How My Dad Lost His Fingers - A True Story

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

I just ran across this rendition of the story of how my Dad lost his fingers.

I thought some might enjoy reading it and that perhaps it might reinforce the fact that we all need to be careful when working with machinery.

Herb

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"*DanG!" (Note, he actually said the other D word but the Forum software fixed it...)



The word sprang from my father's lips and seemed to hang in the air above the whine made by the joiner as it bit into the three-inch wide slab of oak that slid along the tool's table.



It was the first time I heard my father curse.  Even as a six-year-old boy I understood that some words, which might be quite appropriately used in some circumstances, were "bad" words when used in other ways.  Why, just the Sunday before, I had heard my father's voice booming out from the pulpit of the small Southern Baptist church, declaring how those who had not accepted Our Lord Jesus were surely "Damned and headed straight to Hell..."



Yet in the six years preceding that October morning I had never heard him use a word that I considered to be a curse word as he used it. The shock of that expletive splitting the air pulled me back to reality as the image of what had just happened cycled repeatedly in my mind, circling like a vulture, looking for a place to land where it could dig into my soul with it's sharp talons and tear at my spirit with it's jagged beak...



It was the fall of 1955 and we lived in a small town in south central Alabama.  My father was the principal of the county's sole elementary school and also ministered to the congregation of a small country church.  We lived in a small frame house located in the rural community served by the church.  We were about twenty miles outside the "city" that was the county seat.  The community consisted of the church, one general store with gas pumps and perhaps a dozen houses strung out along a few hundred yards of narrow blacktop highway.



"We" consisted of my father, "Jim" Cumbie, my mother, Myriam, myself, my three-year-old sister Deborah, and our new baby bother, David. Our daily routine started each morning, gathered at the kitchen table for breakfast.  By six o'clock my mother had been up long enough to prepare country biscuits, fry up a batch of sausage and a pan full of scrambled eggs.  After my father said blessing Deb and I would sit at the table in our pajama's, eating our breakfast as our father made his way through a plate piled high and chased it down with a large cup of chicory laden "coffee."  After breakfast we kids would get dressed (Debbie was quite proud that she could now "do it herself") and we'd all pile into the car to make the trip to the school where my father was principal and I w as a student in the first grade.



This morning had been different.  The previous day my father was referred a discipline case involving a sixth grade student. After reviewing the facts of the case with the teacher and the student he determined that the appropriate punishment would be a spanking. Unfortunately the school did not have a paddle with which to administer the punishment. So my father had postponed the punishment until the next day, intending to make a suitable paddle using his own woodworking equipment at home.  Something had come up that afternoon and he had not had the time to make the paddle. So this morning we got up a few minutes earlier that normal so he would have time to make the paddle before we left for school.



I got dressed quickly and hurried outside to watch my father working on the carport where he had set up his woodworking equipment.  First he rummaged through the pile of wood he had on hand and after examining several candidates selected a piece of red oak that was approximately three feet long.  In just a few moments he had used the table saw to rip the oak plank down to three inches wide and cut it down to thirty inches long. The wood was three-quarters of an inch thick and he explained that he would use the joiner to taper it down so the end to be applied to the culprit's back end would be one-quarter of an inch thick.



The joiner is a tool used to smooth the surface of a piece of wood by shaving off a small amount of the surface.  It consists of a flat top with an opening that houses a cylinder that contains three very sharp cutting blades set into the surface of the cylinder.  The cylinder spins at a high rate of speed, typically at 3,600 RPM.  The work piece is pushed over the bed, passing over the cylinder, which removes the surface, by shaving off the wood, typically removing 1/32 of an inch on each pass.  My father intended to taper the wood for the paddle by removing material from just the last few inches initially, gradually increasing the point where the cut began.



My father flipped the power switch and the joiner's motor started up, quickly settling into a powerful hum that indicated the motor and cutting cylinder had reached operating speed. I watched as he used his left hand to swing the blade guard to the side so he could set the wood onto the table near the end of the board.  Normally the blade guard would simply swing open as the end of the board pushed into the guard but since he was starting further along the board he had to open it with his hand.  After making several passes through the joiner the first side was fully tapered, ¾ of an inch at one end and ½ inch at the other.  My father flipped the piece over and prepared to repeat the process on the second side.



That's when my father made the mistake of removing the blade guard.  The purpose of the blade guard is to ensure that only the work piece comes in contact with the cutting cylinder.  My father was annoyed at the inconvenience of manually opening the guard for each pass and decided it would be faster if he removed the guard.



The first pass on the second side went smoothly.  The cutting cylinder bit into the red oak and a flurry of golden red shavings joined the pile collecting under the machine. He began the second pass and as the oak entered the cutter his left hand slipped slightly on the smooth surface of the plank and the tips of two fingers of his hand, the "pinky" and ring finger plunged into the surface of the cutter. There was a brief "burping" sound and thin flakes of pink and white, the flesh and bone of his fingers, covered the surface of the pile of shavings...



"*DanG!"



That's when I heard my father curse as he gazed at the ruined fingers. In that moment the uncaring machine had removed everything up to a point halfway between the first and second joint of each finger. His right hand flew to his shirt pocket, pulled out his handkerchief and clamped it down over the cut fingers.



"Myriam!"



My mother's name echoed above the hum of the idling joiner. There was no response.



"MYRIAM!!!" my father bellowed.



My mother came to the screen door.  Debbie clung to her side and David was cradled in her left arm as she opened the door.



"What?"



"Get the car keys and drive me to the hospital."



"Jim, what did you do?"



"I hurt my hand. Now get the keys and let's go!"



"Show me!" my mother said, staring at my father's right hand that was tightly squeezing the handkerchief that covered the injured fingers.



"No. Get the keys."



"Jim Cumbie, I'm not going to do anything until you show me your hand" said my mother, displaying a stubbornness that would do a nanny goat proud.



"No. Get the keys."



"Show me!"



Reluctantly my father opened his right hand, pulling back the handkerchief. My mother looked at the stubs of his fingers, cradled in the white handkerchief that was rapidly turning crimson as blood surged from the wounds. My mother turned white as the sheets that flapped in the breeze on the clothesline behind our house on washdays.  A tremor passed over her face and then her entire body began to shake uncontrollably as the shock of that vision hit her.



My father quickly covered the damaged fingers again with the handkerchief. One glance at my mother and he realized that she would not be able to drive the car.



"Herby, run and tell Mr. Lawson that I'm hurt and ask him can he drive us to the hospital."

Mr. Lawson was our next-door neighbor.  Looking back I'm sure he must have been in his late fifties at the time, but to me he simply seemed ancient in those days.  He had a 1939 Chevrolet sedan that he had bought new near the end of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's second term. Mr. Lawson lived alone in the small house and it was unclear to me if he had ever been married and if so how he came to be without his wife at this point in his life.  At any rate, he had always been friendly to us in a quiet way.  He didn't seem to really have a job, but was always somewhere about his place, puttering away at one odd task or another.



I ran the short distance to Mr. Lawson's house and screeched to a halt at his front door.  Pounding on the door with both fists I hollered his name over and over.  Shortly he came to the door, wiping the lenses of his bifocal glasses with a handkerchief and slipping the glasses upon his cragged nose. Once he understood the essence of my frantic message he stepped back inside and grabbed the key to his car from the hook on the wall just inside the doorway.  With an economy of motion he strode to the old Chevrolet and plunked himself in the well-worn fabric of the driver's side of the front bench seat.  I scooted through the front passenger door and sat trembling in the seat as the starter groaned for a moment and then the old en gine coughed to life and the car shook like a wet dog drying itself as Mr. Lawson gunned the engine and pulled out of his driveway and into ours.



I opened the door and jumped out, pulling the seatback forward to allow Debbie and my mother, clutching David to scramble into the back seat of the car. The seatback thunked back into place and I climbed up over the running board and moved to the center as my father seated himself.  The door slammed shut and Mr. Lawson backed out onto the narrow blacktop, heading east toward the county seat which had the only hospital in the area.



I stared intently through the front windshield that was split into two pieces by a thin, rusting piece of chrome in the middle.  The long hood of the old sedan stretched before us seeming to go on forever before it ended in the grillwork.  The lines painted on the center of the road seemed to creep toward us as the car moved along.  Apparently the car salesman who sold Mr. Lawson the sedan had told him that it was best to never drive the car faster than thirty-five miles per hour and he had taken that advice as Gospel.  The old car had never been driven faster and he certainly wasn't about to break that rule just because Jim Cumbie had cut off two of his fingers!



I've heard that when the human body sustains a major injury that a protective mechanisms initially blocks the ability to feel pain.  As the old sedan rolled down the narrow blacktop the minutes and miles crept by slowly, like the blackstrap molasses that we poured over our biscuits on cold winter mornings.  During the thirty-five minutes it took to reach the hospital the pain must have begun to pierce this barrier but I never heard my father utter a sound.  I stared at him, seeing the sweat bead up on his forehead and trickle down the plane of his cheek, dripping off the tip of his chin to soak the front of his white shirt.  I stared without comprehension at the ball he had formed with his right hand, clutching the now crimson handkerchief about the fingers of his left hand and watched as the blood dripped, drop-by-drop, onto his thigh, discoloring his light gray trousers.

Once we arrived at the hospital and my father presented himself to the Emergency desk things were handled very quickly and professionally.  We stayed in the waiting room as the doctor examined my father.  He cleaned up the wounded fingers and closed the ends by stitching the remaining flesh tightly over the ends of the two fingers.  Bandages of gauze wrapped them snugly.  The doctor gave my father a shot to help with the pain and sent him home with a bottle of antibiotics to ward off infection.



As the days after the accident stretched into weeks my father had problems with the wounded fingers.  They did not heal well and the flesh kept pulling back away from the end of each finger, leaving the bone exposed.  After several weeks he went back to the doctor and they decided to resolve the problem by removing the remaining bone from the second joint of each of the fingers, leaving just one joint on each finger and using the flesh to form a pad over the end of each finger.  This worked well and healed quickly. 



Once the fingers were healed my father was able to fully resume his normal activities.  People who were not aware of the accident rarely noticed that he had injured the hand unless they were directly confronted by the two shortened fingers.  My father would joke in later years that the only "handicap" due to his injury was that he would never be able to properly play the piano or touch type.  He would say that with a straight face and then grin and say "But of course, I never could do either before the accident!"



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[Jeff]

Lordy.

First of all, that was well written and engaging.

We had a kid lose a finger in the jointer in our woodshop class in high school. They never found a trace of it, not even any blood.

[red oaks lumber]

in shop class i was on the radial arm saw, the jointer was about 20 ft. to my back. this loud whack sound, i turned my head to the left and sticking in the wall not to far from me was an 18" steel rule that the kid running the jointer has laying on the bed. to this day i hate jointers! i won't use one .

[Randy88]

I've known quite a few people with missing fingers over the years from many accidents of sorts, but that story is the very best written one I've ever heard, a cold shiver runs up the back of your neck as you read it, knowing what's coming, yet hoping its not going to be as bad as you think.   

My grandpa once told me, any piece of equipment can be dangerous if not properly used, I've never forgotten that statement.   He also had a two handled grip made with a hook on one end to grip the wood so it couldn't be shot out from your grip when running the jointer, I'll admit, that machine scared the begeezus out of me every time I had to use it, until he explained to me how to safely operate it, how it worked and how to avoid getting hurt on it.     Not that it solved all my fears, but it did help, even today I think its the most dangerous machine in any wood shop.

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

@Jeff and @Randy88 ,

Thanks for the compliments on the  writing.

As I said, this is a true story. I still remember every moment of that morning. 

The irony is that I thought I was smarter than that, until I mangled my fingers on a tablesaw a few years ago.

@red oaks lumber,

I nearly got nailed by a 1/4 x 1/4 strip of birch plywood which was thrown by a tablesaw while cutting rebates on cabinet door slabs. The thing caught the blade and the kickback flung the strip like an arrow, just missing me (I was standing there passing doors to Dad who was doing the cutting...) and stuck through both layers of 1/2" sheetrock on the partition wall about ten foot behind us.

Herb


Y

[coxy]

 nice story    but I take it the kid never got his spanking  :D :D

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

nice story    but I take it the kid never got his spanking  :D :D

No, he got a reprieve on that one...

Herb

[DeerMeadowFarm]

Excellent writing! I felt my stomach churning just reading it. I too wondered if the student had ever gotten his spanking. It sounds like it would have been pretty painful based on the intended design of the paddle your father was attempting to make!

[square1]

Haste is the one I most have to guard against.  I find myself being in a hurry to often and make stupid mistakes.  I've been lucky, and as I age am more aware of, and able to avoid impending danger, but it requires a conscious effort.

[timberfaller390]

My grandpa lost a finger exactly the same way

[ely]

we had woodshop in the 9th grade, we had weeks of safety tests before we could even enter the shop. finally we made it to the shop... first demo we had was the table saw, we lined up on the out put side and the teacher had put on an old dado blade that was no good. he turned it on and tossed a 4x4 wood block onto the blade... that thing went thru the sheetrock on the project room.
it left a lasting impression on me.
out for years I only seen one injury at high school, a kid cut his thumb on the bandsaw...he did require a few stiches,,,he stated the trip to the hospital in the teachers truck was more scary than the accident.

[Glenn1]

I can so relate to this story.  In April of 2013, I was jointing wood that was 10 inches wide but my jointer was only 8 inches.  I had read an article about taking off the guard and being able to flatten the board using both the jointer and the planer.  This process went fine and I decided to start jointing one end.  I did not consider that six inches of the blade was exposed.  My left hand slipped off the board and the blades grabbed my pinkey and ring finger on my left hand.  I was able to shut off the jointer, run to the front door to unlock it and wait for the paramedics to arrive.  They called my fiance (now my wife) who was in Virginia at the time and she met me at Duke Hospital.  She almost hit the floor when she saw what I had done, but got herself under control.  For the next three weeks, she patiently re-dressed the fingers every evening.  It was the worst pain that I have felt in my 50+ years and I learned a valuable lesson on safety.  My fiance (wife) was amazing and I am so thankful that she is my wife. 

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

@DeerMeadowFarm  Yes, I can say from experience that no one ever forgot one of my Dad's spankings.

@square1 Thanks for the comment. You're absolutely right that haste is frequently the cause of "accidents" in our lives.

@timberfaller390 I'm sure that he handled it like a man and didn't let it slow him down too much.

@ely I've seen similar results when ripping thin strips from the edge of plywood to form the lip on a door. Put that strip of plywood right through both layers of sheetrock on the wall.

@Glenn1 Sorry to hear about your accident. Sounds like your fiancé/wife handled it well. Women tend to be a bit tougher that we realize most of the time.  My mom would have probably been a bit better with it but she also had her hands full with my baby brother...

Ya'll be careful now...

Herb

[Ljohnsaw]

Back in High School (1975), the shop teacher (wood, metal, auto) would let us use the equipment during lunch time - with no supervision!

One guy was trying to make something from wood (a small part).  Started with the monster bandsaw to rip a skinny piece of wood, and broke the blade.  So he went to the radial arm saw.  Naturally, it grabbed the wood, shot it against the block wall and and shattered into toothpicks.  So he grabbed another piece of wood and went to the table saw.  There he managed to cut his thumb real bad and he briefly fainted, hitting the floor.

Just then, the teacher came in and got him up off the ground.  He saw the bad cut and asked him what he did and if he was ok.  First thing he did was to curse at the kid for being so stupid, then he smacked him upside the head (open palm)!  Then he took him to the nurse.