Wounded Photographer - Warning! Not for the weak stomachs!

Jeremy Winterberg

So May 28th, 2009 I was in wood shop and got my thumb caught in a jointer. For those that don't know what a jointer is here is a picture of one and another of its blade.





A jointer blade rotates very fast and is supposed to cut off 1/16" off the bottom or edge of a board to make it flat.

My teacher decided to yell at me because it was the last day of wood shop for the year, and I was making a box because I was bored. I looked up at him and it happened.

(BTW I didn't feel anything till about two days after surgery number 1... too much adrenalin I guess?)

I felt a little vibration, looked down to see the pad of my thumb grinded off down and into the bone a little bit. I wrapped it up with paper towel and somehow managed to drive myself to the emergency room. (nurses were not too happy about that) Needless to say about 10 people called and yelled at the teacher.

This was taken at the emergency room just before they numbed it and cleaned it up. (with my blackberry hence the crappy quality folks)


they wrapped me up and sent me home, the next morning I talked to a hand specialist/plastic surgeon and had surgery number 1 that day.

They took a flap of muscle and skin from my index finger, attached my thumb to it to give it blood supply so the bone wouldn't get infected, and took a skin grapht from my forearm and put that on my index finger.





After 11 days of being stuck together I went in for surgery number 2 on June 9th, 2009. During this one they seperated my thumb from my index finger.





Two weeks later I had my stitches taken out. Now, I have been separated for almost a month, and am recovering quite nicely.













I've done quite a bit of traveling during June, and will post pictures from those places in their own threads. I just wanted to let people know that I'm alright now, and it is possible to still be amazing with only one hand!

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UPDATE 11/23/09: A while back my Plastic Surgeon gave me pictures he took during the first surgery. They look alot better than my cell phone pictures haha..

VayCayMom

Whoa...glad they could fix you up.

Agnieszka

Oh boy ... that must have hurt ... :cry

That should make an interesting finger print now though, right?

Nikolai

Ouch... Really sorry....

Jeremy Winterberg

Agnieszka wrote:

Oh boy ... that must have hurt ... :cry

That should make an interesting finger print now though, right?

I dont have a finger print now! haha although I do have hair on my thumb pad now. yay knuckle hair!?

and no it didn't hurt. I didn't feel anything.

oh and I also have no feeling in my thumb either...

SSS

Jeremy,

Sorry to hear about your accident. I'm a woodworker also, a few years ago I ripped a flap off my thumb with a table saw blade, the funny thing is (if there is anything funny about these things) the pain from the injury was nothing compared to the shot of novacaine straight into the tip of my thumb.

I belong to a woodworking forum www.sawmillcreek.org where they discuss injuries like this and how to learn from them. I hope you'll consider posting your story and photos there. Most of the posts are documented as well.

After 6 months of tingling the feeling returned to my thumb, I hope you are fortunate also.

Good luck in your recovery,

Steve

Jeremy Winterberg

SSS wrote:

Jeremy,

Sorry to hear about your accident. I'm a woodworker also, a few years ago I ripped a flap off my thumb with a table saw blade, the funny thing is (if there is anything funny about these things) the pain from the injury was nothing compared to the shot of novacaine straight into the tip of my thumb.

I belong to a woodworking forum www.sawmillcreek.org where they discuss injuries like this and how to learn from them. I hope you'll consider posting your story and photos there. Most of the posts are documented as well.

After 6 months of tingling the feeling returned to my thumb, I hope you are fortunate also.

Good luck in your recovery,

Steve

Thanks, I'll check out that site tonight. Where in there would be a good location to post my story?

Yeah, I realize its going to take a while for the feeling to come back if it does. Nerves don't grow overnight lol... Funny thing happened today.

I had another surgery... this time it wasn't for my hand. I had a Uvulectomy done. My Uvula (the dangling thing at the back of your throat) was extremely long and causing me to swallow it every time I swallow causing it to stretch out and make me snore and it would give me sore throats quite often.

Anyways, while I was waiting to go back I saw my plastic surgeon for my thumb. He got to look at it, and said it looks amazing!

Three hours later I was back home sleeping off the general anesthesia and three hours later I was up and running. Pudding tastes amazing right now.

I guess my body is just falling apart on me... which is sad cause I'm 17.

Tim Kamppinen

Wow, that's brutal. Glad you're on the mend though. I have a friend who's a cabinet maker... he has nine fingers. Well, nine fingers and a short stub where the ring finger of his right hand used to be, due to a table saw incident years ago. The doctors offered to reattach it, permanently bent at a 90 degree angle, so he could still use it to "carry boards." Needless to say, he declined. Anyway, look on the bright side, you still have 10 digits! Could you imagine how much it would suck to loose a whole thumb? Your hand would be pretty much useless...

mmmatt

Those jointers are dangerous! My father lost 1/2 his index finger on one when I was just a kid. Of course, he still thinks it's fun to fool kids into thinking he has his finger jammed up his nose, but I never think about it otherwise and I doubt he does either.

Looks like it is healing fine for only a few weeks. Good luck

Matt

kdog

The teacher should be fired. First of all, one should never divert the attention of a person operating a machine. Second, I cannot believe the teacher let you drive yourself to the hospital. Amazing.

I realize the pictures you included of the jointer are not yours, but that is the correct and safe way to use the jointer. Ie, the guard is in place, and the operator is using push blocks. I'm betting you did neither. That's the third thing the teacher did wrong -- evidently you were not taught how to use this machine safely.

You are extremely lucky lucky to have a thumb, Jeremy. Jointer accidents are typically gruesome injuries because they don't usually leave much of the affected body part behind.

Woodworking is a really great hobby and creative outlet. However, those machines are dangerous. Knowing how to operate them safely is more important than any other aspect in woodworking. If I was a woodworking instructor, I'd spend as much on safety as I would on woodworking techniques. Heal well.

Regards,
-joel

Jeremy Winterberg

kdog wrote:

I realize the pictures you included of the jointer are not yours, but that is the correct and safe way to use the jointer. Ie, the guard is in place, and the operator is using push blocks. I'm betting you did neither. That's the third thing the teacher did wrong -- evidently you were not taught how to use this machine safely.

Regards,
-joel

I actually was using a push block and the guard. But the ones we had are weird. Their "home made" and have a little lip that goes on the back of the board as you push it through.

I had the board almost all the way through but the guard never swung back and I looked up at that time. Somehow my thumb swung in there. Since I'm 6'4" my hands are level with the jointer and don't lie beneath the table height.

But yes, he does need to be fired. He would take attendance and then leave shop and let everyone goof off on the equipment without supervision. Most likely to go smoke marijuana. I found a pipe in his drawer once, and he acted high almost everyday. Halloween weekend he came back to school with a hangover.

Yes, I have nightmares and daymares? that my whole arm got sucked down into it and not just my thumb. So I do appreciate and feel extremely lucky that it was not worse.

kdog

The pushblock with the lip is ok, and shouldn't be a problem per se. Did it have a handle high over the work like the rubber-faced one in the photo? Probably not, as I can't imagine how you're thumb could have gotten close in that case.

Sounds like the biggest factor was this moron of a teacher who intentionally distracted you while you were operating a machine. The school needs to remove this dangerous individual pronto.

-joel

Jeremy Winterberg

kdog wrote:

The pushblock with the lip is ok, and shouldn't be a problem per se. Did it have a handle high over the work like the rubber-faced one in the photo? Probably not, as I can't imagine how you're thumb could have gotten close in that case.

Sounds like the biggest factor was this moron of a teacher who intentionally distracted you while you were operating a machine. The school needs to remove this dangerous individual pronto.

-joel

The handle was just a little nub on top of a 3/4" board with a lip on the end. Thats the one I was using, there was also another home grown one that has a really high handle and whatnot, but he suggested to use the other when jointing a face, and the taller one when jointing and edge since the taller one is only 1/2" thick (maybe).

Agreed

Hackbone

Try to stay healthy.....Glad your better.

Jeremy Winterberg

For those that are wondering I am doing great. My thumbnail is almost back to normal (somehow it got dented so I've had a curvey thumbnail since it happened). I'm starting to get feeling back in it, and I just added pictures that my plastic surgeon took during the first surgery... they look alot better than the cell phone pics.

adbsgicom

Glad you are on the mend.

fredjclaus

Is that a bone sticking out in the first picture? You know watch this show called "The New Yankee Workshop" he's always saying

Be sure to read, understand and follow all the safty rules that come with your power tools. Knowing how to use your power tools safely can greatly reduse your chance of injury. And remember, there is no more important safty rule, than to where these, Safety Glasses.

Jeremy Winterberg

fredjclaus wrote:

Is that a bone sticking out in the first picture? You know watch this show called "The New Yankee Workshop" he's always saying

Be sure to read, understand and follow all the safty rules that come with your power tools. Knowing how to use your power tools safely can greatly reduse your chance of injury. And remember, there is no more important safty rule, than to where these, Safety Glasses.

Yeah, I've seen that show. And my bone is exposed, but you can't see it in the first picture, if you look in one of the cleaned out ones that the surgeon took the white spot in the middle area is the bone...

Which is why they had to attach my thumb to my index finger, so it would get blood supply to the bone so it wouldn't get infected. If it got infected they would've had to amputate it at the knuckle. So I'm glad I had a plastic surgeon that knew what he was doing.

It was a class I was taking, I don't really like making things in woodshop. I'm good at it (when paying attention) but I have no desire to go back to doing it anymore. When you have daymares and nightmares that your entire arm gets sucked down into a jointer it tends to make you want to stay away from blades.

anonymouscuban

*mod edit, swearing not needed, thanks.

I've done a lot of carpentry work around my home, I basically remodeled the entire house myself so I all too well how easy an accident like this can happen. I shot myself in the thumb with a framing nail gun, impaled myself in the neck with a shard of plexi while cutting it on a chop saw, I even came within an inch of saw my thigh in half with a chain saw when I fell out of the tree while cutting some branches. BUT this is down right nasty as hell.

It's amazing what they can do medically to repair the body now. Your thumb looks great considering how horrible it looked right after the accident.

D'Buggs

OUCH!

Right down to the underside of the nail........... I shudder. Props to ya!