Hard lesson to learn

Last week I found a great helper. Hard worker, and a quick learner. Hell, he was even reliable...27 years old. But today he was making an easy cut on the table saw while I was inside the house I'm working on and though neither of us are sure exactly what happened, he ended up for the most part lopping off all of the fingers on his right hand. Great thing gone horribly wrong. Right now he's at the hospital trying to have his fingers put back together. So, a quick note to all those who have great helpers with great prospects: take a minute and go over some safety things with them. And ALWAYS respect your tools, because they won't respect you if you blink.

SJN:
I know I speak for everyone at HRT when I say that we're all hoping your employee and friend will regain the full use of his right hand. All you can do now is wait for things to heal as best they can.

SJNServices said:

Last week. . .

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Without a guard, I did this in '94. Strangely, it didn't hurt.

Pointer finger severed 2/3rds of the way and the joint is now fused, middle finger cut halfway through.

It cost $50,000 and 9 months of physical therapy and it sort of works. The 'brawny edema' doesn't go away.

I borrowed a 4" thk book on hand injuries. You don't want to look at the pictures of 'degloving' injuries but now, with Google Images, you probably can.

In addition to other offensive conduct, CIGNA stiffed me out of $12k of this [they said I didn't get it preapproved] so I paid the surgeon $100/mon for years.

Now I keep a guard on and find other ways to make the cuts that are easily made without the guard.

Steve, I really hate to hear this, tell him we hope for a full recovery. Let us know how he's doing.

Yea, send our best, he will need it unfortunatly.

And a short story....and by no means do I blame anyone, accidents happen...thats why they are not called "planned on's".

I have been in the trades 25 years building 15000 sq ft homes to running cabinet shops... and still see dumb things done by ol' timers all the time. Folks do not realize when they are doing it that a youngster is lookin on....the old do as I say, not as I do never works.

When ever I hired a new person, they where trained on how to use the power tools right away, keep your hands away from the blades, use push sticks on tablesaws and never try to push the back of the piece down when it starts to lift or chatter behind the blade. (sounds like what your guy did to a tee, the board lifts and you push the back down grabbing the wood and pulling your fingers back toward you into the blade) And this is why I would get hurt more than my employees. I was teaching the saftey meetings , and ignoring myself ..because I was the boss of course.
So ...that was my short lesson, hope it helps someone to stay safe.

Sorry to hear about this unfortunate incident.
For what it's worth, they do make table saws that will stop on a dime and prevent injury if you happen to get your finger close to the blade. I saw one demonstrated on a hot dog and it didn't even make a nick in the hot dog. Something to consider. Very expensive but, I never put a price on safety. Wish I could remember the manufacturer.

inspectorD said:

and never try to push the back of the piece down when it starts to lift

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That's exactly how mine happened. Just call me 'righty'.

Quick update: Looks like he lost his ring finger and some bits of three others, but here's what floors me. What he was worried about is whether or not I would still let him help me. I told him with one hand he would be a better helper than most I've found in this area and as long as I've got work he's got a job.

kok328 said:

Sorry to hear about this unfortunate incident.
For what it's worth, they do make table saws that will stop on a dime and prevent injury if you happen to get your finger close to the blade. I saw one demonstrated on a hot dog and it didn't even make a nick in the hot dog. Something to consider. Very expensive but, I never put a price on safety. Wish I could remember the manufacturer.

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It's called "SawStop".
The World

Unfortunately, they don't make a brake package you can retrofit to your existing saw. You have to buy a "SawStop" saw before you get the brake package as a safety feature. They make 3 different table saws now, and they're planning to offer a full line of woodworking tools, all of which would include a similar safety feature.

(I spent a few minutes on the web site, and the way the brake package works is similar to the way a fuse works. There's a spring mounted aluminum block that is held out of the way of the saw's teeth by a thin wire. A voltage is applied to the saw blade and there's electronics that monitor that voltage. If anything that's conductive comes into contact with the blade, the current that flows into that conductive body will cause a voltage drop in the blade. If the system detects such a voltage drop, it sends a large current through the thin metal wire mentioned earlier. That wire burns out and the spring loaded aluminum block is pushed into the path of the blade teeth, stopping the blade almost immediately. It costs $70 to replace the brake package, and it can only be used once.
And, if you need to cut conductive materials, like wet wood, you can turn on the "bypass" feature, which basically just deactivates the large current that would otherwise burn out the thin metal wire to activate the brake. The monitoring system in the saw tells you if the brake would have been activated by cutting the conductive material so you know whether or not you need to turn off the safety feature or not.)

Nestor_Kelebay said:

It's called "SawStop".
The World

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The major manuf's were not the least bit interested in this thing.

SJNServices said:

Quick update: Looks like he lost his ring finger and some bits of three others, but here's what floors me. What he was worried about is whether or not I would still let him help me. I told him with one hand he would be a better helper than most I've found in this area and as long as I've got work he's got a job.

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I hope you realize that statement speaks volumes of the character of SJN.

Just looked at the Sawstop site. Now that is what I call a perfect marriage of current technologies. I truly hope this company goes far. Like my grandfather once said, "If you can nail together two things that have never been nailed together before you just might have something". I think they have something.

And if the big gun Insurance co has their way, it will soon be on all saws.
Sawstop has been around for 10 years for the big saws. The costly part is everytime the saw trips, you have to change most of the parts.

www.woodshopnews.com just did a full article this month. However it is not on the website yet.

Hope for a full recovery...and good job on the keeping the job.:trophy:

Geez. This thread made me cringe. It's my fear of table saws that has kept me intact. I had friend of mine lose a finger in shop freshman year to a ban saw. I hope the kids alright. Good for you keeping him on. It's not easy finding a new job in this market.

inspectorD said:

Sawstop has been around for 10 years for the big saws. The costly part is everytime the saw trips, you have to change most of the parts.

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I have a Sawstop. If it trips, you replace the brake cartridge (~$65), and probably the blade (unless you get it repaired). Well worth the cost of my fingers. You can also test material before cutting to reduce accidental trips. I have not seen reports of lots of accidental trips, so I assume they are not very common.

The Sawstop is expensive compared to a cheap contractor saw, but it holds it's on (even without the brake technology) in the cabinet saw market.:

Wuzzat? said:

The major manuf's were not the least bit interested in this thing.

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Someone just got awarded 1.5 Million in a lawsuit against Ryobi because they did not have the "Sawstop" technology incorporated into their saw. (Even though the person was operating the saw with all the safety features removed - but that is a different discussion) He lost the use of some fingers because of the accident.

I don't understand how some ones finger could be worth 1.5 million dollars. Do you have a link to the article reprosser?

Here is one link, but there are others on Google.

Popular Woodworking - SawStop Safety System Saga Steams Forward

Be careful of all the "facts" that are posted on comments about the case, sawstop, the inventor, etc. Lots of emotion is being posted and all the facts are not in yet (as far as I know).

Thats terrible. I hope he recovers and that it doesn't ruin anything he has going in life. My prayers are with him.

SJNServices said:

Last week I found a great helper. Hard worker, and a quick learner. Hell, he was even reliable...27 years old. But today he was making an easy cut on the table saw while I was inside the house I'm working on and though neither of us are sure exactly what happened, he ended up for the most part lopping off all of the fingers on his right hand. Great thing gone horribly wrong. Right now he's at the hospital trying to have his fingers put back together. So, a quick note to all those who have great helpers with great prospects: take a minute and go over some safety things with them. And ALWAYS respect your tools, because they won't respect you if you blink.

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Sorry to hear about that story... And thanks for reminding us this kind of situation.

TxBuilder said:

I don't understand how some ones finger could be worth 1.5 million dollars. Do you have a link to the article reprosser?

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Car companies value a person's life at $200K
CNN - The 'Ivey memo' - September 10, 1999
and others, like the 911 fund and the EPA, have gone up to ~$7M.
You already know what my hand surgery cost. Pain and suffering has a value but the only thing I had was about one day of severe depression.