Nine Fingernails
Saturday, March 14. 2009
On the evening of March 12th, I had a bit of an accident...nearly lost a finger in the process...
In-all, the final moral of the story, is that one should be careful where they stick their things...no, not that! I meant fingers!
Before diving into details...if you ever need to visit an ER, and have somewhat of a choice in location, go to Legacy Good Samaritan. Those people made an unpleasant evening totally bearable; laughing and joking the entire time, attentive, and...well, they knew how to treat a person (unlike the the ER near Mall205...that was a very different experience, just a few months ago).
I'm typing slow, but also playing with a nifty one-handed keyboard layout. Though, I'm not winning any typing contests for a while; on aggressive antibiotics, and still downing 1,000mg of vicodin that's only mildly-softening the pain. In-all, I'm down one fingernail, up 6 stitches, and the ER pros said there's a fractured distal phalanx...in my case, it's broken clean-free (which explains the grinding feeling every time I tap the end of this finger).
So, how'd this happen?
I'm currently in the process of building an electric scooter, and had taken it out on its maiden voyage... While stopping to check the chain's tension...instead of pushing on the top/exterior of the chain, I pulled from the inside, while also somehow tapping the throttle. Next thing I know, I'm staring at my finger, stuck between a very tight chain and the mated sprocket...going "...cool, this doesn't hurt yet...". Then the motor started jerking forward/back (controller sensed something was blocking motor rotation...wanna guess what that something was?!?).
After about a minute of struggling to free my finger, I finally got it out; by giving up on backing-out, and just hit the throttle, while praying the end of my finger would be intact...enough of it was (I had also managed to slip the chain off the sprocket, so that any further damage/cuts were minimized as my finger went around). Once in the ER, they ripped the fingernail off, in order to stitch up a "complete, and deep, nail bed laceration". Yep...end-to-end cut my fingernail right in half...pretty disgusting, but I've got neat photos and x-rays, to now show my future children what not to do.
Photos, if you dare!
In-all, the final moral of the story, is that one should be careful where they stick their things...no, not that! I meant fingers!
Before diving into details...if you ever need to visit an ER, and have somewhat of a choice in location, go to Legacy Good Samaritan. Those people made an unpleasant evening totally bearable; laughing and joking the entire time, attentive, and...well, they knew how to treat a person (unlike the the ER near Mall205...that was a very different experience, just a few months ago).
I'm typing slow, but also playing with a nifty one-handed keyboard layout. Though, I'm not winning any typing contests for a while; on aggressive antibiotics, and still downing 1,000mg of vicodin that's only mildly-softening the pain. In-all, I'm down one fingernail, up 6 stitches, and the ER pros said there's a fractured distal phalanx...in my case, it's broken clean-free (which explains the grinding feeling every time I tap the end of this finger).
So, how'd this happen?
I'm currently in the process of building an electric scooter, and had taken it out on its maiden voyage... While stopping to check the chain's tension...instead of pushing on the top/exterior of the chain, I pulled from the inside, while also somehow tapping the throttle. Next thing I know, I'm staring at my finger, stuck between a very tight chain and the mated sprocket...going "...cool, this doesn't hurt yet...". Then the motor started jerking forward/back (controller sensed something was blocking motor rotation...wanna guess what that something was?!?).
After about a minute of struggling to free my finger, I finally got it out; by giving up on backing-out, and just hit the throttle, while praying the end of my finger would be intact...enough of it was (I had also managed to slip the chain off the sprocket, so that any further damage/cuts were minimized as my finger went around). Once in the ER, they ripped the fingernail off, in order to stitch up a "complete, and deep, nail bed laceration". Yep...end-to-end cut my fingernail right in half...pretty disgusting, but I've got neat photos and x-rays, to now show my future children what not to do.
Photos, if you dare!
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