today sucked (I crushed my arm)

[roastelk]

I had rather painful day at work, as I crushed my arm in a piece of machinery. In hind sight I probably shouldnt of been working while on muscle relaxers. I took them so I could stand up long enough to go to work, as my back went out on me last night.

basicily I made my 4.5" thick fore arm fit in between two pieces metal that are normally under 1.5" inches apart, and one of those pieces of metal is hydrualicly driven. My arm was wedged in up to my elbow so tight they had to cut off a part of the machine to free me. my right for arm is purple, tingly, swollen, and my elbow doesn't want to bend. not to mention a pretty deep cut that required two layers of stitches.

Doctors are worried about possible nerve damage because of the constant tingling in my hand and swelling, but only time will tell.
the tingling starts up near my elbow, goes into my hand and up my pinky and ring figers, and is most likely the ulnar nerve (funny bone nerve).

as of this minute I have full use and mobility of my hand,.....If I want to use it.....the doctor said to keep using it, so as to keep the blood flowing.

[livius drusus]

Holy crap, man. That sounds... unspeakable. :shudder:

[foo fighter]

i've worked indurtial before and i feel for you. i'm glad that everything still works. some (as you know) don't fair as well

[viscousmemories]

That's terrible, roastelk. I hope it gets better soon.

[freemonkey]

Oh, roastelk, I'm cringing just thinking about it. I hope you heal well, and that you feel better soon. :huggle:

I had a grandmother who lost at least half her fingers in machinery. And not all in the same accident, either.

[Stormlight]

Oh man, it hurts just reading this. :( I hope you'll feel better soon.

[roastelk]

mechanism of injury...hope you guys like my fancy ms-paintbrush skills...In reality it looked nothing like this, but same sort of idea

If I hadnt quickly hit the e-stop it coulf done muc more damage, probably scraped most of the skin off one side of my arm on top of the other injures.

really it was a complete mental laps on my part, I went to reach for something without thinking and put my arm in bad position. I was also runing the machine with a different setup than usual, and the aria my arm got piched normally isnt a hazard. Changes are being made to the machine, so it cant happen again






http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2352&stc=1&d=1170399550

[erimir]

Ouchies :shudder:

Are you at least left handed?

If you're not, that picture is kinda impressive.

[Plant Woman]

:bikefall: I feel for you. My husband had his arm crushed between two vehicles, they rewired his nerves and to this day you can touch his index finger and he feels it in his thumb. He lost some feeling in parts of his hand. He is used to it, so if you do lose some feeling, you do get used to it and your body compensates. Hopefully that won't be the case.

Heal well and heal soon!

[Shelli]

Heal well and quickly, roastelk. :snuggles:

[Dingfod]

No broken bones?

[roastelk]

No broken bones?

no, its soft tisue damage only

it would take more than that to break my arm, people in my family seem to have super strength bones, we just rip muscle tisues, sprain things, snap ligaments etc.

thirs only been one broken bone in my extended family in the past 30 years, my dad got broad sided by a car while on a snowmobile. and broke both fibia and tibia
he had trouble with the bones healing, the broken end of my dads tibia and fibia went necrotic, and they removed two inches of bone on one leg as a last resort over amputating

he was in a cast for 9 months, and had 3 operations to try and get the bones to finaly fuse togther.

[Dingfod]

Sounds a bit like my step-grandfather. He broke both legs when he wrecked his truck. He was in a cast for almost a year. His healing may have been slowed by the fact he was a chain-smoker.

[Tanda]

Yikes!! Glad to see that you can still type. Take good care of you!

[Sock Puppet]

Yee-owitch. Heal well and quickly, roastelk.

[Crumb]

Damn roastelk, that does suck. I hope everything heals correctly!

[curses]

Wow, roastelk, that's awful! I hope you're better soon!

[ceptimus]

Hope you heal soon and fully. Hope the pain isn't too bad. I've had crushed feet in the past and they hurt like hell - I imagine arms may be even worse. :shudder:

[Kyuss Apollo]

I hope you feel better and retain full and pain-free use of your limb roastelk. Worst I ever did is had my foot run over by a car. It was really heavy, but it didn't break anything. Its amazing how springy we are when we need to be.

[roastelk]

the arms a stiffer and quite a bit more tender than it was yesterday. Im gonna be off work, until the stitches are out adn cuts haled up a bit, then probably be doing light duty till i can use my arm good again.

My fingers stopped tingling today so thats a good sign, but its much more difficult (painful) to grip things now. but I think its just muscle bruising setting in, you know how it goes, the day after is usually worse.

[pescifish]

Sorry to hear about the accident, roastelk. :eep:
That does sound good about the tingling going away and I hope you have a quick and full recovery.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

I shuddered reading that, Mr. Elk. Hopefully you'll heal fully.

[roastelk]

I got the top layer of stitches out of my arm today. my arm is still pretty sore, but im thinking it will heal up fine. its just gonna take few more weeks for the bruising to heal up.

any ways I'm going back work monday, cuase anther guy got injured, and they need some who can work with extreemly tight tolerances on a table hone...

the tolerancing on the parts are stupid, +/- 0.000125" at 60 deg F, with a 2ums or better surface finish.

[Dingfod]

Sounds good, roastelk. Be careful, okay?

[pescifish]

:yeahthat:

Especially the 'be careful'.
And the 'sounds good' part too!

[livius drusus]

I don't much like the injury record at your workplace, roastelk. Take care of you.