OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Power Equipment...Mishaps and Funny Stuff Why a fence takes 4 months to build...

I moved into my newly built house in late March last year. First order of business was to get fences up so I could get my Beagle home.

Unfortunately, the process was halted on day 1 when I was rip saw (cutting into the grain) of a hardwood sleeper with my 9.25" cicular saw. It decided it had done enough work for the day and bit me...

The saw kicked out of the cut...just...and came down on the timber, so there was sufficient time or clearance for the blade guard to coume around. Due to the direction the blade spins, the saw came straight back at me along the top of the timber. It was all in slow motion and I instinctively pushed the sleeper away with my left hand to stop the saw ending up in my hip or guts.

The sensation was like getting smack on the hand with a piece of 4x2. I held the saw until the blade stopped spinning and carefully put it down and psyched myself up for a look...it wasn't pretty and I immediately looked away, took a couple of deep breathes and took another look. All the fingers are still there, there is no fountain-like spurting, so I knew I wasn't going to die and all things considered, could have been a lot worse. I grabbed the thumb with my right hand and pushed my writst into my stomack to apply pressure to the wounds and I started yelling for someone to call an ambulance - I had my in-laws, my sisters, wife and son at home unpacking stuff. I then went to run inside, but stacked it on the extension lead and filled the wounds with dirst and gravel - that is when the pain started.

I got up, applied the same holds and tripped over the lip as I ran into the garage and repeated the process on the step into the kitchen. I seriously couldn't catch a break!

I ran for the ensuite and pulled myself up on the threshold of the bedroom because I did want to get blood on the carpet that had been laid that morning, so I headed down the other end of the house to the guest shower cubicle and got my sister to pass me a clean face washer to wrap my thum, a hand towel for my wrist and a normal towel to wrap the whole lot. I then walked back out to the garage, pulled out a fold-out chair and sat down with my hand up on my right shoulder and waited for the ambos to arrive. Two big things that did go my way - I keep my senior first aide certs current and I did not pass out.

I had 12mg of morphone and the 'green pen' on the 20min ride to the hospital and they did 4/5 of 5/8 of nothing for the pain. When I got there, I went on nitrous and then they injected local anaesthetic directly into many location on the wounds - local hurts 10x as bad as the wounds do for about 20-30secs.

At the emergency room, I had to spend 45mins with the wounds under a warm shower to flush most of the gravel and dirst out and then the doctor spent another hour with tweezers, a toothbrush and pressurised saline getting the rest out.

Here is my hand and wrist on the day of the accident, the 2nd of April 2010...I took all of the photos too...

You can click on them for larger versions.



The wound in the wrist got more and more open over time as the elasticity in the skin retracted. The yellow stuff is the fatty tissue layer leaking out.



The white is the tendon, the pink running parallel just above it is the bone. The bone got gouged.




I missed the major blood vessels and tendons in the wrist by mere millimeters.

3.5 days in hospital, 2 hours of micro-surgery repairing the tendon and nerves, 16 weeks of hand therapy to get the usage of the hand back, no driving for 12 weeks.

And here it is 2 weeks after the operation... On the wrist there are 9 internal and 11 external stitches. On the thumb there are 25 external and the surgeon gave up counting the internal stitches.





I now have 95% usage of the hand back, minimal scarring, but tingly sensation on the outside half of the thum. The surgeon said it could take up to 3 years before I know how much sensation I will or won't get back. other than that, it is fine.

So, that delayed me finishing the project by ~4 months. Every time I use any saw of any type now, I get butterflies.

Not on my list of things to do a second time!

Ben.

Damn thats pretty impressive!, I get quite a lot of injuries myself, but usually its just a rather deep cut or a burn, etc that will fix itself up. (terrified of doctors lol) Best I managed was to but the very tip off one of my fingers and mangle up the skin of the back of my hand using a machette in the dark cutting kindling for the fire.

Even without injuries it took me 2 months to put up a damn clothesline

Ouch, I'm surprised it only took 4 months!

I had a run-in with my 9" angle grinder 2 weeks ago cutting bricks - had just finished the cut and stood up not knowing the guard had come loose and swung around. It got me on the side of the wrist - my reflexes saved my hand from leaving home and is now healed but it still freaks me out to think on it. Don't think I'll ever use it again, but have no qualms with my 24" chainsaw....have always been scared of big grinders

Thats nasty.
Forgive me for not trying to get a look at the pictures in more detail, im a tad squeamish.
How it getting on this far down the track??


Im with you redeye, 9" grinders ar something i treat with upmost respect.


I have a 5" makita and i was cutting the bulkhead out of a HQ, through the windscreen pillars and through the floor under the seat. To get into the 90 deg at the back of the sill i removed the guard. I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the sparks and put my little finger onto the disc. It didnt bleed a bit, it did cut fairly deep, no need for stitches or anything. Took a while to heal.

Nearly 2 years on...

I have 100% usage of the hand back. Half of the thumb still has some tingly sensation, but I can feel textures and stuff now. The doc did say it would take 3 years or so before I would know how good the feeling is going to get. May not get any better than it is now.

Still get butterflies in the tummy every time I use that saw. Still have the blood stains on the concrete in the garage.

Ben.

Hi morphias, glad to see that everything has returned almost to normal.....Some very wise person said that power tools "make very good servants but bad masters" was right in this case.....your experience has made me very wary of my Makita

they say that it is always good to be afraid of your tools, not deathly afraid but just alittle scared of them, if you are that you wont be careless.

as joe said, i hurt myself all the time but usually only minor things like cuts, scrapes, bruses and burns