Close call with a chain saw

[yegbert]

Thankful jeans (not legs) were the only heavy relics in this incident!

 

[marc2211]

You got off lightly, buy a lotto ticket!!!

I won’t touch a chainsaw since I had an issue about 15 years back. I was cutting wood outside our house in the snow. My wife was about to give birth any day to our daughter.

For some reason, I cut some wood, finished, then turned holding the chainsaw in my left hand, managing to put the blade/chain against my right forearm. Luckily the chain was in the process of slowing down at this point.

I went through shin, flesh, pretty much down to the bone, but thankfully the chain was only going slowly at this point

Cue lots of blood in the snow, I put my hand over the ‘trench’ I’d cut in my arm, calling my wife, saying I’d had a small accident… She saw the blood, asked me to move my hand, at which point blood poured everywhere.

My wife’s family are pharmacists so they made me a sweet cup of tea and started to try and stitch me up at the kitchen table. Sadly as it wasn’t clean cut, but a groove with 2+cm missing flesh, they had to put on butterfly stitches and let it heal from the inside out.

It took about 5 months to heal, to this day I have less feeling in that area… and remarkably a pretty neat, thin but long scar, with clearly less flesh underneath.

I’ll never ever touch a chainsaw again.

 

[MyLittleEye]

I leave power tools to the pro's now.
Instead of a chainsaw I chose a mid-sized Japanese Silky saw; those things are arc tempered and wicked sharp. Mine saws through a wrist sized limb in just a few strokes. Sure it can take longer to cut through thicker branches but that time is offset by minimal overheads in terms of maintenace, and storage of fuel, accessories and protective equipment.

...except for this one time I got careless and caught the blade on the ring finger of my fretting hand. " 'tis but a scratch " I thought, but it had raked deep across the knuckle and for a long long time, 18 months+ that joint remained stiff and painful and I wondered if it'd ever regain full mobility. Thankfully, three years on it's good as new but henceforth I learned, stay focussed on the the task, never cut corners and always wear thick gloves!

 

[imwjl]

I'm afraid of chainsaws because they can do a lot of damage in an instant. Today I worked with two of them for about three hours, cutting down trees to make "Defensible space" around my house. I was very cautious the whole time and glad to be done without injury from the saw or falling limbs. When I went to put the saw down, I accidentally squeezed the trigger and it instantly thrashed my jeans at the knee. I'm amazed that my knee doesn't have a scratch on it in spite of what my pants look like now. By the way, the saw stopped because it sawed through the extension cord. It is possible that saved my knee. My neighbor said he always wears chaps when he uses a chainsaw and this is why.

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I'm glad you're okay! This with a child hood witnessing neighbor cutting most of his face off is why as a FSTA certified I preach doing it right.

To all, please rent or buy the right safety gear. There are free chainsaw safety classes you can attend and good online training. Also, never operate one alone. It is super worth the time to get some training for more than safety. There are a lot of tips worth knowing.

 

[Spazzmaster]

I used to hate putting locust branches through the chipper when I worked on a grounds crew in college. Chippers are fearsome enough, but when it grabbed the branch and pulled it, you would always get scratched all to hades by the thorns.

I had a bunch of locust limbs come down last summer. Poked the side of my index finger with a big thorn, couldn't bend it for a week.

 

[Frodebro]

I don’t wear chaps but I also treat a chainsaw like a gun; it is “always loaded” and ready to do you great harm.

I’d get some chaps.

Trigger discipline is so burned into my brain that I even subconsciously exercise it with my power tools.

 

[Slip Kid]

How are chaps going to save your fingers?

I know they won't but hopefully will keep me from sawing open an artery in my leg.