A Split Second Can Drastically Change Your Life

Black Friday took on a whole new meaning for JS (name withheld). He was working in his home shop the day after Thanksgiving, ripping a narrow piece of walnut on his contractor saw, with only the riving knife in place for safety. His right hand was gripping a push stick to push the wood forward and his left hand was in front of the blade, holding the board against the rip fence. The board bound up on the blade and the downward force broke the plastic insert plate, which then caused his left hand to fall into the gap—and into the spinning blade. His index and middle finger were cut almost immediately on the tips.

“At first glance I thought I had lost the tips of my index and middle finger,” JS said. “I ran into the house and told my wife we needed to go to the ER. We wrapped up the fingers and left quickly.”

The pads of the fingers were cut so deeply that he suffered a broken bone in the index finger and chipped bones in both, requiring surgery to repair them. After weeks of wearing bandages and stitches, the “repair” healed as well as it could. Today, JS’s fingers look almost normal, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.

“The fingertips are still in pain and I cannot put pressure on them at this point. The tips have no sensation in them that isn’t pain,” he says.

JS says his out-of-pocket expenses are about $10,000. As impactful as that is, he says living with his new reality is a daily, sometimes hourly reminder. “I don’t think people truly understand how much they use their hands and take for granted how an injury like this can impact your day to day. I have slowly gotten back into woodworking, but I’m very hesitant using the saw or anything with a spinning blade for that matter. Basic things such as getting dressed or typing, not being able to use all of your fingers is a new challenge every day. Even though it’s an injury to only a few fingers, I still have huge limitations for day-to-day activities.”