BlazerBill
Full Access Member
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2023
- Posts
- 103
- Reaction score
- 83
- Location
- Texas
- First Name
- Billy
- Truck Year
- 1983
- Truck Model
- Chevy K5 Blazer
- Engine Size
- 350
Hi guys and girls! I have to share this very freakish injury I had with you all as a safety precaution and not make stupid mistakes like I did. I’m in the final stages of completing the multi-year restoration of my ‘83 K5 Blazer. I’m slow, okay and in more ways than one as you will read but I have done all the work myself! Awhile back when doing lots of cutting and grinding rust out I sustained an injury and didn’t even know it until weeks later after another injury. While using a wire wheel brush on an air tool one of the wires broke off and entered into my hand. At this time I’ll have to embarrassingly admit that I did not follow the recommended 4500 rpm rating of the wire wheel and was using it on a 10,000 rpm rated air grinder. Even though I was wearing gloves (and safety glasses) the high velocity at which one of the worn out and contaminated 1/2” long wires liberated itself from the wire wheel had gone through my leather glove and entered all the way into the outside of my hand like a needle and I didn’t even realize it. You might think that is freakish enough but it’s not the end of the story. I went on with my life with my employment and working on my Blazer in my spare time with this wire in my hand without any knowledge of it and without pain or infection. It wasn’t until about 3-4 weeks later had another freakish accident where I slipped and fell and hit the same hand on the concrete floor pretty hard. Within about an hour, I noticed my hand starting to swell up so I thought that perhaps that I had broken a bone in my hand from hitting it on the floor. Not worrying too much about since I’ve had numerous broken bones in my life I went on for several hours until I started to see more swelling and redness and red streaks from my hand into my arm. At that point, I decided to go see my Orthopedic surgeon for what I thought was a broken bone in my hand. The X-rays didn’t indicate any broken bones but there was some sort of squiggly looking long “artifact” on the X-ray that was thought to have been a contaminant on the X-ray plate or film itself so another X-ray was taken but the artifact showed up again in the same location and determined to actually be in my hand. As I looked closer at the artifact, it came to me that it looked familiar and I realized that it was a wire from the wire wheel and my Orthopedic surgeon recommended me to a hand surgeon specialist. So, by the time of my appointment with the hand surgeon later of that same day, the red streaks (infection) by then had travelled almost to my elbow (heading to my heart). My hand surgeon said that I needed immediate surgery and called in an infection control team to assist. After telling my hand surgeon that I thought I knew what was in my hand and told him that the wire had to have been in my hand for weeks since the last time I used the tool and about my fall today he provided the likely explanation that when I fell and hit my hand, the impact pushed the wire into a knuckle joint at the base of my ring finger and palm which set off an immediate infection response. The surgery to remove the wire was successful but I had to be on strong meds for weeks to prevent further infection. So, the moral of the story is, don’t be stupid like me, use tools according to their ratings and take all safety precautions. Check out the pics! Thanks and take care!
