Why not to wear rings climbing.
Another amputation story....I knew this guy in high school who cut off his finger working in a fabrication shop. He was cutting steel pipe and the saw snagged and backkicked and ripped his finger off. They took him and his finger to the hospital and were able to reattach it with some liberal skin grafts with skin from his ass. When he showed it to me it was pretty healed and passable except that he had hair growing off the pad part. Must of had a hairy ass. Had to go for electrolosis later.
"real life bleeding fingers..."
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Guest
I work with a gal who lost a finger to a horse. They were unable to retrieve the finger (the horse ate it!), so she got a prostetic for business situations. When I get bored in training classes I like to watch her play with her prostetic, taking it off, putting it on... LOL.
I used to work in a restaurant when I was in high school with a girl who lost her whole arm to a lawn mower accident. All she had was a stub and it used to stick out of her uniform sleeve. She'd serve customers by holding stuff with her stub - it freaked them out. When we got busy and our managers would pressure us she'd yell (in front of customers) "give me a break, I'm a cripple!!" It was funny as hell.
I used to work in a restaurant when I was in high school with a girl who lost her whole arm to a lawn mower accident. All she had was a stub and it used to stick out of her uniform sleeve. She'd serve customers by holding stuff with her stub - it freaked them out. When we got busy and our managers would pressure us she'd yell (in front of customers) "give me a break, I'm a cripple!!" It was funny as hell.
Can't say if the photo is fake or not, but what it's meant to illustrate is dead on accurate. I think it is called a de-gloving, although it doesn't always look just like that. Photos I've seen in the past show a bare bones finger, with all the flesh turned inside out, but still attached at the tip. This type of injury was covered in some detail in the climbing magazines some 15 or 20 years ago. Back then they were saying the the end result was almost always loss of the finger. There must be hundreds of ways for this injury to occur, but one of the most common involves people reaching out to touch a moving vehicle, or jumping out of the back of a slow-moving pickup, etc. The bottom line is lose the jewelry before undertaking almost any serious work or play.
And I guess it's kind of obvious that you should always carry long slings over one shoulder, and never just around the neck, 'ey?
And I guess it's kind of obvious that you should always carry long slings over one shoulder, and never just around the neck, 'ey?
This is the story of the incident that Kato was referring to (I was the belayer)- my friend was making the third clip on AWOL and fell, the rope was in his hand as he was making the clip and while he was falling it made a loop around his index and middle finger. When the rope came tight it pulled the skin off of his index finger and part of his middle finger. The people at the hospital in Louisville were unable to attach the veins in his index finger and they were therefore forced to remove it. They were able to reattach the veins in his middle finger and he continues to climb today. This happened during my second trip to the Gorge and it was quite an affair just calling the ambulance, meeting the helicopter at Stanton, and then driving to Louisville. It was a good lesson that is forever in my mind that while you are falling don't hold on to the rope! All kinds of things can happen in a split second.
A big thank you to Kato and everyone else who was there helping us and retrieving all of our gear from the route!!
This all happened about 5 years ago.
A big thank you to Kato and everyone else who was there helping us and retrieving all of our gear from the route!!
This all happened about 5 years ago.
"But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?" – Lord Byron
Eric;
Glad to hear you guys are still climbing. I've told that story about a zillion times. That weekend, I was with my cousin and his wife. She was petrified of rock climbing, but we wanted to get her into it so she would either come with us or at least not freak out when my cousin went alot. Anyway, it took us weeks to talk her into going, and I was telling her it's actually really safe, nobody ever gets hurt, really, and so on. So that was her very first impression of what outside climbing is like.
M.
Glad to hear you guys are still climbing. I've told that story about a zillion times. That weekend, I was with my cousin and his wife. She was petrified of rock climbing, but we wanted to get her into it so she would either come with us or at least not freak out when my cousin went alot. Anyway, it took us weeks to talk her into going, and I was telling her it's actually really safe, nobody ever gets hurt, really, and so on. So that was her very first impression of what outside climbing is like.
M.
No way! You know, I was thinking Roadside, easy crag, easy approach, it'll be real low key and casual. I think she went into shock, too, when she saw that guy fall. When things got straightened out, we kind of pushed her on down the path towards Kampsite, just to get her away from the blood and so on. Well, we got close to K and met a lady coming back who had climbed partway up K and then traversed way out and fell, and swung in and gashed her scalp open. You know how scalp wounds bleed. She was holding a soaking red shirt against her head and stumbling along, and gave us this wierd grin saying, "I'm OK, I'm OK...". My cousin's wife will NEVER go climbing.
