Scott, how do you keep quiet about something like that? Are you tired of telling the story to everyone who asks yet? If not, please share. That closed up nicely. Too bad you can only count to 9 now though.
Musta missed this, but what the heck happened? (if you don't mind me asking)
We were at our cabin in Northern Wisconsin over the 4th of July weekend. We had gone up for a long weekend with another couple on the bikes. (It is about a 300 mile one way trip.)
On the 4th, we went out on the lake on the pontoon boat to float around awhile prior to the fireworks. (The lake is about 10,000 acres - average of about 20 ft. deep.) So we are diving off the boat, swimming and such - like I said, waiting around for the fireworks. We had brought the cabin neighbors along - they are elderly and enjoy the occaisional pontoon ride.
So, I am in the process of jumping into the lake - and the nice elderly neighbor starts to get up out of her seat - and stumbles. She reaches for the handrail, but instead grabs the gate to the handrail. The gate closes just enough to grab my pinkie finger just as I jump. I felt a little tug, but had no idea what had happened. My finger first broke, right at the knuckle, then pulled off. It was still stuck in the gate hinge when I came out of the water. I still did not realize what had happened until I saw my friend Ken pull the finger from the hinge.
I looked down at my hand, and sure enough, I was missing a digit. Ken got my finger on ice immediately and I climbed up the ladder and out of the water and got my hand on ice. As hard as it is to believe, it really didn't hurt very much. It took about 15 minutes to get off the water and another 15 minutes to get to a hospital. It turns out that if you cut a finger off, it can be reattached, but if you pull a finger off, it does to much damage to the nerves and arteries and cannot be reattached. Everyone involved stayed calm and cool and did just what you would hope they would do. Of course, the neighbor feels terrible, but it was truely an unfortunate accident.
The next morning, we were all out back sitting on the deck behind the cabin overlooking the lake - when I heard my bike start up. Turns out the neighbor had called Ken's brother Kris and told him what happened. Kris got in his car, drove 300 miles to the cabin, came into the cabin (he had a spare set of cabin keys and a spare set of keys to our house) while we were on the deck, got my bike keys and was heading home. When we came around the corner of the cabin, he flipped me his car keys, dropped my bike into gear and took off for the 300 mile ride home. When we went home a couple days later (in Kris's car), my bike was all cleaned up at home in my garage. I have great friends.
Everything is healing nicely - surpisingly quickly (to me anyway). It is interesting how quickly I am adapting to not having it. I think I have heard most all of the finger jokes in existence. Twolane is doing his part to try and be sure no potential joke opportunities slide by.... And I have some really neat pictures of my hand and my departed finger (I kept it a couple of days) taken the day after the accident. Twolane keeps trying to post them, but the d00d patrol is on him... Actually, they are a bit to gruesome for some folks to be posted. I don't want to cost anyone a meal...
So that's my story. Chit can happen fast. But life keeps rolling along. I was back in the bike in one week. I don't miss my finger at all while riding. The only real problem is my nub is really temperature sensitive. Cool evening air is unbearably cold, so I have to wear gloves if it is anything other then hot outside. The doctor tells me that will subside over time, but it could be a year or so.
End of story....
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