Seven 9s and 10s

High-resThat’s how close I came to losing my left ring finger today. Dad and I were making some alterations to my garage door this morning (lifting the whole rails structure in advance of a new garage floor being poured next weekend). We were in the process...

That’s how close I came to losing my left ring finger today.

Dad and I were making some alterations to my garage door this morning (lifting the whole rails structure in advance of a new garage floor being poured next weekend).  We were in the process of lifting one of the horizontal rails when we lost hold of one of the steel vertical support brackets and the spring of the door yanked it - and my hand - down, pinching it in the corner where the bracket attaches to the raill.  Luckily, both my dad and I had one of our hands on the upper half of the bracket.  It took a good 5 seconds for him to figure out why I was screaming before it clicked and he realized what had happened.  We opened the clamp far enough for me to pull my finger out and I promptly scampered down the ladder and into the kitchen to apply ice.

I’m incredibly lucky.  If it weren’t for that glove, the post likely would’ve torn right through my flesh, crushing the bone and possibly shearing the fingertip completely off.

There’s still significant pain, but I have full range of movement so I don’t think the bone or the knuckle were damaged.  I’m anticipating a significantly purple fingertip tomorrow.  I wish I hadn’t eaten the last Vicodin in my house a few weeks ago.  Advil and Tylenol will have to suffice.

Things could’ve have been so much worse and this story could have been much more difficult to tell (and type).  As a guitarist, this was my worst nightmare.

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    Notes

    1. rachelskirts said: I almost chopped off my finger today, too! Using a paper-cutter at work! As a pianist, this is also MY worst nightmare! Exclamation point!
    2. notactuallyme said: YIKES! Maybe you need some steel mesh shark punching gloves for working around the house. Glad it was no worse than it was.
    3. nicky36 said: This makes me feel queasy.
    4. halfbakedidea said: I am so glad you’re OK Steve. Ugh I shuddered reading that. Get a pretty girl to kiss it and make it better.
    5. steelopus posted this