Thank you for sharing your mishap. I'm the guy that did the exact same thing last year, and boy did I feel stupid. I placed my left hand behind the blade to help the board through the last 6 inches, it kicked back and ...chop... off with the tip of the thumb. I too had all the feather boards, and was wearing hearing and eye protection, and even had a shop foreman help me set up the saw since I was ripping strips from a 20' board and I wanted to be sure I was doing it safely. However that one misplaced (or I should say improperly placed) thumb was the recipe for disaster.

So did they do a skin graft? It's going to look really ugly while it heals, but with my thumb everything grew back, even the nail. I guess I'm like a lizzard, but I won't cut anything else off to see if it grows back. They cut a piece of skin from my arm and sewed it to make a new thumb tip. It still feels a little funny on the tip, but no problems overall. At first your thumb is going to have a flat spot on top and you will think it will never be the same, but it will fill in and round over and look just like the other one, only slightly shorter.

So does anyone out there think it won't ever happen to them? It just goes to show that you can't be too careful. You can do one little split-second thing and lose a digit, a limb, or a life. We have chosen a hobby that is very dangerous, and we need to remind each other when we make mistakes. Thanks for sharing, and don't be embarassed, we have all done something similar, even if it was just hitting our thumb with a hammer or hooking ourself with a fishook or any number of other things. We just chose to cut off part of our opposed thumbs that took millions of years to develop. I think I'll go back to a safer hobby... let's see, drag racing? mountain climbing? flying? hmmmm... Why do I have this love of dangerous hobbies? Maybe I need to take up basket weaving. I'll find a way to get hurt doing that too. I'll probably poke myself in the eye with a reed or something. Well, I have to go now, it's time for my scuba lesson. I hope my insurance agent isn't reading this.

Thanks, and get well soon.