Lathe whipping accident - video and image

[JeffEck]

A Christmas gift from a shop gremlin... 3 am (I like to go in early and play before I start working for customers) and I am working at my Rockwell 14" Lathe that I have had a love affair with for the last 26 years, we 5started dating when I was 9 and dad would help me get on my stool and get the material in the chuck... Anyways, so I am working with a 44" 3/4" stainless steel solid bar. As I inserted the rod I dropped the chuck key. I had a tape measure on my belt that decided to turn the machine on as I reached for the chuck key. For a split second all was well, I realize what I had done and reach to turn the machine off. At that moment, the rod decided to go for a swing and it hit me on my right forearm. As I descend to a lower level I manage to turn the machine off. I am not sure how long I was on the floor, but when I got up I had to make sure the machine was not damaged, the ways didn't have any dents and the chuck was not harmed from what I could tell with one arm and a SPLITTING headache (I think the rapid stop with the concrete and my skull caused this). I get to the door and meet my partner in crime, Dad had come to work. He helped me get to mom, a nurse, and she then called my doctors office to get me in. I've been to the ER in the past and I won't pay another $3500 for a xray and 4-6hr wait while begging people to kill me. Long short, I have health issues and my medical record looks to be as thick as the tax code book...

9 am, the Xrays show I have what they call night stick injury. I am appalled there is such a name and that so many black people have been beaten by cops that the injury has its own name. Doc says I need a bone surgeon to fix the arm. That doc says come in at 2 pm to see what they can do. Irritated at this point I agree to wait and head home. A few minutes into the torture of riding in a car with a broken arm, I get a call. They received the x-ray and I am to have surgery the next day at 2 pm and come in at 8 am for a quick health check, no food after midnight...

The surgery went well and I awoke in agony. I am quickly sent on my way before the meds for the surgery wear off. It's Christmas with the in-laws... With everything else that is wrong with me, I am already on meds to help with the pain, but I am not allowed any extra to help with the extreme pain I am in. I bearly remember Christmas with them and I am OK with that...................... 6 weeks in a cast and I start having pain in the wrist of the broken arm. Before the cast is removed, I get Xrays and an MRI (CT?, which ever shows broken bones) that shows I have a small bone in my wrist that is shattered, but a very old break... The impact made the nerves in that area mad and their vengance was PAIN, MORE PAIN.... I sorta remember having some pain in the wrist during high school football. I was a lineman and at 160lbs the biggest on the line (we were a small school). I remember thinking I couldn't let the pain stop me as there was no one who could fill my spot on the field. The bone doc thought I should have it fused like the double fusion in my back. I was not interested in another surgery so I got a second opinion. I was told that a rookie surgeon would fuse me and I would soon after have to have the entire wrist fused. I chose to live with the pain. My family doctor who mainly takes care of my broken body thought it would stop hurting after the nerves had some time to relax. He was right, I have already lived 19 years or so with it broken and seldom did it bother me enough to talk to him about it.

LONG story I know, but it does have a meaning, NEVER let the machine come to life without having the material secured and chuck tight.....