Cutting My Thumb

 You know it’s bad when it doesn’t bleed or hurt straight away. And as I looked down at this one it did neither, it just gaped at me. I swore. I moved it back and forward, I couldn’t see a tendon, but I knew it must have been close because it was so deep into the pad of my thumb. I grabbed the first aid kit I keep by the door of the workshop and made my way over to the house where I knew I wouldn’t get blood on the wood for a customer.

By the time I’d got to the house I couldn’t drink the blood down fast enough as I sucked on my thumb. I laid out the first aid kit on the table and set to cutting up a dressing to fit the end of my digit. I ran my damaged hand under the tap, trying to make sure it was clean.

Then using a combination of my teeth and my left hand I managed to get a dressing on. Tight. I then had to decide if I was going to go and wait at A&E or not.

Having an accident when you work alone is always going to be more dangerous. I’m lucky in the fact I have some good neighbours and a friend I work with sometimes who lives close by, but something like this really does make you think.

You kick yourself at first. Something so simple and it could have been so much worse. And it could have been avoided. 

It reminded me of when I was traveling at 19, I was in a bar in a tiny little town called Rapid City in Canada and got talking to some of the locals and the one asked what I did. I proudly told them I was a carpenter’s apprentice. He asked to see my hands, I held them up to him “try and keep them like that” he said, he tipped his hat to me and raised his glass in a toast, it was only then that I noticed the end of his thumb was shorter than the other.

And I’d nearly joined that club. I’d been doing a little carving commission, and was cutting up some little pieces of sycamore to make fridge magnets. Trying to save time, I had just left my usual blade in the bandsaw and was just making lots of small cuts to make the corners. As I was doing it, I knew it wasn’t cutting quite right, but then I thought I’d change the blade when I had time, and adjust the guides, this job was a bit tight as it was.

I pushed too hard and the wood split, my thumb followed and went into the blade. I drew my hand back quickly, but I knew it was bad. But I also knew it could have been worse. Like that old guy in the Canadian bar 20 years ago, I could have easily lost the end of my thumb that day, and really, I’m quite attached to my thumb.

A lot of workshop accidents aren’t really freak accidents, often they’re something that could be foreseen, or a shortcut taken so often it become normal, maintenance that should of happened but you were too busy making a living. This was no exception to that rule, the bandsaw is often seen as one of the safer bench tools, but it still bites when you’re not treating it right.

Luckily, I healed like Wolverine, the flesh knitting back together in days, the skin only taking a few weeks to heal completely, but another scar added to my already abused hands, but then I guess they are hands that tell a story of 20 plus years working with wood.

I’d like it if I could stop any more chapters being read through my hands though. So, I now try to sort anything I see when I see it, even if it will break the flow of work, if it means a safer environment for me to work alone in. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.