Freak Injury Upon Another Freak Injury To Hand Requiring Emergency Surgery (Tool Safety)

[BlazerBill]

Hi guys and girls! I have to share this very freakish injury I had with you all as a safety precaution and not make stupid mistakes like I did. I’m in the final stages of completing the multi-year restoration of my ‘83 K5 Blazer. I’m slow, okay and in more ways than one as you will read but I have done all the work myself! Awhile back when doing lots of cutting and grinding rust out I sustained an injury and didn’t even know it until weeks later after another injury. While using a wire wheel brush on an air tool one of the wires broke off and entered into my hand. At this time I’ll have to embarrassingly admit that I did not follow the recommended 4500 rpm rating of the wire wheel and was using it on a 10,000 rpm rated air grinder. Even though I was wearing gloves (and safety glasses) the high velocity at which one of the worn out and contaminated 1/2” long wires liberated itself from the wire wheel had gone through my leather glove and entered all the way into the outside of my hand like a needle and I didn’t even realize it. You might think that is freakish enough but it’s not the end of the story. I went on with my life with my employment and working on my Blazer in my spare time with this wire in my hand without any knowledge of it and without pain or infection. It wasn’t until about 3-4 weeks later had another freakish accident where I slipped and fell and hit the same hand on the concrete floor pretty hard. Within about an hour, I noticed my hand starting to swell up so I thought that perhaps that I had broken a bone in my hand from hitting it on the floor. Not worrying too much about since I’ve had numerous broken bones in my life I went on for several hours until I started to see more swelling and redness and red streaks from my hand into my arm. At that point, I decided to go see my Orthopedic surgeon for what I thought was a broken bone in my hand. The X-rays didn’t indicate any broken bones but there was some sort of squiggly looking long “artifact” on the X-ray that was thought to have been a contaminant on the X-ray plate or film itself so another X-ray was taken but the artifact showed up again in the same location and determined to actually be in my hand. As I looked closer at the artifact, it came to me that it looked familiar and I realized that it was a wire from the wire wheel and my Orthopedic surgeon recommended me to a hand surgeon specialist. So, by the time of my appointment with the hand surgeon later of that same day, the red streaks (infection) by then had travelled almost to my elbow (heading to my heart). My hand surgeon said that I needed immediate surgery and called in an infection control team to assist. After telling my hand surgeon that I thought I knew what was in my hand and told him that the wire had to have been in my hand for weeks since the last time I used the tool and about my fall today he provided the likely explanation that when I fell and hit my hand, the impact pushed the wire into a knuckle joint at the base of my ring finger and palm which set off an immediate infection response. The surgery to remove the wire was successful but I had to be on strong meds for weeks to prevent further infection. So, the moral of the story is, don’t be stupid like me, use tools according to their ratings and take all safety precautions. Check out the pics! Thanks and take care!

 

[74Blaze]

Wow. Glad your doing better. Most of the times that I injure myself it's due to being lazy and performing tasks not according to safety standards or to being in a hurry to complete them.

 

[Ricko1966]

Here's another freak injury,but one for you all to think about. A friend of mine was using a 4 inch grinder with a cutting wheel,cutting some rust out of a wheel arch, the cut off wheel bound up,kicked the grinder back and hit Darren in the cheek/jaw . Tons of stitches nasty scar and surgery on his jaw. I use a full face plastic shield more often now.

 

[Hunter79764]

Grinder disks and other spinning abrasive tools like that can cause all kinds of issues. I heard a story about a cutting wheel coming apart and knicking the femoral artery, nearly lethal in a very short time. Those shields and RPM limits are there for a reason!

Glad you are on the mend, and good reminder to use tools within the bounds they are meant to be used.

 

[Ncali]

I worked in a welding shop and the same thing happened to a co worker. a wire embedded in his arm by his elbow and had to be removed. He never felt it

 

[mtbadbob]

Here's another freak injury,but one for you all to think about. A friend of mine was using a 4 inch grinder with a cutting wheel,cutting some rust out of a wheel arch, the cut off wheel bound up,kicked the grinder back and hit Darren in the cheek/jaw . Tons of stitches nasty scar and surgery on his jaw. I use a full face plastic shield more often now.

I know a guy, a retired Stone Mason in fact. He built a cabin in the mountains and thought it was a good idea to cut out his window bucks with a 7-1/4" skill saw blade in his 8" grinder with no guard. It kicked back right into his face, cutting deeply into his jaw & inside of his mouth. Luckily, his wife was an OR Nurse, kept her cool & was able to make a 35-40 minute drive from on top of a mountain to the hospital in 20 minutes. It's some of the most disturbing pictures I've ever seen. He still can't close his lips right to this day.

 

[Ricko1966]

I know a guy, a retired Stone Mason in fact. He built a cabin in the mountains and thought it was a good idea to cut out his window bucks with a 7-1/4" skill saw blade in his 8" grinder with no guard. It kicked back right into his face, cutting deeply into his jaw & inside of his mouth. Luckily, his wife was an OR Nurse, kept her cool & was able to make a 35-40 minute drive from on top of a mountain to the hospital in 20 minutes. It's some of the most disturbing pictures I've ever seen. He still can't close his lips right to this day.

I can't put up a like or any emoji all I can do is cringe and shake my head. Thinking poor man

 

[waterpirate]

Saw a video on u tube the other day of a guy working on a boat build with the skil saw blade in his grinder. I cringed and he said what we all say. I have done this a lot, and I got it. Stay safe out there.
Eric

 

[BRetty]

Yikes!

A few years ago at our shop, the boss was using wire wheels to "distress" some planks (we build scenery for tv/commercials/events.) The wheels would wear out after about ten minutes -- in retrospect, DUH! Where did he think all those bristles were disappearing to?

He's the kind of guy who is great about safety equipment on Monday Morning meetings, but gets pissy and angry if you mention it on Thursday afternoon -- and especially about himself.

Well he was wheeling along, when a painter came in from break, and was hit in the eye with a wire right when he walked in the door -- about 30' away. Fortunately we flushed it out and he took the next day off but was fine. We kept finding those damn bristles whenever we did a "deep-clean" the next twelve months.

Wire wheels are best used only for physical torture, along with heat guns (Pro Tip: boil somebody's eyeball in the socket, and his buddy watching this will confess everything. One-eye is probably no longer useful, though....)

 

[BRetty]

For many years, Carhartt ran a print ad with a picture of one of their welding jackets, with the left arm and upper chest completely trashed. A customer had sent the jacket to them, with a letter thanking them for saving his life when a 9" grinder he was using jumped and kicked back right into him, climbed his arm heading for his face.

I refuse to use the damn things without the helper handle and never in any awkward position or close to my face. Boss gave me crap about it one time and I got angrier than I ever have there, walked out for rest of the day.

 

[PrairieDrifter]

I try to use cutting discs only on my cordless grinder. The plug in ones are SKETCH, so much torque, and they don't shut down as fast. The cordless is much more forgiving and less torque. The corded is for wire wheel and grinding only lol. I'll have to get a pic but my grandpa had one of those HUGE angle grinders from like the 60's. That thing put some fear in me real early lol like a 10 inch grinder or somethin, I still have it.

One of my uncles almost full sliced off his thumb on a table saw a good while back. Right between the pointer finger and the thumb, gruesome. They were able to save it though, he still can use his thumb to this day.