Show Of Hands: Putting Yourself Into Your Work... Blood, Sweat, & Tears

[Cape Byron]

Dremel tools. They're good at inflicting injuries because they're so damn fast. I never use mine at less than 15000 RPM, and when I'm doing something heavy duty, I crank it up to the full 35000 RPM and let 'er rip. Sadly, my Dremels seem oddly attracted to the tender pads of my thumbs. Healing time measured in weeks, scar duration apparently infinite.
Bob Schultz

Yep, Dremel cut-off disc meets left thumb. Through nail and down to bone in a fraction of a second. #askhowIknow

 

[K'Tesh]

Yep, Dremel cut-off disc meets left thumb. Through nail and down to bone in a fraction of a second. #askhowIknow

OUCH!!!

October 8, 1999 (one of a series of October 8ths I have the painful memory of what I was doing when... (I *HATE* October 8th)) I was once working on a template for a prop knife that I was making out of basswood. I was trying to carve a piece of the wood with an Xacto when the grain of the wood gave way to the pressure I was putting on the knife. For a moment, I though I had only just touched the skin, but soon the blood started flowing. I knew that this was going to be one of those throbbing kinds of painful cuts, quickly, I squeezed the thumb to staunch the bleeding, while rushing to the sink to wash the blood off, and look for something to wrap around it. After it stopped bleeding, I managed to get it salved, and bandaged, and I waited for the pain. Remarkably it didn't set in... I had severed the nerve to the tip of my left thumb. The numbness of my thumb lasted for over six months... All I could feel was a tingling sensation and pressure for the longest time.

 

[Cape Byron]

What I really hate is 'spur of the moment' dumbness. I remember when I was working in OR, scrubbed for a joint replacement (I was pretty new at the time) and dropped a scalpel. Thanks to my baseball skills I caught it, left handed before it fell more than about a foot.

Unfortunately I caught it by letting it embed itself into the ball of my thumb, where it stayed, vertical, and quivered.

Awesome scar. Breaks the ice at parties...