Thanks for all of the thoughts about safety. The reason this accident is so shocking to me is I have always been very safety conscious around power tools all my life. I worked in a large patternshop of 30 people where there were accidents just because of the large numbers just working around machinery everyday. I always went to the person when they were injured to find out exactly what happened and how it might be avoided. I thought that management and the union were too lax in telling apprentices what to look out for around all the different machinery we worked with and I was able to have safety issues more closely looked at. So as safety conscious as I was and am, you still have to really be on guard.

The DR. ask why I didn’t bring in the end of my thumb so he could sew it on but I never found it. By entering the saw blade from the rear, I never saw this happen, I think I just ground it off with nothing left. The DR. cut out a skin graft from the side of my hand about 1" square, down to the meat, and scrapped of the fat before he sewed it over the end of my thumb. Then he pulled the 1" gap together where he cut out the skin graft and sewed it. Pretty neat. This hasn’t hurt very much. I had a dislocated finger that caused more trouble then this.

Every one just be careful.
John