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Safety First, power down prior to any servicing! (Disturbing photo)

Konrad

Konrad

Very Strong User
I was asked why I've been a bit quiet on the forums as of late. Well, it is difficult to type with a mangled hand.
I was servicing a swamp cooler at my family home in Denver. I notice a slight water leak and thought I could fix it right then and there. The fix was easy, but I found a puddle of water in the air duct that I though would make a mess should the fan pick it up. So I reached my hand into the duct to wipe the water only to have my hand come back out with 3 broken fingers and severe lacerations to the bone. I'm real lucky I still have all my fingers.

Note to self, turn off all power when servicing equipment! I'm still dumb founded as to how I did this. I knew the danger and stayed clear of the fan while taking care of the leak. But I saw a potential issue and went off script. I heard the roar of the fan felt the air blast and still stuck my hand in the duct! Brain Fade as a result of heat?

I've been around rotating equipment for most of my life. This has been by far the second worst injury* I've suffered. I've had steel rods and cutters go through various parts of my body. But this was blunt trauma injury with skeletal damage exposing the bone marrow to the air. It's been about 2 week and no blood infections so it looks like I'm in the clear.

I post this here as we often deal with high powered fans on our models.

*The worst industrial accident I've had was a neurological poisoning.
(By the way be careful with catalyzed compounds).
missing fingers.jpg
 
Ahh man, really sorry to hear this.

Nothing like a little instant regret.

Looks like you are on the mend already, that is good.
 
Konrad said:
I was asked why I've been a bit quiet on the forums as of late. Well, it is difficult to type with a mangled hand.
I was servicing a swamp cooler at my family home in Denver. I notice a slight water leak and thought I could fix it right then and there. The fix was easy, but I found a puddle of water in the air duct that I though would make a mess should the fan pick it up. So I reached my hand into the duct to wipe the water only to have my hand come back out with 3 broken fingers and severe lacerations to the bone. I'm real lucky I still have all my fingers.

Note to self, turn off all power when servicing equipment! I'm still dumb founded as to how I did this. I knew the danger and stayed clear of the fan while taking care of the leak. But I saw a potential issue and went off script. I heard the roar of the fan felt the air blast and still stuck my hand in the duct! Brain Fade as a result of heat?

I've been around rotating equipment for most of my life. This has been by far the second worst injury* I've suffered. I've had steel rods and cutters go through various parts of my body. But this was blunt trauma injury with skeletal damage exposing the bone marrow to the air. It's been about 2 week and no blood infections so it looks like I'm in the clear.

I post this here as we often deal with high powered fans on our models.

*The worst industrial accident I've had was a neurological poisoning.
(By the way be careful with catalyzed compounds).
View attachment 16192
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Looks pretty good given the incident trauma.
Wish you a speedy recovery.
Raymond
 
Wayne said:
Ahh man, really sorry to hear this.

Nothing like a little instant regret.

Looks like you are on the mend already, that is good.
Click to expand...
Thanks Guys, I really am lucky to still have all the digits!

Yep, the noise of the impact had me thinking, I'm such a dumb s**t. Then I counted my fingers, assessed the wounds, applied pressure to the area. And then the waves of pain came.

Yep, all splints are off and I have near full mobility. I still have some nerve damage on the pinky side of the fingers. But to my mind it's all looking good. I hope to have the stitches removed by the end of the month.
 
The wife is none too happy about the dents to her equipment, me!

The wife is thinking of leveling some kind of fine for the damaging of her tool (BOB, Beast of Burden) and general support system.
 
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@Hawaii Sloper it is doing fine, thank you.

The fingers are still numb on the pinky side of the fingers. I suspect this will be the case for a few months. I have good strength and flexibility in all the digits.

I did some more fine motor skills work, modifying one of my gliders. I just came back from flying some of my EDF models. I was able to find and manipulate the many switches I needed with no problems. A big plus is I can now hold the TX with confidence (no more broken switches).

Half the stitches have come out on their own; I'll remove the rest tomorrow.

I have to say I'm ecstatic how well this turned out.
 
Konrad said:
@Hawaii Sloper it is doing fine, thank you.

The fingers are still numb on the pinky side of the fingers. I suspect this will be the case for a few months. I have good strength and flexibility in all the digits.

I did some more fine motor skills work, modifying one of my gliders. I just came back from flying some of my EDF models. I was able to find and manipulate the many switches I needed with no problems. A big plus is I can now hold the TX with confidence (no more broken switches).

Half the stitches have come out on their own; I'll remove the rest tomorrow.

I have to say I'm ecstatic how well this turned out.
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Good to hear that. 2 years ago I nearly severed the top quarter of my thumb with a 4" razor scraper blade. It took about a year to have the nerves go back to normal where they didn't perfectly line up when it grew back together. It felt like I had 2 separate parts of my thumb instead of just the one. Very sensitive for a while also.
 
The nerves will grow back over about a year or so depending. I'm still gaining nerve function in my left hand after my "de-gloving" ~15 years ago. A bit more trauma to the nerves in my case. I was told I'd have all the nerve function I was going to get within a year. Not true. At one year I had almost no touch response in my index finger, it is nearly back to full now. Wish I could say the same for the tendons in that hand.
 
Wayne said:
The nerves will grow back over about a year or so depending. I'm still gaining nerve function in my left hand after my "de-gloving" ~15 years ago. A bit more trauma to the nerves in my case. I was told I'd have all the nerve function I was going to get within a year. Not true. At one year I had almost no touch response in my index finger, it is nearly back to full now. Wish I could say the same for the tendons in that hand.
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Hmm BTDT

Little or no nerve response in the very tip of my right index finger after 3 years. Touched my bench saw while it was running - silly bugger. I could blame it on my cell phone ringing, but actually, like most such accidents, it was just my own damn stupid fault.

Hurt like an exploding sun for 5 minutes, and bled like a faucet. Strange feeling to look at your own exposed bone. Not one I'd care to repeat.

Doc.
 
The rule of thumb (and I’m glad I still have one) I use is nerve damage “grows” back about one inch per year.
 
Doc J said:
Hmm BTDT

Little or no nerve response in the very tip of my right index finger after 3 years. Touched my bench saw while it was running - silly bugger. I could blame it on my cell phone ringing, but actually, like most such accidents, it was just my own damn stupid fault.

Hurt like an exploding sun for 5 minutes, and bled like a faucet. Strange feeling to look at your own exposed bone. Not one I'd care to repeat.

Doc.
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Yep that bone told me it was a bit more than a band aid repair.

After my 93 year old father lost a fight with a table saw, my loving wife through away my table saw and got me a Saw Stop.
 
Wayne said:
The nerves will grow back over about a year or so depending. I'm still gaining nerve function in my left hand after my "de-gloving" ~15 years ago. A bit more trauma to the nerves in my case. I was told I'd have all the nerve function I was going to get within a year. Not true. At one year I had almost no touch response in my index finger, it is nearly back to full now. Wish I could say the same for the tendons in that hand.
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holy crap! didn't know that happened to you. Interesting that the most accurate description of that type of accident is also the description most likely to give a person nightmares
 
LOL - Only one bone visible? You need to try harder.

My advise, give up on the saw or fan abuse and jump up to off road vehicles. Far more trauma in less time. And as an added benefit you are also more likely to be further away from medical help.

I think most people that have spent a lot of time around saws have a horror story. We get comfortable around the darn things..

My buddy was a tool and die guy and he would allow me to use his shop. What great tools! I didn't dare touch most of them as I didn't know my way around them. But I loved his huge sanding disk for grinding down metal, it was the biggest one I had ever seen and needed a phase converter to run, the thing always turned a bit when the phase converter was on just from voltage bleed. It had a ton of mass and for very little things you didn't even need to turn on the power. Did I paint a picture for how massive this thing was? I very much like wearing gloves when working with metal. Gary had a very hard rule, no gloves in the room that sander was in. Years prior a buddy was using the sander with gloves on and the sander sucked in the glove. The glove locked onto his hand and the sander did what sanders do. In less than a second he had no fingers on that hand.

Sean here at the office has some horror stories from the paper plant he used to perform maintenance on.. They did not stop production for most maintenance, you can guess at the results.
 
Konrad said:
Yep that bone told me it was a bit more than a band aid repair.

After my 93 year old father lost a fight with a table saw, my loving wife through away my table saw and got me a Saw Stop.
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Mine - like many of my tools; is home made, it works very well, and its not going to be discarded due to my stupidity.

I should learn to be more diligent, and take more care so as not have to protect myself from my own tools. End of.

As Wayne says - we geet too complacent around these spinning discs of death.

SELF EDUCATION!

I'm trying.

Doc.
 
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