quite prepared for that. The pain of having someone stroke the probe thingy up and down the inside of my arm was quite fucking indescribable.. It felt like someone had put my arm in a meat slicer and was flipping through the resulting slices like a deck of cards every time it went by. I hit that level of pain where you don't have conscious control over your reaction to it; that weird "animal" level that tells you to attack the person causing the pain. I remember trying to fight that urge before I blacked out, and came to a few seconds later, crying.. lol.
So, OP, hats off to you.. Seems like you had it 10x worse than me and still kicked its ass!
Dulljack57 karma
Yeah those ultrasounds are a bitch right? it was one long grunt as i slowly blacked out until they finished
bicyclingfool65 karma
Recreational woodworker here. I'm sure you've had time to think about how/why this happened, any words of wisdom? I'd love the reap the benefits of all your, "If only I..." thoughts.
Dulljack128 karma
My mistake was getting comfortable and letting my guard down when i flipped the power switch off, even though the blade was still spinning at nearly full speed. I was working late and in a hurry to finish up so i could get home and just wasn't being careful.
Just respect the tools you are using and remember that they don't give a shit whether they are cutting through wood or through flesh. As long as you are fully aware of where your hands are and what they are doing, you should be fine. If you think your fingers might end up getting too close to the blade, use a push-stick
jenniepeterson58 karma
I'd love to see a sample of your handwriting, if you don't mind. Also, props to you for coming out the other side with a better outlook on life.
Dulljack138 karma
To be honest, it's not much worse than it was before. I just have the tendency to slant everything to the right now for some reason.
Theopocalypse20 karma
This is better than my current handwriting. How often does a person really need to write in this day and age anyway? I bet your Times New Roman 12pt font looks just as good as mine or anyone else's ;)
baseballjew456856 karma
I found the part where you were calm as soon as it happened interesting. My dad lost half of his middle, ring and pinky fingers on his left hand in a similar accident. He repairs machinery for a living, and one day he was working on a pillow feather shredding machine. He turned it off, had a brain fart and forgot to wait for the blades to stop rotating and reached in. He pulled out half a hand, looked at it for a moment, quietly walked over to his boss and said simply, "I need to go to the hospital." It's amazing how the body reacts in the most dire situations in order for you to get your shit together so survival is possible. Thanks for the story though, and I'm sorry for your loss, I can (kind of) understand your predicament, and it's good to know that you have a positive outlook on this whole thing.
Dulljack72 karma
Yeah i guess the shock kind of keeps things from fully processing. I knew right away that i had permanently wrecked my hand. But it still didn't seem completely real at the time, like I had always recovered from every other injury so life experience says this will be fine. Or something.
I was definitely the most calm person around me.
Dulljack51 karma
really, because i am LOLing like crazy
Puredemo hooked me up with that hahaha
kierken39 karma
Dude. That was intense. Though everyone's saying it, I'm really sorry that happened to you. It sounds like you've been able to work around the injury, though. If you don't mind, I'm wondering how everything happened on the insurance part of it. Did it turn out fine? And were you happy with the way the doctors treated you?
Dulljack94 karma
Workers Comp saved my ass in a big way. Handled every penny of my medical bills, covered all of my mileage to and from Dr. and therapist visits, and kept food on the table when i couldn't work.
Considering how bad things were, they couldn't have turned out better. In a weird way i am glad this happened to give me some perspective. It's the unique experiences, good and bad, that define who we become.
Plus now i have an easy conversation starter and an excuse for hot chicks to grab my hand.
slight_anxiety38 karma
My index finger is about 3/4" shorter than it used to be.
Wait... since a longer pointer than index finger is supposedly related to high testosterone...
... but you also arguably just beat a table saw in an arm wrestling competition...
science is confusing.
Dulljack102 karma
On it.
Now, just to invent some sort of device that can remove fingers...
Shrekusaf27 karma
upvote for cool story and hard learned shop safety lesson. had a shop teacher working on a lathe lose his middle finger. went to check it for smoothness and a knot came around and caught his fingertip. the whole finger came off at the first joint and pulled the muscle out through his hand. blood everywhere and this strange fapping sound as what was left wrapped around the wood hit the bench rest. as the nerves came back to you, did you notice a hypersensitivity in areas that were numb before?
Dulljack29 karma
Oh god that story almost made me gag. Jesus christ.
And yeah, i am definitely hypersensitive to cold and heat now, even though i still can't differentiate between textures and the like.
ern1926 karma
My only burning question: Have you delivered any wicked backhands when the bitches get an attitude?
Dulljack62 karma
I'm pretty sure it would wind up hurting me more than them, but all i can say is CHICKS DIG SCARS.
shmishshmorshin24 karma
How annoying was it to have to wipe with your left? I broke my hand 7 years ago, that was the trickiest thing to deal with. Btw, props to you for having a good outlook on everything. High five.
Dulljack60 karma
Yeah that was kind of a bitch to get used to. it just felt so unnatural.
high 4.5 right back at you
[deleted]22 karma
I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Looks like it healed nicely (obviously sounds like healing is difficult but at least the scarring doesn't look that bad).
Book suggestion: The Fourth Hand by John Irving. Great story about how a hand injury changed a mans life.
Dulljack70 karma
without cease.
My index finger always feels like I just broke it. It sucks because I know this is the best it is ever going to feel for the rest of my life.
But hey, the last thing i ever want is pity. It was my mistake and my consequences. No amount of moping will change the way things are. There is no point in focusing on the problem, I just have to think about how to make things better.
BreweryBaron18 karma
If 5 or 10 years from now, you were offered to participate in a bionic hand project, where they take off most of your hand, but replace it with a fully functional bionic hand (connected to your bones and nerves), would you take the opportunity?
PS: Your hand looks very nice, you're a lucky man.
Dulljack48 karma
Depending on how much more the pain is bothering me, possibly. I know that i am going to get really bad arthritis at a very young age.
I suppose at some point, i definitely think the trade-off would be worth it. Luke Skywalker seemed to do fine with his
maddermonkey16 karma
What's the most difficult thing for you to do?
What's something you can still do and that you enjoy?
How's your love life?
Dulljack79 karma
Tying knots is a bitch now and takes some concentration.
I used to be a snake-player for a D2 tournament paintball (xball) team before the accident and had to stop. I've played a few times since but it's not the same when you can't really grip the gun correctly. Getting shot in the fingers hurt pretty bad before but is pretty devastating now.
I am terrible at beer pong now too, not fine control over the ball.
Just about everything else is doable. It took several months before i could handle my xbox controller again, but i am finally back up to the same level of FPS mediocrity as i was before!
Doesn't affect my love life very much, i just have to always use my left hand when i go spelunking so i can tell what the hell i am doing down there. (as if i had any clue in the first place :P)
cykovisuals16 karma
So sorry this happened to you... You're lucky you didn't lose it, man. Do you still do any carpentry?
Dulljack46 karma
Yeah I work in a different capacity for the same company now but am still the most skilled carpenter they have so i get down there every now and then. i'm not scared of the saw or anything, it was a stupid lapse on my part that got me injured. I do have a new respect for it though.
I was actually running that same saw on my first day back at work after recovery.
Dulljack30 karma
I never screamed, i would pass out from the pain before i let myself do that in front of other people. I always try to keep composure, i just never would physically allow myself to actually yell out. All the composure in the world couldn't keep my tears from leaking out during the worst parts though.
There was a lot of groaning involved, like that noise you make in the back of your throat when you see someone get hit really hard in the nuts.
Ghostshirts922 karma
why are you taking so long to answer all these questi..... nevermind.
View HistoryShare Link