Thursday, November 20, 2008

Special Request - chainsaw accident

This note is for a friend that wanted to know more about Daniel's redneck accident. I was going to just link to the original post about Daniel's chainsaw accident, but I just searched for it and it basically just gives an update that we were at the hospital and asked for prayers.

So here is the whole story (for those of you who have yet to hear it or read about it)... let's just say that accidents and trips to the hospital occur more than we would like them to.


On March 4, 2007, Daniel and I were working on one of our many house renovation projects. This particular project had us outside building a fence. After several hours of digging holes for fence posts, we were ready to cut down the split rails to the right length.


Daniel was using a chainsaw for this process since the posts were large, cumbersome and old. I held the posts in place (a human clamp of sorts) while Daniel trimmed the posts. They had to be cut to taper at the ends to fit in the holes of the vertical posts.


We were on the last post and Daniel was having to force the saw because the wood was really old and hard. Also the blade was probably starting to dull after an afternoon of cutting posts. At the last moment, Daniel was putting a lot of pressure on the saw and the wood broke and the saw jerked out of the wood and into Daniel's leg.


We both looked down and saw shredded blue jeans and blood. I was pretty freaked out while Daniel remained calm and collected. Daniel immediately dropped the saw and clamped his hands around his leg. I ran inside to grab wallets, insurance cards, towels, cell phones and was soon back outside helping Daniel into our car. I sped us to the ER - we figured that was the fastest (and cheapest) thing to do.


We got to the ER and soon Daniel was being wheeled into in an ER room for examination. Initially they thought the would be able to stitch up the gash in the ER and let us go home. But after xrays and several different opinions, the doctor's found that the saw had gone down to the bone and they decided surgery to close the wound would be the most prudent thing to do. There was fear of infection in the bone.


The most interesting thing about this particular ER visit were all the people working in the ER that dropped by our room to see the "chainsaw" victim.


Daniel got 21 stitches in his leg to form an upside down V shape on the inside of his calf. He was very lucky that the chainsaw did not hit any muscles, tendons or bone. He was in the hospital for the weekend and on crutches for 2 weeks while he recovered.


Now we say that Daniel is a real redneck because he has a chainsaw story to tell...

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