The shop will be there tomorrow, make sure you are!

[Ken Peluso]

Let me start by saying that I am posting this in hopes that it can save at least one person from some sort of injury. I am not looking for sympathy (I've received enough of that on Facebook ) and I fully comprehend how wrong my actions were and how to avoid a situation like this again.

I recently finished my first 'real' project, a dining table for my wife and kids ( http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...-or-start-over ) and was working on making a dining bench out of a spalted maple slab I scored a few months back. I got the top and legs milled and ready for some hand tool work this past weekend. On monday i realized I forgot to cut the short stretchers that would join each pair of legs.

Here is where bad judgement comes into play. I had just gotten my kids to bed, my wife was out at dinner with a friend, and I was bored with the MNF game and decided to go bang out the work of making the two 3" stretchers. I rough cut the piece of maple on my bandsaw to an acceptable length and decided to "just run it quickly over the jointer". Of course I didnt grab the push blocks that were sitting right there and when the piece hit the blades it literally shattered leaving my left hand to meet the spiral cutterhead. Luckily for me, I heard the wood "pop" and yanked my hands away immediately. Unfortunately, I wasnt quick enough.

Fast forward to today, and I am sitting here learning to do things like type this post with my right hand, im a lefty. In the past 38 hours my wife and I have been at two area hospitals via ambulance, and I had surgery at 2pm yesterday to amputate the ends of my index, middle, and ring fingers down to the first knuckle. Fortunately, the Baltimore area has a renowned hand center and the Chief Surgeon at the center worked on me. He told my wife that Id learn to type again, would have good use from my hand to continue working wood, and would most likely be able to continue playing bass guitar with my band. For those things, and my fantastic wife and support group, I am forever grateful.

I am also grateful to be able to share this story and the lessons I learned with you. I have always read and reread everything possible on tool safety but I got lazy, cocky, and disrespected a tool. For that I paid a price. IMHO a small price considering what could have happened.

Please, if nothing else, like a similar thread her @ SMC said back in September, listen to that voice in your head when it tells you to stop and think about what you are about to do. I know we all have deadlines and our society trains us to get things done asap so we can do more, but for most of us here, this is a hobby and isnt worth life or limb. That piece of wood you need to mill/saw/plane/shape/whatever will be there in 5 minutes or tomorrow when you have the time to work it the safe way.

Please be safe my friends, you are all a great source of inspiration and knowledge. Don't wake up to something like this one day:
hand-injury.jpg

Thanks for listening to me ramble,
Ken

[Augusto Orosco]

So sorry to hear of your accident and thank you for the reminder. You seem to have adopted a great attitude in the face of this setback: I am sure not many would be able to take things as constructively as you have. Best of luck and a speedy recovery!

[David Nelson1]

Wow that's tough Ken. I have come close to almost the same accident myself and I 'm glad to hear it wasn't worse. Just one more reason to add a feeder to that tool. Take care and heal up ole man!!!!

[Ken Peluso]

Thanks guys!

found your thread on the feeder. might be worth looking into for my jointer. itll make my wife and daughter feel better about me using the machine again.

Wow that's tough Ken. I have come close to almost the same accident myself and I 'm glad to hear it wasn't worse. Just one more reason to add a feeder to that tool. Take care and heal up ole man!!!!

[Neil Brooks]

I'm a motorcycle rider. Have been for decades. Early on, I resented the inevitable "I knew a guy who died ....." stories.

Soon, though, I realized that I needed to be grateful for them -- for the everyday reminders that they provide to me that .... it really COULD happen to me.

Yours is another story where ... I just cringed, reading it. I'm so sorry for what happened, and so glad that it wasn't worse than it was.

I wish you minimal pain, and a full and speedy recovery. Thanks for the reminder, and ... man, oh man. Yuck.

[Bill Maietta]

Thanks Ken, for sharing the story as a reminder. I hope your recovery goes well.

It could happen to any of us. I was talking to my wife about working when you're really too tired to work just last night. I do it sometimes, and so does she, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes stubbornness. I do see unfortunate accidents like yours as warnings to redouble safety focus, especially when we cannot or will not just stop.

I wonder if the nature of the wood added to the problem. I've only worked with spalted maple a couple of times, but I think it would be more prone to this kind of blowout due to complexity of grain. Again, a reminder to use extra caution.

When you are recovered I'm sure the bench will turn out as beautiful as the table and it will have quite the depth of meaning for you.

Good luck,
Bill

[Rod Sheridan]

Dear Ken, I'm sorry to hear of your injury, and extremely pleased to hear that it wasn't worse.

I hope you heal well, and return to your wood working and music.

Thanks for reminding us to be careful...................Regards, Rod.

[alex grams]

Get better ken. I had a similar scare/experience earlier this year myself with a router table board getting grabbed. I took off about 1/2 of the first knuckle on my left pointer finger (image laying a quarter halfway across the fingernail from the thumb side, that got removed). Could see bone, but luckily it wasn't that severe. I think the worse damage was my wife's stress level.

Get better and thanks for sharing a reminder to all of us to be safer. I know I was pretty peeved about my injury, and looking at a freshly wounded finger seemed to make me think it was going to be a lot worse in the long run than it actually healed up to be.

[Mike Cruz]

Okay, fine, Ken...you won't get sympathy from me. You will get a thank you, though...actually two of them. The first is for the reminder that we all so desperately need from time to time. It never gets old or unwelcome...I've posted mine. The second thank you is for turning my already weak stomach! My lunch had already not agreed with me too well today. With the picture of your hand in my periferal vision, as I was reading, my already uneased stomach churned, I lost a little blood pressure in my head, and I'm sure I went a little pale...all of which I sure you did too at that instant.

Who am I kidding? Of course you have my sympathy. I hope you regain as much mobility in your hand, and recover fully. If the doctors are confident, you should be, too. Best of luck to you. Oh, and my sympathies to your wife, too. This had to be hard on her.

[Bruce Page]

Ken, thank you for this post. I think most of us have done something in the shop that when we look back on it we realize that we just got away with one, I know I have. Sometimes we don’t get away with it. I am really grateful for your great attitude in reminding us that a simple lapse in judgment can result in serious injury.
I wish you a speedy recovery!

[Chris Tsutsui]

Thanks for sharing,

Every story I hear adds to my reality that these machines can change your life in the blink of an eye.

Safety reminders are good, it's just unfortunate that it almost always is bad news that acts as the reminder.

I work for a contractor and I have to review various safety documents and sign them each month, and then there's yearly safety courses. Statistics show that it has helped the company quite a bit and is well worth the expense. Accident's account for huge losses and there should almost be a monthly safety article that SMC members can read and check off... Or something that could prevent these accident posts... Just thinking out loud here.

[glenn bradley]

Thanks for sharing a reminder I hope I never get tired of hearing; safety, safety, safety.

[Phil Thien]

Thanks for sharing, Ken. Reminders like these are one of the best aspects of this site.

I wish you a speedy and painless (as possible) recovery.

[Adam Cavaliere]

Ken,

Thank you for this post. I can't imagine how you feel right now. Like the rest of the posts, I have had a few close calls too, but the jointer has never been one of those. I think when everything runs smoothly, you get a little lax about it and figure you can just pass a board over it quickly because you have so many other times without issue. I can tell you that this post will resonate in my head the next time and every time after that I use my jointer. Your story truly has touched me to rethink how I work out there. Thank You.

[Steve Griffin]

Thanks for sharing Ken. I'm going to chat about the jointer tomorrow with my coworker. It's one of the easier tools drop your guard with, as it "seems" safer than others.

Hope you recover as well as possible.

-Steve