flyingfireman

Paul reading your story caused me to unconsciously look at the top of my right hand where a curving scar is still quite visible. I acquired the scar courtesy of the nose baggage door of a Piper Seneca in 1991, plus or minus a year.

The cut was bleeding quite profusely so I rushed into our office to get some first aid. The good news is George (name changed to protect the guilty) rushed to help, the bad news was George was a mechanic and figured doctoring like fixing airplanes usually only required a rag and some speed tape. With a clean-ish rag wrapped around my hand and securely fastened with shiny silver speed tape I was good to go.

My passengers looked at me rather dubiously but their desire to get to their destination out weighed their trepidation. Things were not too bad until half way through the flight when the blood started oozing out of the edge of the rag. I used the oil rag from under the seat to keep things under control and got to my destination without embarrassing myself.

The passengers were happy to unload their own bags as they could see they were going to get bloody finger prints on them otherwise, and I set off for home base. By the time I got back the wound had pretty much clotted so it wasn’t too bad however the line crew were not impressed at cleaning all the bloody finger prints off the airplane.

Why didn’t you get it properly bandaged at ER one of them said. Because I would have missed 2 hours of Multi PIC, I replied. OH he said, good call !

gliders

Who knew reporting for a shift of ATC was as hazardous as shop class?

alex.nelon

Injured left hand, picture of right hand. But I won’t say anything. I believe Neil Armstrong suffered the same sort of injury in 1978, catching his ring finger on a piece of farm equipment, but he lost the tip of his ring finger. Resourceful fellow that he was, Armstrong searched for and found his fingertip and drove himself to a hospital. Surgeons at Louisville (KY) Jewish Hospital performed a bit of miracle microsurgery and reattached the lost bit. Armstrong presumably returned to finish the work on his farm and eventually regained almost full use of his finger.

Skypark

Another place not to wear a ring is when you’re doing the “alert hangar toss”. The high-speed tilt-opening doors on the Air Force’s alert hangars were good for a cool looking ride if you grabbed one of the inside crossmembers and rode it out & up, releasing at just the right moment. We’ll leave it at that.

glfarber

A hand surgeon by trade, I highly recommend the silicone rings for anyone working around mechanical equipment. They will break before any major damage occurs.

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chip

When I was a lad fresh out of college, a colleague was taking a shortcut to his car that involved vaulting the parking lot’s 5’ chain-link fencing. He did this every workday, so was quite adept at placing one hand on the crossbar and simply vaulting over. One day, a projecting wire of the fence cloth jammed itself between his wedding band and his finger and literally ripped his finger off, leaving it attached by tendon and skin. The surgeons were able to re-attach it but could not make it functional.

I was never one for wearing jewelry, but was proud of my college ring and fully expected a wedding band to join it eventually. I stopped wearing all jewelry that day, and now in my seventies have had many, many close calls with aircraft, shop tools, and other threats of modern life, with only surface scarring. My wife knew of this when we were dating and was fine with it. To this day, I do not wear anything attached to my body that is not safety-related.

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gahorn146ys

Paying my way thru flight training and college as a mechanic, I was using individual 14”-long feeler-gauges to adjust rocker-arms on a car… While holding the feeler gauge in my left hand I would press the remote-starter switch with my right to rotate the engine to the next valve position to be adjusted. I absent-mindedly laid my left hand (clasping the feelers) down onto the batter….and the long feeler bridged across the open battery terminals…. and immediately became incandescent.
My left palm still shows evidence of that event 52 years later.

maronson

Two thoughts. First: I most certainly remember these visits at KAGC (Allegheny County, Pittsburgh, PA) “Back then it was routine for flight instructors to bring students inside to meet the voices at the other end of the airwaves. These invaluable experiences…” The folks behind the counter provided friendly, insightful information (in my case probably lifesaving) before my flights. Second thought: Had not thought about the ring issue for years. When I had a need to wear a ring I always seemed to get it caught on something, causing bleeding and pain. Thank you for reminding me of those moments! (Not.)

Mike_S

IN A&P school, they showed us all some very “effective” photos of what happens when your ring stops moving with you at the same speed you are travelling…

Gwen_Walcott

Wedding ring incident is why the Air Force told us to remove all rings, including wedding rings, while on duty (plus, we worked around a lot of high voltage equipment that would make gouging a nerf experience)

bobdc6

And they don’t conduct electricity. A friend shorted out a car battery with his wedding ring, damned near burned his finger off!

Dennis_C

Me too, Chip. I’m still in love with my bride after 50 years, but my wedding ring has spent most of that time on top of my cheat of drawers. I’ve always worked on cars, airplanes, and anything else that needed fixing; and so I never got used to wearing rings. I am old school though and still wear a Timex on my left wrist. A little story about those Timex’s. I was flying one night in a Hawker bizjet and my co-captain was trying to set the time (from the FMS) on his expensive Rolex that a Sheik had given him when he was flying in the middle east. He was holding his wrist down near the panel so that the glow of the instruments would illuminate the face of his watch. I told him if he would buy a $40 Timex with Indiglo like mine he could see the face of the watch in the dimly lighted cockpit.