Some of what I have written has some humour to it. Take no offence as this is who I am. With that said, it has got me through probably the most difficult time I will ever face in my life. Now and in the future.
I have been working with many different tools and machines that cut through all the man-made materials to make our lives easier, to decorate our dwellings, being creative etc.
I think most Tradesman don’t give it much thought about the dreaded day that may come, some of us, thankfully, will never have to have “that day when”. My day came on the 7thMay 2011 at 15h30 on a Saturday afternoon. I had a deadline, like so many other times! Never was it on my mind that I would on this day cut off my four fingers on the right hand. I had to get a project out for a client, who needed the items I was making for a grand show on the Tuesday. Believe it or not, I still managed to get this done. Still put out quality guaranteed workmanship.
The actual re-hashing of the event is very much unclear to me. I think it’s because the brain seems to have blocked it out. I remember the machines noise and loss of power. Almost like it was suddenly straining to do the work. The most unbearable pain shot straight up into my neck. Almost like an electrical shock combined with ten tons of lead hitting me.
The smell of blood filled the air. I looked at my hand where the cause of pain originated. Oops! Two of my fingers where on the table saw bed. My first thought was, it’s not too bad! I started to convince myself immediately that a band aid could cure this one easily. Ha-Ha! This was going to take a touch more than a band aid.
I calmly went to the main switch to turn off the power as the machine was still running. Strange I never thought of switching the actual machine off. I took my fingers off the table saw and put them in my aprons pocket. It was horrific to actually pick up one’s own fingers. It was a very strange sensation and I could almost feel me putting pressure on them with my left hand. I wrapped my hand in the apron, which at this point was probably the most painful thing I have ever experienced. I then proceeded to think rationally as the initial shock had passed. I was short a chunk of flesh and one finger. I looked down at the machine where the blade has a dust collector and could see my ring finger. There was no way I was going to get this out in good time. I evaluated the situation and came to the conclusion that I will have to leave this one behind. My thought was that I could do without the ring and pinkie finger.
My workshop is off my residence on the same property. My family had just arrived from an outing about an hour before. I called my wife for assistance as my thought now was no longer a band aid, but a whole emergency room. Off to hospital. The trip up the road, about 10km was a long and painful few minutes. The moment I sat down the pain increased and became unbearable.
We entered the emergency room. At an emergency room one has a thing called triage. This is a system that enables the medical staff a process to help everyone there, in a way that urgent cases are handled first.
Needless to say I became first in the queue. All other ailments that were in the room at the time were put on hold. At this stage my two step daughters were in an absolute state and crying uncontrollably. Arrangements were made for them to go to their Dad.
The emergency staff were taken back by this; taking fingers out my apron was quite a shock for all.
It took a while for things to sort of settle down and some order restored to the process in dealing with this. People are just human and I think that nobody is actually prepared for something like this at a drop of a hat. The ER Doctor eventually took charge and got the nurses with the necessary equipment ready to deal with the hand. A messy bit of work proceeded. When the cleaning and disinfecting started, that’s after I was pumped full of painkillers, I asked and opted to clean this myself, as cheeky as this was I was the one who was dealing with the pain and didn’t want any touching done. No matter how sensitive to my pain it was going to be. Its then while cleaning my hand and seeing all the inner workings that I decided that I will make myself some fingers again.
Once we had the hand cleaned and disinfected my wife and I had to make a decision about where we were going to have this repair done. A private or government hospital. Then more denial set in. My initial thought was that a bit of sewing up the wounds and chopping off the bits and pieces would have sufficed. Only after a chat to the ER Doctor was it evident that we needed an Orthopaedic surgeon to fix the mess. There where pieces of bone to cut and trim, tendons and blood vessels that needed to be joined and attached to what was left. I needed some skin for a graph to close a section of the wound. I did wonder were they were going to get this. Chunk out my backside?
We decided to make use of a private health care. This came at a premium. I was admitted and went to a ward. There was an Orthopaedic surgeon contacted that was on call. I did feel a bit of guilt about taking him away from his family for a few hours. But also realised that this is what he does. And most accidents don’t happen at planned hours. But also knew that he would charge handsomely for his knowledge and service. When we first met this Doctor we thought he was very young and wondered if he could do this. Funny how we judge so quickly. At this stage I had bandages on and it was too painful to open it up for him to look. But seeing the x-rays it was evident to him that an operation room was the order for the day.
I gave him permission to make all the decisions for me on the table, with only a few things he needed to consider. Nothing that will create a long and tiresome recuperation period, which included cutting and repairing all bits and pieces needed. The Doctor left us to go prepare for the task I had given him for the repair. We followed the process to get to the stage where I went in for surgery. I think it was only after the actual surgery and having a closer look at the bandages, seeing that a lot of my hand is missing, did the actual reality set in. I channelled these feelings in to the prospect that I will overcome this and make a prosthesis for my hand. Not a pretty one to model jewellery, but a functional one. I completely removed the idea of failure to do so, probably not to deal with the feelings that one is supposed to have, like preparing myself for the grieving of the loss of the digits. My thinking was that such a horrific accident would be my down fall. I was determined to think positive and calculated in order for this not to consume me. A 3.5 hour surgery and the rest of Saturday night and Sunday morning were spent in the hospital. I wanted to go home around the time I got to the emergency room. All repaired and with reluctance from the Doctor I was home by Sunday 10h30. I was faced with having to disappoint my client with the task at hand that needed to be delivered on Tuesday for Wednesday. I spent Sunday figuring out how I was going to finish this work in time. There was no amount of planning for the amount of pain I was in. Monday came and I was most certainly not prepared for the amount of pain I had. I also had to face the machine that I cut my fingers off with. I decided that digging deep down within; “I” was the answer. I decided to ignore all the symptoms of the accident and get on with it, got back up on the horse. I used the same saw, cut the wood, assembled the items and finished them in good time. The task was done and dusted. I was very pleased with myself. With this great feat I instantly knew that I would heal up and continue wood work. Just maybe a bit slower. It is a constant battle that would wear any one down. But I still remain optimistic that I will one day have good use from my hand and a mechanism to aid me in my daily tasks. >I had a bit of time after the accident and finishing the task at hand. All along with thinking how I will make an attachment. I perused the World Wide Web. Quite shocked I found nothing that money could buy at first. Then saw the X finger. I was excited! Only to have my little world crushed at the cost there of. I picked myself up and spent a few more hours looking, reading blogs and seeing how others were dealing with such injuries. It seemed that this was a lot more serious than I first thought. Looking at how and what I had read. It made me more determined to not let this get me down. After seeing how badly this affected other people. I made a choice, to lie down or get up and fight. With only these two options to choose from, I took the road less travelled. I chose to fight this!
There was nothing on the web other than the depressing stories I read of others and their accidents. I looked at robotic and bionic sights. Only to find nothing pertaining to adding one finger that was functional. But still I was determined to fix this.
I watched videos on line on how they replace tendons etc. in theatre and came to the conclusion that my initial thought of “how hard can it be to mimic a simple hand”, came to an abrupt end. I seemed to have to face a lot of denial as I continued on. If you sit back and at a quick glance look at the hand, its actual function is simple with a huge amount of complexities to it.
Only after typing in many different descriptions of what I was looking for, did I eventually find Ivan.
I think if anyone bumps into his videos and has a look they will think he has lost it. I being as serious as I was to find a solution did however sit up and study this hand he had made. I watched this video every morning for a good month. I made a few things in my workshop to try mimicking what he had made plus my ideas. It’s pretty frustrating having one thing working on ten different things and not being able to put them all together into one unit. I have never been one to ask for anything but eventually I decided to email Ivan. With not too much detail I simply asked if he was keen to “lend me a hand”. Excuse the pun. I was delighted and gobsmacked at the same time to read his reply. We were on I thought.
Little did I realise that it was going to be a great feat as he was a whole yesterday behind me with time zones. Here was this complete stranger to me, willing to help. At stages I had become despondent and ready to throw in the towel. Only to get a new idea emailed to me by Ivan. I use his mails as a pick me up quite often. You’ve got to realise that a good day and night spent on making a prototype can be a complete disaster and 90% rubbish. This in itself is debilitating. We to date are not quite sure how many cracks we have had at it. But I know that I often fail hopelessly with it and don’t tell anyone. I am sure Ivan has too. We don’t chat about this part as it is not the negative we desire.
A few emails back I suggested to Ivan that we somehow need to be in the same place at the same time to finish this. It is almost like we are cosmic twins on the same mission in different time zones.
The need has arrived for us to get together and put all our hard work and designs together. We need to be able to do this in one country. I have a full workshop with many different tools and machines, thus the plan for Ivan to come to sunny South Africa. We are desperately in need of funds to be able to travel and purchase materials that are of the best quality to bring our prototype to a close. It is currently functional and needs to be scaled down to such that only the top class materials will make it function 100%. For us not to share this at this stage will be doing some one short and creating false hope, as the materials used now are inferior and breakdowns are inevitable. With some funding we will be able to manufacture a quality usable / functional mechanism. Each unit will have its own comfort and application to the different hands, but there will be many aspects that we can make in multiple units. Which people can get from us at no cost if funding can pay for the materials? We have gotten it mounted to hands and movable parts functioning and now we are at the stage where we can put this knowledge to good use with better materials.
We have spent the time making the mistakes, fitting, pondering and it has paid off. Now we want one made from suitable material to test and fine tune its endurance and then make it available to others as a DIY kit.