Can fingers be reattached?

[Warren Lake]

Old guy said dont go behind the blade you can get sucked back in. Then showed me his finger to show he didnt listen. Just a kid at the time. Didnt matter much fingers like sausages and full strength still. Knew an old british cabinet maker and he had cut fingers a few times and re attached. They were crooked and he said not that great but there still. Im pretty sure he said he cut one off on the stroke sander, reaching for something hit the edge of the belt and poof. I know ive hit it just barely and out fast and its surprising what it can do.

Friend lost three fingers to the first digits on one hand on the jointer, I was shocked, he said when he plays the piano he plays minor chords. He has never complained and is an outstanding craftsman in a number of crafts. Lady next door her friend lost his thumb on a table saw, weekend warrior knew nothing, not the way to learn. She called him Tom Thumbless from then on. Been bitten once lengthways on the whole nail and bit of the finger and it grew back. sensitive for a number of years then perfect.

So Bobbit wasnt a smoker.

If Cheech or Chong cut a finger off would there be any issues in re attaching cause of their hobby?

[Mark Hennebury]

I have worked long shifts in the workshop alone using machinery, The longest was 44 hours without sleep, I started at 8:00 am Saturday and finished at 4;00 am Monday, slept in the shop for 4 hours, then i had to get the stuff to the engravers, then pick it up later in the day, clean, polish, pack and drop it at the couriers to ship it.

I had hundreds of small parts to make and then finish them up on the router table; by the time i got to the routerwork i was nodding off while running parts past the router cutter, literally every couple of seconds i would just stop moving then start again. Lucky didn't lose any fingers, but it would have been hard to do as i was only using a roundover bit at the end of the job; I could have taken a good chunk out of a finger or two i guess.
I think that it took me a week to get back to normal after that, it really messes you up.

Luckily i was only working on wooden stuff, of no consequence if you mess a few up. Surgery is quite a different ballgame.

How the heck does a surgeon manage to still be awake after 32 hours in an operating room? I would think that a hand surgeon needs to be fairly precise which becomes hard after being awake for more than a day straight.

[Kev Williams]

Lost finger stories, I got a few--

Generally, fingers lost to a jointer cannot be reattached...

-- Andy - Arlington TX

My dad's left birdie finger went into a jointer to the first joint. He always joked about it being hard to sew hamburger back on...

Way back, 40 years now, my friend who was living with me at the time worked at a paper bag mfr, ran a huge 6-color press that printed 50# Purina Dog Chow bags. One day his co-worker, in a hurry to leave, decided it would be okay to just wash down the rollers while it was running rather than jog the rollers. He was using a basic red shop rag, which he'd wrapped around his first 2 fingers. The rollers sucked the rag out of his hand. He said some swear words and proceeded to shut down the machine-- which is when he figured out he had no fingers with which to push the OFF button! His fingers and the rag ended up in the green inkwell, my friend retrieved them and off to the hospital they went, doctors were ready and waiting to sew them back on. Sadly, the ink-soaked fingers went straight to into the trash can.

My uncle (dad's brother) took off his middle finger on a table saw (how only the middle finger?), about 20 years later he Skil-sawed the tip of his left thumb off...

Back when I was in high school a kid who lived just around the corner sawed off his first 2 fingers on one of the school's table saws, a few weeks later his younger brother blew the tip of is right pinky finger off with a .22 rifle, had his hand around the barrel while killing a bug or something...

One of my wife's ex's table sawed a finger off, they sewed it back on-

Worst finger mishap was my 2nd cousin, a meat cutter-- pushing a side of pig thru a toothless bandsaw, hit a bone the wrong way... blade was against his left forefinger and went beyond his thumb almost to his watchband, the blade never left his hand... he was in a cast to his shoulder for 8 weeks, his thumb is partly held together with screws but it came out okay- that was in 1981 and he's still cuttin' meat!

[Steve Demuth]

Lost finger stories, I got a few--



My dad's left birdie finger went into a jointer to the first joint. He always joked about it being hard to sew hamburger back on...

I lost count after a while of the number of ways my old man lost pieces of his fingers. First was trying to get a combine elevator that had been plugged moving again by grabbing the v-belt and pulling. It moved. Fingers went down and started 'round the lower sheave, but didn't come back up the other side. Hay baler knotter got a piece of one too. He had a way of sticking body parts into farm machinery - I lived in terror when I was a kid and the baler plugged and he would lean into the pickup with his foot to get it moving - I had visions of him coming out in slices in a bale, but fortunately he got by with that maneuver every time he tried it. I know there were some table saw and router "removals" in later years after he quit farming and spent a lot of time in the shop. Worst one though was when an old sow whose nose he was trying to ring bit off a chuck of a pinky. He said it hurt to watch her finish chewing and swallow it.

He died last year at 97, so I guess he got through it all, and I guess too, I can tell his stories as history, without offending anyone.

[Michael Weber]

Something about an ounce of prevention....

I heard a story once about a guy who lost a finger to a saw - and his dog ate the severed digit. So the guy shot his dog, recovered the now acid washed part and was told at the ER because of the dog's stomach acid the digit could not be reattached. So he lost a finger and a dog same day. Dunno if it is true or not, sounds like a good reason to invest in a poundof prevention.

My sister lost two fingers trying to break up a fight between her dog and another that was going on through gap in a fence. She never saw them again and assumes one or the other dog swallowed them. She wasn’t too upset since the doctor assured her it would not affect her golf game.

[lowell holmes]

I cut my thumb pushing a board while ripping. I wrapped with a towel and drove myself to the emergency room. They patched me up, but that thumb still tingles a bit.

I now have a push stick hanging on the saw table and I never get close to a saw blade. You can make a nice push stick using a 1x4 or 1/2" plywood.

[Fred Perreault]

....don't ask me how I know that......

[Kevin Groenke]

I can't count on all my fingers and toes the number of guys I know who have had fingers pulled out of sawdust and reattached. It's almost as if it's a prerequisite to shop management positions.

I had a finger and thumb reattached after an accident in an on-campus job. I was unsupervised and wasn't properly trained to use a tablesaw that had no guard and a rip fence that didn't lock. I went on to run a shop in the building next door for 25 years. We never had an amputation.

[Travis Conner]

Asking for a friend?

I'd be asking the doctor if it was me. Lol along with a quick trip through the drive thru for a cup of ice and lots of napkins. Lol

[Travis Conner]

Yeah i'm pretty paranoid about getting my fingers close to the table saw blade. 12" is about as close as I like to get. One thing about cut fingers is it hurts. Had a mishap with the bandsaw one time when I turned the saw on without tensioning the blade and it came out of the slot next to the on/off switch just enough to graze my index finger. Boy did that hurt and it took probably 6 months for it to heal since I always use my hands. Needless to say I don't really care to de tension the blade anymore to save the tires. I'll buy new ones every few years, they're easy as pie to put on anyways.