# Don't do this.



## Roofgunner (Apr 7, 2011)

I wanted to post this because after it happened all I could do is swear and say "Stupid is as stupid does." And "You can't fix stupid."

I cut a dead elm tree down for some quick wood at the end of the day of cutting bigger stuff. The tree was about 10 inches down to small branches. I cut it it up and was loading it into my ATV trailer, looking forward to a nice Friday evening. I came across a piece that was about 4 or 5 inches thick and cut about 90% through. So I turned it around so the cut faced down and began whacking it in order to break it. On the third whack it broke and the short piece came up and whacked my thumb. It hurt and bled. I had gloves on. I'll never do this again.


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## treemandan (Apr 7, 2011)

Roofgunner said:


> I wanted to post this because after it happened all I could do is swear and say "Stupid is as stupid does." And "You can't fix stupid."
> 
> I cut a dead elm tree down for some quick wood at the end of the day of cutting bigger stuff. The tree was about 10 inches down to small branches. I cut it it up and was loading it into my ATV trailer, looking forward to a nice Friday evening. I came across a piece that was about 4 or 5 inches thick and cut about 90% through. So I turned it around so the cut faced down and began whacking it in order to break it. On the third whack it broke and the short piece came up and whacked my thumb. It hurt and bled. I had gloves on. I'll never do this again.


 
You hit yer thumb? Yer thumb? You whacked yer thumb and it hurt and bled? That's what you are telling us here that you got a boo boo on yer thumb? Nothing more?


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## rarefish383 (Apr 8, 2011)

Dan, your the Man, that's funny.

If BooBoo's count, I crushed my right index finger a few years back. I was loading 2 cord of firewood on the F600 after work, so it would be ready in the morning. The truck had 6' sides, and we had a piece of 1/2 inch climbing line running from the top rear corners, to keep them from spreading. I backed up too close to the pile and as I threw pieces up they kept hitting the rope and flying back.A couple bounced off my shoulder. I was too tired to move the truck and figured in a few minutes the pile would be worked back anyway. I was slingin wood so fast that a piece hit the rope and came back and I had already grabbed another and started to throw. The 2 pieces hit end to end with my pointer in between. It sounded like two baseball bats cracking. It took 11 stitches, and when I got to the hostiptal and started cleaning it out with betadine, the Dr said hey look at this, I can see daylight through it. That fingernail is still deformed. So much for my old BooBoo, Joe.


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## rmh3481 (Apr 8, 2011)

Sounds like it stung, sorry to hear.


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## Danno (Apr 8, 2011)

lol. crap, glad you told me, I was just about to do the same thing. Hope your thumb gets better.

TGIF, it needs to be lighter in here. Tired of watching youtubes of compound fractures and trees falling on boxes of kittens or whatever.


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## treemandan (Apr 8, 2011)

rarefish383 said:


> Dan, your the Man, that's funny.
> 
> If BooBoo's count, I crushed my right index finger a few years back. I was loading 2 cord of firewood on the F600 after work, so it would be ready in the morning. The truck had 6' sides, and we had a piece of 1/2 inch climbing line running from the top rear corners, to keep them from spreading. I backed up too close to the pile and as I threw pieces up they kept hitting the rope and flying back.A couple bounced off my shoulder. I was too tired to move the truck and figured in a few minutes the pile would be worked back anyway. I was slingin wood so fast that a piece hit the rope and came back and I had already grabbed another and started to throw. The 2 pieces hit end to end with my pointer in between. It sounded like two baseball bats cracking. It took 11 stitches, and when I got to the hostiptal and started cleaning it out with betadine, the Dr said hey look at this, I can see daylight through it. That fingernail is still deformed. So much for my old BooBoo, Joe.




Well, see? Now we have a story. Its descriptive, it reads OK, the climax is pretty nice and the ending keeps the reader sincerley impressed with the writer's conflict.

Is a little pain and blood even worth mentioning here? Maybe, but since we are all falling out of trees, loosing body parts in chippers and cutting fingers off I would hope any poster would do better than " it hurt,and bled". What? No hospital, no woozy near death trek back to civilization, no tellings of a close introduction to death, no real heart felt epiphany? 
And chances are he will do it again ,so will I, so will you.:good:


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## dingeryote (Apr 8, 2011)

Nope. Don't do that.
:msp_sleep:
Stay safe!
Dingeryote


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## Joe46 (Apr 13, 2011)

I have filed this one away for future reference!!!!!!! I had a chunk of maple fly off my log splitter and hit my thumb. It hurt and bled! So be careful!:tongue2::msp_rolleyes:


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## gwiley (Apr 13, 2011)

i for one appreciate reading about "stupid" because "I are wun." It helps to be reminded on a regular basis…..heal fast.


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## promac850 (Apr 13, 2011)

Smashing digits between pieces of firewood, been there done that. It hurts. Not as much as smashing the edge of your thumb with a metal faced wheel weight hammer. I was holding one of those tiny little wheel weights, and my thumb was the first thing to receive the full force swing... I almost passed out, my vision was blacked out for about 3 seconds. It hurt a lot for about 4 days. Blood spot under the nail was there for a month. My hand shook for the rest of that day, and most of the next day. It was that much of a shock to the system...


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## PA Plumber (Apr 13, 2011)

Oh man. Good read here.

Not related to trees, but I did get my hand in a corn sheller once.

It hurt, bled, and I got most of one of my fingers back. Most of it even works.

Oh... almost forgot... so don't get your hand in a corn sheller!


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## Rudedog (Apr 13, 2011)

I know that PPE are is really important, especially to the PPE Police. But I will say that I was bucking a Beech tree with a faller that has gobs more experience than I. I had a small ancillary branch kick up and strike me hard in the eyes. Thankfully I was wearing eye protection and averted any real trouble. My buddy laughed at me but he never wears PPE. Afterwards he did confide that he saw the value in that type of gear after watching that branch whip me in the face. Luckily, I did not feel your pain that day.


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## Bigus Termitius (Apr 13, 2011)

Roofgunner said:


> I wanted to post this because after it happened all I could do is swear and say "Stupid is as stupid does." And "You can't fix stupid."
> 
> I cut a dead elm tree down for some quick wood at the end of the day of cutting bigger stuff. The tree was about 10 inches down to small branches. I cut it it up and was loading it into my ATV trailer, looking forward to a nice Friday evening. I came across a piece that was about 4 or 5 inches thick and cut about 90% through. So I turned it around so the cut faced down and began whacking it in order to break it. On the third whack it broke and the short piece came up and whacked my thumb. It hurt and bled. I had gloves on. I'll never do this again.


 
Misery in Missouri....maybe you shouldn't "whack it" so much. :msp_scared:


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## derwoodii (Apr 15, 2011)

Sorry to hear be thankful twas just your thumb, many have suffered eye damage when foot snapping a half cut or using wood axe to finish a piece. 
Fire wood works canna be harmfull Hit, end bit rotates out under power and back to ya head. Been there got lucky others have not.


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## promac850 (Apr 15, 2011)

derwoodii said:


> Sorry to hear be thankful twas just your thumb, many have suffered eye damage when foot snapping a half cut or using wood axe to finish a piece.
> Fire wood works canna be harmfull *Hit, end bit rotates out under power and back to ya head. *Been there got lucky others have not.


 
Is there a clearer way to explain this? Like in pictures? Can't really picture it in my head.


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## derwoodii (Apr 15, 2011)

promac610 said:


> Is there a clearer way to explain this? Like in pictures? Can't really picture it in my head.



Hmm I'll try, got no pictures, when a end/piece comes back at ya head after a hit by maul/axe like a log ricochet. 99% go side ways away from you somehow bits turn/bounces and goes for ya head.
I use a old truck tyre around my log axing deck hopin cushion absorb wood pile missiles. Hope thats explains or perhaps its just me axing style & mean old OZ hard woods.


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## goneloco (Apr 16, 2011)

ha, and i dam near took my finger off with disk on vermeer chipper unpluggin the chute bout month and half ago. got pics of that one. look thru my pics for it


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## promac850 (Apr 17, 2011)

derwoodii said:


> Hmm I'll try, got no pictures, when a end/piece comes back at ya head after a hit by maul/axe like a log ricochet. 99% go side ways away from you somehow bits turn/bounces and goes for ya head.
> I use a old truck tyre around my log axing deck hopin cushion absorb wood pile missiles. Hope thats explains or perhaps its just me axing style & mean old OZ hard woods.


 
Oh, I get it now. The little flying pieces... yeah, those can be really dangerous. A lot of the wood we split last year on the log splitter split perfectly, and a few of them literally popped out of the splitter and flew up a few feet. One of the piece happened to be a huge knot and crotch... probably the most difficult to split... it flew straight up about seven feet... we scattered our asses pretty quick when that thing went up... 



goneloco said:


> ha, and i dam near took my finger off with disk on vermeer chipper unpluggin the chute bout month and half ago. got pics of that one. look thru my pics for it


 
OOWWW!!!! That is gnarly. :censored: Hope you heal(ed) fast... man, that had to hurt. :censored: :censored: 

So far, all any of my digits have seen is the left thumb getting a nice 96% cut through on the very tip... any farther in, would've hit the bone, farther out, would've completely taken the tip of my thumb off. I was cutting up some material for a project when it happened... funny thing is, the razor blade was so sharp and the cut was so swift that it didn't hurt. When I pressed the cut part back on my thumb and held it on the way to the clinic, it was partially healed by the time we got there. That's how clean of a cut it was. 

I'm sure something is headed my way in the near future... seems that I tend to get injured, thankfully not as often as some other people I remember from high school. Maybe I'm just a little luckier than the average person.


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## goneloco (Apr 17, 2011)

promac610 said:


> OOWWW!!!! That is gnarly. :censored: Hope you heal(ed) fast... man, that had to hurt. :censored: :censored:
> 
> yea it heeled up decent. severed the nerves and have no feeling in it. worked in 45mph wind gusts today at 40 degree air temp.(mid-size silver maple) not sure what wind chill was but i had to come down every 45 minutes to warm it up.


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## LarryNY (May 2, 2011)

*save your nails*



promac610 said:


> Smashing digits between pieces of firewood, been there done that. It hurts. Not as much as smashing the edge of your thumb with a metal faced wheel weight hammer. I was holding one of those tiny little wheel weights, and my thumb was the first thing to receive the full force swing... I almost passed out, my vision was blacked out for about 3 seconds. It hurt a lot for about 4 days. Blood spot under the nail was there for a month. My hand shook for the rest of that day, and most of the next day. It was that much of a shock to the system...


 
May be common knowledge, but taking a cherry hot sewing needle to the nail will burn thru and release the blood spot , and save the 
nail from coming off. Larry


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## pdqdl (May 2, 2011)

Use a dremel tool or other high speed drill to make a hole; better relief, less pain. Go real slow so as to not heat up your fingernail. Slow and gentle just makes it feel better, not worse.

You can go too deep with a hot-poker, and I can guarantee that you won't feel better after you do that to yourself!



Either way you do it, relieving the pressure and draining the blood also saves a lot of healing time on your damaged nail. If you are lucky, the original skin will re-attach to the bottom of your nail, and the nail never falls off.
(I had a toenail injured so bad, I had to get fiberglass repair kits to keep the nail from cracking in two halves. Been about 5 years now, and that nail still isn't normal...


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## promac850 (May 3, 2011)

LarryNY said:


> May be common knowledge, but taking a cherry hot sewing needle to the nail will burn thru and release the blood spot , and save the
> nail from coming off. Larry


 
Didn't know that at the time. Also forgot to mention it is was more on the edge of the nail... not square in the middle. Blood spot was small, about 1/4" by 1/4" or a little bigger. Still hurt though... :censored::censored: 

I will keep the hot needle idea in mind... it will likely become handy someday.



pdqdl said:


> Use a dremel tool or other high speed drill to make a hole; better relief, less pain. Go real slow so as to not heat up your fingernail. Slow and gentle just makes it feel better, not worse.
> 
> You can go too deep with a hot-poker, and I can guarantee that you won't feel better after you do that to yourself!
> 
> ...


 
It healed good as it was closer to the edge of the nail... 

I will keep that Dremel idea and the hot poker/sewing needle in mind for a future square in the middle nail smacking.

As for your toenail, ouch, what fell on it?


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## pdqdl (May 3, 2011)

Nothing. I tripped over a bicycle in 2006, then fell among a bunch of mowers. Somewhere along the line, my big toe took a serious whoopin'. I have only gotten it back into one piece in the last year, and 1/2 of it is still not attached to the "quick" beneath the nail.

It doesn't bother me any, but it sure is ugly.

It does still bother me that I didn't fire my useless mechanic at the time for parking it where he did. Hindsight is 20/20, you know...


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## promac850 (May 3, 2011)

pdqdl said:


> Nothing. I tripped over a bicycle in 2006, then fell among a bunch of mowers. Somewhere along the line, my big toe took a serious whoopin'. I have only gotten it back into one piece in the last year, and 1/2 of it is still not attached to the "quick" beneath the nail.
> 
> It doesn't bother me any, but it sure is ugly.
> 
> It does still bother me that I didn't fire my useless mechanic at the time for parking it where he did. Hindsight is 20/20, you know...


 
You got that right about hindsight... I figured out ways I could've avoided almost every fricking injury that I can recall that happened to me.


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## rarefish383 (May 10, 2011)

Funny, now that I think about it, I've never been hurt sitting on the couch watching TV, it's always while I'm working. I may be on to something here, I'll get back to you, Joe.


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## redheadwoodshed (May 13, 2011)

rarefish383 said:


> Funny, now that I think about it, I've never been hurt sitting on the couch watching TV, it's always while I'm working. I may be on to something here, I'll get back to you, Joe.


 
I tried that myself, but it didn't pay the bills too good.


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