Tablesaw Accident - I'm an idiot

[Dave Walker]

You know... that SawStop appears to be worth every penny. However, it still can't replace using your head in the first place.

But who knows, I may come home to find my wife has wrestled my tablesaw out of the basement and into the back of someone's PickUp truck. In that case, I'll definitely take a harder look at the SawStop...

[Sam Chambers]

Dave:

As bad (and painful) as it was, I'm glad to hear it wasn't worse. Your points about operating machines with sharp spinning things while distracted, and/or without proper safety equipment, are things all of us should take to heart.

(I think I might have waited a couple more days before getting back on that horse, though!)

[Mark Pruitt]

Dave,

Thank you for posting this. I'm sorry to hear of your accident. Yes, things could have turned out worse, but don't even go there. Like you said, getting back on the horse is the right thing to do. I learned the hard way many years ago that the blade on a riding mower is much closer to the discharge port than I had been thinking, and that trying to clean grass out of the clogged port with the blade still running was not a good idea. Duh. No wonder they say patience is a virtue....
Mark

[Jason Tuinstra]

Dave, glad to hear it wasn't worse. I hope you're feeling better and that everything heals well.

[Dev Emch]

Well to tell you the truth, I almost joined you. I have been known to post to many opinions and I thought my big mouth had gotten me into some serious trouble. Keith knows what I mean. This pending affair left me so distrubed that I came within seconds of doing exactly what you did. So I shut down the machine and wrote the day off. Woodworking machines should never never ever be used when you have emotional baggage going through your mind. If your not 110 percent fully focused, shut down and do something else.

I sincerely hope that you recover from this incident. Please dont let your wife near the saw. Just recover and get back into the saddle.

[Paul B. Cresti]

Dave,
I hope you heal well and quickly.

I can not tell you the amount of times I found my thoughts starting to wander while working, that is the time I stop and take a second. I may work a heck of a lot slower than some others but I try to be very organized and rigid in the way I work. That mostly means never working without guards or jigs

[Bryan Somers]

Dave Dont beat yourself up these things happen in a hurry. Heres to a fast recovery and glad to see that it wasnt more serious.

Take care of that hand.

[Keith Foster]

Ouch! Here's to a fast healing!

Wanted to personally thank you for posting this. My guess is that you saved a lot of us from making a similar mistake by reminding us to never forget what we are doing.

[Kurt Aebi]

Dave,

I know exactly how you feel, I butterflied my left thumb chasing a cutoff back in 2003,

here's my post from back then

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...light=accident

And I went back to it and finished up some projects. Believe me - I KNOW Where the ON/OFF Switch is located and to this Day - I shut OFF the saw after each cut! A new switch is way less expensive than the $7K repair job that was done to my thumb!

Chin up, we all do stupid things and then we learn from them and move on! Unless you are defusing one of Andy's bombs, making a mistake isn't life threatening!

Oh Yea, I have yet to make the over-head guard I talked about back then (Oh Well, I guess I'm still askin' fer it!)

[Mike Zozakiewicz]

Dave,

Thanks for posting your accident, and here's to a speeding and painless recovery. We all appreciate the reminder of how fast something can go wrong.

Take care,

Mike

[Brent Harral]

Hey Dave! Sorry to hear of your accident, but thanks for posting as a reminder for everyone to be more careful.

Heal up quick!

[lou sansone]

I also offer my sympathy for your injury and it does serve as a good reminder.
best wishes for a fast recovery
Lou

[Dave Walker]

Again, I'd like to Thank everyone for their kind thoughts. It is much appreciated.

Hopefully, My wife well let me get down in the shop this weekend to route out the profiles of the arms and legs of the Adirondack chairs...

[Dave Anderson NH]

Well Dave you learned a couple of things out of this accident and only one was related to woodworking. I hope you heal fast. My reference is of course to going back into the shop so soon while the wife was around. I did the same thing when I came back from having my fingers stitched up at the hospital after putting a chisel through them a couple of years ago. Not 10 minutes after I was back Sue went looking for me and found me in the shop glueing up the piece broken off the project when the chisel slipped. To say she was not amused is perhaps a wee bit of an understatement. The tongue lashing I received was sharp, extensive, brutal, and largely unprintable. Among the nicer and kinder things said were fool and idiot.

The moral of the story is that you need to be more discreet. After all, we all know that as guys, were prone to this kind of behavior and the most we can hope for is not to get caught.

[John Shuk]

I hope you recover quickly. Thank you for sharing it. You will probably have helped someone avoid the same thing.