Timber Framers Guild Forums Tools Axe Throwing TF injuries: What's yours?

Thought this might attract some good stories.

Derek has his arm in a sling, while I've been trying to dig a frickin massive chunk of wood out of my thigh, setting my super model career back at least another year
That and my big chisel scar on my left hand (pictures of which I'm sure some of you remember)

Luckily for the chisel incident(there are no accidents )I happened to be working on larch, and as I may have mentioned before, larch sap has anti-bacterial properties.
Not so lucky for the sliver.
It, too, is larch. But I was told by the first aid dude that I should not dig it out, but let it fester (what a nasty word...)
It ain't festerin'!
It's healing over all nice like, and every time I move my leg I can feel this stick poking me! AARRRGGGHHH!!

Too bad larch doesn't have BIONIC properties as opposed to anti-BIOTIC properties.
Could you imagine:
Yes, we can rebuild her.
We will give her a larch hand, with which she can hack away at her hand at leisure.
We will give her a larch leg, with which she can roll timbers in one go, and never again need to worry about cutting her carharts when wiping the chisel.
And we will name her Timberframe Woman, as she will be part human, part timberframe.

Spiral Fracture of the 4th metacarpal in the right hand, requiring two titanium screws to repair. Auger bit in the D-handle Milwaukee drill twisted out of my hand because I was too lazy to attach the side bar. No blood, but lots of time not cutting timbers. Still have the drill... and the screws :-)

The most dangerous tool in the shop is the one in your hands!

Have fun with Sketchup, Derek.

CB.

Ryobi 1200 rpm drill, 1/2" (discontinued). It snatched on the steel I was drilling and I punched the sawmill.. it won. an inch and a half splinter at the infeed of the planer into the thigh. I hopped all the way through my sister's wedding waiting on uncle fester. Finally went to the worlds oldest practicing surgeon who filleted it out... and then put a steri strip on my thigh to close it... that lasted about 5 minutes.

In a flash of brilliance, I gave myself the second hernia. My dad asked how it felt to be outsmarted by yet another inanimate object. Or as the doc said "just cause you can get your arms around it doesn't mean you can lift it"

A newly tuned 2" chisel thru the sheath starting in my palm and exiting between the thumb and index finger. The only thing I felt was that my finger went numb instantly, and the surgeon poking the end of the nerve with a dam que-tip.
A good lesson for my self and my kids, see what happens when your not paying attention.

thanks for starting such a gruesome thread, TG
my knees are starting to go, but this year has been good to me compared to last year, I air nailed my left hand, breaking a bone(3 1/4 framer) broadaxed my shin (which convinced me to finally buy some hockey pads) and took a wicked fall over a sawhorse in the dark, crashing my right hand into the gravel and taking it out of commision for about 2 months.
Injuries happen, and I like what TG says "there are no accidents" Often I can look back and see why something went wrong, usually I was in a hurry.

splinter under the fingernail

I hate sharp things, and the resulting injuries.


Dave

I was up for the genius award, too.

I think my last words one January morning while building my folks' house was, "Yeah the roof is frosty, Dad, but I'm on rope."

I went straight off the forward end of the peak. It took me almost twenty feet to slow my self down to a complete stop on rope. The rope was icy, too. Luckily it's a full 35 feet to the rocks below. I swung into one of the living room windows and unclipped from the rope.

My Dad advised me not to tell my mother, wife, or kids.

Then last week at my surprise birthday party a friend who was on that crew said to me in front of my family, "You know Zach, you taught me a lot on that job." Then concluded with, "Come to think of it, you taught me how to fly off a roof without so much as a scratch."

Guess there are no secrets in my family.

Zach

I have one very embarrassing moment to tell, luckily no one was here to see it.
I was getting ready to bore some holes through some short cut off blocks of some left over timbers, to make some commander heads for an upcoming raising.
Well I set up my saw horse and placed one of the blocks on the horse (note one horse not two) and so that I didn't bore into the top of this saw horse, I moved the block out so the bit would go through it past the end.
Then I placed my boring machine on top of the block. This was a standard height saw horse about 30" or so tall, plus the block, probably a 6x8 or so. And then the boring machine seat probably 1 1/2" thick. So being at this was quite tall, I figured I needed to step up onto something before I swung my leg over the seat, so I position a block on the ground to use as a step.

Well you guessed it, the block, and boring machine seat were out in mid air with no support, when I sat down on the seat.

As I fell backwards onto the ground I had enough sense to hold onto the boring machine handles to not let it get launched like a pumpkin from a catapult but the block came down on top of the both of us.

Other than my pride, nothing else was severely hurt.

I when I got up, I immediately looked around to make sure no one saw how stupid I was.....

Talk about embarrassing moments....

here is one more from the past...
my dad and I were cutting some firewood, he was on the chainsaw. Well, you know how sometimes the firewood has a branch still on it, I held one of those pieces over the trunk of the tree for him to trim the branch off. The chainsaw jumped and bumped my knee... did'nt feel like much but in a minute my boot was all wet. In two minutes I was going into shock and riding on the back of the tractor, eventually getting to the hospital and 10 or 12 stitches right on the old knee cap... maybe that's why my knees are going? It's good to have plenty of respect for the chainsaw.