Cheating the odds - saw accident report
Angus Barclay, in New Zealand
>A cautionary tale brought to you at the request of Todd Cronkhite after I fessed up to a recent incident that displayed my stupidity.
Do NOT stick your hand anywhere near a saw blade that is still moving. Even if the saw is off. I got away with it this time. But nobody should bet money, digits or other body parts on being as lucky as I was.
I'm mostly a hand tool guy but I use an upturned circular saw in a pressed-metal table when I have a large amount of stock to cut roughly to size.
I've learnt that this thing can bite as bad as any other power tool, especially if the person operating it does something stupid. I keep a splitter and blade cover fitted to the saw whenever possible (98% of the time) and use push sticks, a small sled, and a shortened rip fence that doesn't extend to the back of the blade.
But I was still stupid enough to get bitten. It took about half a second of careless inattention.
I was rough cutting about 30ft of lumber to size for my current project. I finished a cut, hit the stop button on the saw, lifted the board clear then reached around the far side of the blade to flick a couple of very small offcuts away. That was a really stupid thing to do, which became immediately apparent.
This is only a 7 1/4 in saw and the power had just been switched off - but the blade still has fair bit of momentum while it spins down.
The tip of my right thumb lost a tiny bit of skin and my thumbnail won't neet trimming for a while, but I was fortunate to get away with zero blood loss and only minor stinging pain.
If I had moved my hand half an inch further, it could have been a case of saying goodbye to the end of my thumb.
I paid a very small price indeed to reinforce the lesson about NOT sticking hands anywhere near a blade that is still moving.
regards
Angus Barclay
(thankful owner of 8 complete fingers and 2 intact thumbs)
