So, I was sitting here and had a hang nail on my pinky toe. Grabbed that little sucker and started to pull it off...damit if it didnt dig in and I pulled the whole dam nail off.
Never had a hang nail before, but I did get two of my fingers slammed in a tractor door before. Took two weeks for the nails to fall off. One fell off when I was tying my shoes. I ripped the other one off with a pair of tweezers. Took another month or so for them to grow back. Still hurt like a mofo.
I had a bad nail experience once. Let me shaaaaare it with you all.
One day I was getting ready for work. I was maybe 20 at the time? I rode a motorcycle, a Honda Magna at the time. Well since it's chain driven you need to oil the chain frequently, especially in NJ where sand is the dominant soil here. So I pulled my bike up on the center stand, started the engine, put it in gear and let the engine idle spinning the rear wheel. That made it easy to spray on the lubricant.
Ok, here's where Paul learns his lesson. Instead of turning off the engine I let it run, and grabbed a rag to wipe off the excess oil from the chain. Yes, those with a 50+ IQ know what happens next. As I grabbed the lower chain with the rag it pulled my thumb into the rear sprocket, crushing it between the chain and sprocket. Once all the way around my hand was released and was cut severely by the chain guard. It took about a week for the nail to fall off and I have a permanently disfigured thumb tip.
Every bike since and going forward was and will be a shaft drive.
Damn that would suck. When I lube the chain on my fourwheeler I just let it go. I would NEVER try to wipe it off. Sure it sprays on the fender a little, but it washes right off.
That gixxer thread reminded me of an instance a few months ago at our local bike shop(bicycles not motos) The owner of the shop is a good friend of mine so i spend alot of time there and this day was one we wont forget. It was just another day at the shop when a teenage maybe 18 or 19? came in and was asking about bikes. He was white but wow he was a stereotypical "wigger". He was asking about mountain bikes and at some point the conversation ran into the owners philosophy on how single speed and fixed gear bikes are much more fun bikes to ride and take care of. After more talking about types of bike he wanted to ride a fixed gear(bike wear pedaling is not an option. If the bike is moving so are the pedals.) and the only fixed gear at the shop was my mountain bike. Now i didn't let him ride it since it had spd pedals and there was no way his over sized goofy nikes would have enough traction on them to ride but i did let him look at the bike. He seemed to be drawn to the chain and how the crank arms would always spin with the wheel. Before i go any further i will say that i specifically warned him not to touch the chain due to the danger of getting fingers caught in the drive train. He began spinning the back wheel fast while the bike was in the stand and then made the mistake of touching the chain. Im not sure exactly what caused his finger to get sucked up into the rear cog but it did and this being a fixed gear mountain bike with 29" wheels there was plenty of rotational weight to cut right through his pointer finger(clean cut) not to mention the pretty sharp stainless steal phil wood cog on the back wheel. so there we were with the "oh sh!t" look on our faces while this kid screamed picked up the tip of his finger, clutched it in his good hand and sprinted out of the shop before we could get a word out. We even tried calling the hospital to see if he ever checked in and got nothing. who knows what happened. I felt bad for him but then again i had to clean the blood off my chain and cog before i could ride home. ;)
Wow that's some nasty stuff. He suffered waaaaaay more damage than I did. Luckily in my case the chain was badly in need of adjustment so it had play. Had it been tight I would almost surely have lost my thumb. It was just a dumb fluck thing to do. Had to learn how to jerk off with my left hand for a couple months.
Well, since we are talking about hurting ourselves w/ vehicles.....I'll throw this in there.
On July 5th back when I was bout 12-13yrs old my whole family was at the camp for a BBQ. Me, my brother, and friend Brian were out on the old Yamaha Moto4 riding around. I decided to cut across a cut-over field instead of staying on the logging road we where on. Well, there was a ditch in the middle of the field I didn't know about and somebody had bush-hogged the field a few weeks before. All the new growth was about the same height, even around the ditch.
We hit the ditch at about 25-30mph at a weird angle. Moto4 barrel rolled, thru Brian and my brother off, I stayed w/ the bike. ended up w/ it on top of me. Motor was burning my right leg, but I never noticed how bad my left leg got it.
Slipped out from under the bike and stood up to roll the bike back over....got brian to help me....he looks at me and starts freaking out "CANAAN, YOUR LEG!!!!". (while standing w/ most my weight on the left leg) I say, "yea, I burned it".....brian...."NO THE OTHER LEG". I grab my left calf and my finger touches the bone. The parking break on the handle bars had ripped my left calf and the muscle was just laid back w/ the bone visible. Blood rolling down my leg. Took my shirt off, rolled the muscle back up, tied it off and headed for the camp, then to the ER.
47 stitches, multiple light surgery, and 11+ years later...my a achilles tendon and heal are numb. Looks like a shark took a chunk out of my leg.
I'll get pics tomorrow.
EDIT Also, on a side note. NEVER go to the ER in Jena, La. I almost went septic and lost the leg due to them. They didn't reattach the blood vessels in my leg. The whole chunk they stitched up died. I had to go to Natchez, Ms to have it all cut out a few days later. Again, you could see the bone and they filled it w/ gauze. Had to go back every 2 days to have it trimmed and checked. Took forever to seal up.
And you pay so much for insurance too. Reminds me when I almost cut my left thumb off on my bandsaw. Rushed myself to the ER where I waited over 3 hours! I watched as one coughing kid after another kept getting seen before me (mind you most were immigrant, non-English speaking). I was sitting there holding my thumb together with a dish towel praying to God I didn't lose it while I waited and waited........................and waited some more. To this day I have no finger print on that digit. No matter how much I complained or bled on their floor did I get anyone to actually see me in a reasonable time frame. It's no wonder I b1tch about how much I pay for this "care".
The kicker was they had 2 people on payroll greeting patients at the door of the ER but not enough qualified personnel to treat them. That's all they did. "Hello, how are you today? Please have a seat and a nurse will be with you shortly."
Salary, benefits, vacation, retirement package and a parking space closer than me for a serious injury, all for...................
"Hello, how are you today? Please have a seat and a nurse will be with you shortly."
I will say this though...I didn't have to wait for care when I rolled to yamaha. I was pretty much out of it and bleeding all over the place when I got to the ER. Don't think many people where in the waiting room, but Jena, La is a small town.
I do remember sitting in the waiting room in Alexanderia, La, when I had appendicitis though. It had already ruptured and I wanted to stab myself in the face at the time, so it felt 3hrs. Finally got me in the OR. 3 days later I was still hurting so bad they kept increaseing my morphine dosage. Ended up ODing and going into shock. Fokrs didn't know I had an abscess and my right lung collapsed. Had to go back into surgery. Spent 2 weeks in the hospital on that one.
What up Brad, I been going through a bunch of real life sh!t. Still hanging though. Got locked up for a minute and almost got divorced. A lot of good is coming out of what happened though....funny how that works out.