A few weeks ago, Brent told me the story of his injury on the jointer. He also sent me pictures of the damage. I have seen injury photos in the past, but for some reason these had a profound affect on me. I think its partly due to the fact that a jointer injury is one of my worst nightmares! After giving it some though, I asked Brent if I could share his story in the hopes of preventing someone else from making the same mistake. And the more I thought about it, I started to realize that I needed to do something bigger with a much larger reach. And so Woodworker’s Safety Week was born.
Here is Brent’s story:
“I was in my garage and working on a project for a family member. I had worked all day at my job and decided to get some shop time in because this project was taking me forever to complete. The amount of time this was taking was way longer than I originally thought. I just finished gluing up some boards and should of called it quits for the night. I was exhausted and hungry. Instead of shutting the lights out and going inside I decided to use the jointer and flatten some boards for the next step. This would give me a head start for the next day. As I passed the boards over the jointer (not using a push block), I noticed I was getting a large amount of snipe. I don’t know what I was thinking or what I was not thinking due to being tired but I adjusted the out feed table. When I did this adjustment I lowered it a little too much. The next board I ran across started to bounce and I instinctively pushed the board down to control it. The board then shot out and my hand came down on the blades. This accident sent me to the emergency room. When I arrived they stuck a needle in my palm about seven times to numb it. I also received an IV and tetanus shot. I then had to hold my hand under running water for fifteen minutes. The surgeon then came in only to tell me they were shipping me to another hospital where a specialist could work on me. The plastic surgeon operated on me the next day. I received a skin graft from my arm to my palm that resulted in twelve staples and fifteen stitches. Lessons learned: 1) Don’t woodwork when you are hungry and tired. 2) Know your equipment and its correct operation. 3) Push sticks and safety equipment are less expensive than hospital bills (by far). 4) When you rush to meet a deadline it can cost you dearly. The photos are from the day the bandage, staples, and stitches were removed. This was about seven days after the accident. The one good thing I got from this accident was it taught me to respect the equipment and never work without the use of safety equipment. I am now recovering fine and have full use of my hand. I was very lucky it could have been a lot worse.”
WARNING!!! The photos below depict the results of a serious power tool injury.
Hi Folks
A sickening story but I hope all has healed well Brent
I publish a Mag called Tools and Equipment in Australia and we are doing an article on Tool safety and I was wondering if I could use these pictures to shock tradies into being safety conscious?
If so could we please have them in high res?
Love your site and we will publish the address so our Aussie boys can look you up
Cheers
Keith
Hey Keith. The pictures technically don’t belong to me. I emailed Brent to see if I can put him in touch with you. Hopefully he has some higher res photos that you can publish. I’ll let you know if/when he returns my email.
Glad your feeling better man.
And i consider you pretty lucky compared to a few friends of mine,
one of them cut off a finger on a table saw in high school shop class, got i re-attached…
but then got a job at a grocery store in the meat department, and he now is missing 3 fingers of his rifgt hand.
Maybe ill share more stories later….
….but anyway, glad you are better.
Thank you everyone for your kind words. I am now fine and I am back to woodworking. Since the accident I have stocked up on the necessary safety equipment. The first time back to the jointer was scary. As soon as I turned it on the first couple of times my whole body would tense up and my heart rate accelerated. I am now more comfortable when using it, but not to the point where I am carless. I have learned a great deal from my experience and consider myself very lucky. This happened in the blink of an eye. If my story and pictures convinces at least one person to use safety equipment then my job is done.
OUCH!!! Brent, that is some top-notch gore! Thanks for sharing……I think:D…Glad you didn’t lose any digits!!
a very good friend of mine… woodworker for over 30 years… just cut off 3 fingers (first knuckle) on his table saw..
he also said… ” i was tired… and thought this was and easy schmeasy cut… i have done it a million times… do not need that silly push stick..” the wood slipped out from under him and off went the 3 finger tips.. painfull… but a lesson to all of his woodworking buddies..
thanks for the warning… a safety reminder is always a good thing..
nancy
Brent – thanks for sharing. I can’t imagine what would have gone through your head when that happened. It does drive home the point that it can happen to “anybody” (i.e. me). I’d like to do woodworking for decades to come, and I have a feeling I wouldn’t be very excited to go out to the workshop after I had that kind of injury. How did this affect you?
Wow nothing like someone’s else’s misfortune to drive home the need for safety. I rarely use push blocks on the jointer but that will be changing. Thanks for sharing. Hopefully this will prevent others from the same fate.
Would a featherboard been another safety devise that should have been used? Not seen it used when jointing a board flat.
Hope you have a full recovery and are back woodworking soon.
I must say – this COULD have ended much worse.
Brent – glad to see you get full use of your hand, looks like they did a really good job.
Thank you for sharing, it’s easy to forget how devastating these machines can be sometimes.
Have a quick and positive recovery :o)
Wow Those pictures were rather sickening. I guess I’ll keep on using using my push blocks. Brent I hope your hand and arm heal well. Claude