Grinder with teeth

[roombacurious]

I've always regarded the grinder as a rather safe machine. Yes there is the risk of projectiles and wheel shattering but under normal circumstances there isn't much to worry about - or is there? Well yesterday I found out there is...

I was using it to smoothen the ends of some metal bars. After the last bar was done I switched it off and as it was spinning down I reached for something else. Though I'm not quite clear how it happened, my left index finger touched the coarse wheel, was pulled down and jammed between the spinning wheel and its casing. Result? Part of the finger ground down almost to the bone...

Thankfully nothing vital was damaged and I'm sure it will eventually heal fine. However I was quite shaken by this. If the grinder was not spinning down but was in full speed I would have ended up in A&E with a finger less... It just shows you no machine is completely safe if you aren't careful.

Grind safely folks!


PS The necessary pics... (not of great quality though, taken with a mobile)

The victim

Like the plasters?

 

[Slim]

Ooo, that looks painful. Thanks for showing us. It never hurts (no pun intended ) to remind us that the tools we use are dangerous. Even the ones we think are quite harmless.

Hope you heal quickly.

 

[NeilO]

I`ll take it the plaster (band aid) is full of Miss Take, Miss Judged, and Miss Ingfinger....

sadly these reminders for us all, always have a victim....still nice to know it could have been worse, and your still with us.

hope you get better soon,,

 

[Smudger]

Had the same thing happen with a girl at school, except it was the circular sander. Unpleasant.

I managed to get my fingernail ground away on a horizontal oil stone machine a while back. Healed OK in the end, but I have maximum sympathy!

 

[cant-weld-wood]

i have had many a runnin with a grinder when i was building race car chassis if that is as deep as it looks then get it looked at.
i had on like that and had to have a couple of stiches to hold it togther to help healing.
and cover it up more than just them plasters if that is near down to the bone the last thing you want is to get a infection.

(i hope that is not you're hand bag in the background)

 

[roombacurious]

:lol: No it's not my handbag! It actually contains the wife's makeup gear! I never understood why she needs all these hundreds of stuff but she doesn't get why I need a shed full of tools either (nag nag nag) so I don't ask...

The wound is deep but the bone is not exposed so I should be ok. There is nothing to be stitched, the skin and fatty bits have all been ground off! As for the plasters, thankfully having young kids means I've got a full arsenal of dressings and antiseptics at home not just band-aids! However bear in mind that with wounds in general it pays to have them loosely covered if the're not bleeding rather than completely sealed as it helps them crust over and heal quicker.

 

[Steve Maskery]

My grandad was a pattern-maker and only 5' and a bit. He was the shortest man in the shop. In those days men wore aprons but no H&S gear and grinding wheels were not the sasme as they are today, they were natural stone.

One day he was grinding a blade and the stone shattered. One piece slit his cap from front to back. They reckoned that if he had been an inch taller it would have killed him, as it would if it had been anyone else in the workshop.

He also had the end of a finger missing, but I can't remember how he did that.

Thanks for sharing and I hope it all healls properly and soon.
S

 

[Gordon T]

Ouch,

I suddenly feel all faint............

GT

 

[Gary M]

That is IMHO one of the worst types of minor injuries to have.
It is not a cut but a friction burn and will be very painful over the next few days (speaking from bitter experience).
If you keep it covered it will take an age to heal, and leave it open you are a cert for infection, not to mention the dry scab cracking and smarting at every opportunity.
A trip to the nurse at your GP wont do you any harm at all.

I wish you well in your recovery.
Cheers,
Gary.

 

[brianhabby]

Ouch...!

I had a similar incident with a sander a few months ago but not quite as deep as yours. I know how painful mine was so you definitely have my sympathy. Hope it doesn't take too long to heal though.

As mentioned above, a trip to see a professional will do no harm and may solve problems down the road.

regards

Brian

 

[dickm]

That pic looks exactly like my finger - but mine was done with a wire brush in an angle grinder while de-rusting my trailer. Still not sure how I managed to be so stupid.
And yes - they do take a long time to heal, a week so far. Tried to keep mine covered and regularly dressed with Savlon, but I think I've read or heard somewhere that Savlon is no longer recommended by medics?

 

[OPJ]

I always thought that sparks were the things to look out for when grinding - but, I'm glad to see it wasn't any worse! :?

Out of interest, I wonder how different the injury may or may not have been on a wet-stone grinder, like the Tormek?

 

[Slim]

Out of interest, I wonder how different the injury may or may not have been on a wet-stone grinder, like the Tormek?

The tormek turns at such a slow speed, I doubt it would make much of a mark.

 

[NeilO]

the tormek still bites, even if its turning at a slower rate and its wet...the thing that usually gets you is trapping your digit between the wheel and the grinding platform/bar.....your initial instinct is to retract your finger but as its caught between wheel and platform/bar and dragged downward its forced against the wheel and Viola! one scraped digit....Ouch!!!!!

 

[Taffy Turner]

I always thought that sparks were the things to look out for when grinding - but, I'm glad to see it wasn't any worse!

Which is why a lot of people think it is a good idea to wear gloves when using a grinder, but imagine how bad this accident would have been if the finger had been encased in a glove, which would have been pulled in PDQ, rsulting in a missing finger most likely.

I'm sorry to harp on, but I once saw a fitter lose a finger in exactly this manner, so please NEVER wear gloves when grinding,no matter how much the sparks burn your hand!

Gary

 

[jonny boy]

I'm not advising anyone else to do this but when I get this type of minor injury or cut at work, I dip the injured finger in a tub of very high flash point thinners. It absoloutely stings like mad for about two seconds but it dry's out the cut and hardens it like nothing else. I've been doing it for years and it definitely speeds up the healing process.

jonathan.

 

[OPJ]

I thought that you should never let thinners come in to contact with your skin as it gets in to your blood stream and finds it's way to destroy your kidney or liver??? :? :shock:

 

[Slim]

Yep, I've heard that too, Olly. It should be thoroughly washed off after contact.

 

[Shultzy]

Thinners should be thoroughly washed off after contact with skin as it can cause dermatitis. As for "getting in to your blood stream and destroying your kidney or liver" that is perhaps untrue. My father was a Silk-Screen printer for all of his working life and that involved cleaning with "Daycleen" thinners, which is pretty potent stuff, and apart from getting dermatitis he had no kidney or liver problems.

 

[roombacurious]

The thinner method sounds a bit dodgy to me though I'm sure it works to a degree. What you're doing is exposing the damaged tissue to a potent chemical that causes a chemical burn on top of whatever you've done to it in the first place. It kills off the superficial layer of that exposed tissue (the dead tissue then forms that hard crust) and seals off any small blood vessels thus containing the bleeding.
There are two problems with this method though: a) You don't really know what you're exposing to the chemical (nerves? tendons?) and if you inflict such a burn on a nerve or tendon you can get complications in the long run (loss of sensation/power, movement restriction), b) You can get dermatitis (i.e. get sensitised to the chemical) with the risk of becoming allergic to it if you do this repeatedly. I also suspect that the scar you get is much worse looking in the end as you're inhibiting the natural regeneration of the tissue by destroying the top layer of the cells that would start it. I wouldn't think that liver or kidney damage is really an issue though as the amounts of the chemical that get absorbed and reach the circulation are probably really small.

When it comes to such accidents my advice would be to go to A&E if it's looking even slightly deeper than usual. They most likely won't do anything fancier than clean the wound and cover it - but what they will be able to do which you can't is a thorough assessment of the damage. Hands in particular have many important structures located rather superficially. They can be damaged very easily even if the wound looks small and this can affect their long-term function.

When it comes to accidents I am quite fortunate to be a medic by training with a year's experience in A&E a few years back (I'm a gynaecologist now). As a result, a couple of minutes after the grinder had chewed my finger I knew I didn't have any broken bones, damaged nerves or tendons, i.e. it was just a flesh wound. I could also see there was nothing there left to be stitched so a visit to A&E was unnecessary in my case.
What I've done was to wrap the finger up firmly initially to stop the bleeding, then clean the wound and cover it relatively loosely - the bandaids of the picture. I was changing dressings three-four times a day for the first 48h and I've since left it exposed to dry. A dry (non-discharging) wound is relatively safe from infection and needs no antiseptics applied. I wouldn't advise using Savlon or much Betadine after the first 48h in general. There is little proof they help prevent infection and they can themselves cause a degree of inflammation and delay healing. I'm now on the lookout for early signs of infection and I have a stockpile of antibiotics just in case.

So the moral of the story: seek advice if you're not quite sure what you've done to yourself, don't overuse antiseptics (or thinners ), keep wounds clean and expose them to the air to dry out as soon as possible.

And obviously... don't ask me to grind anything for you! :lol: