WoodNet Forums: Little Fingers

Yesterday I thought I would get my 6 year old away from the computer games and make a simple box with him to put his "secret" stuff in. He jumped at the chance to work with Dad in the shop. Before we started, we talked about shop safety, he put on his hearing protection and his eye protection, I showed him how/why I use a push stick on the table saw, I told him about watching where you put your hands, etc. No kidding.

I figured I would show him how to rabbet in the bottom of the box, which has a pretty high coolness factor for his age. After I cut the first rabbet on the table saw, he asked if he could help. I figured this was about the "safest" cut we could do on a table saw, since the blade was only about 1/2" above the table and the board was 3" standing on edge. In other words, a pretty long distance between fingers and a barely showing blade. Unfortunately, because the cut was so close to the fence, I couldn't use my overarm blade guard. After showing him where to put and keep his hand on the top of the board (I was the one really moving the board), we proceeded to do the cut. At the tail end, just as the board cleared the blade, he dropped his hand down - as you would imagine, I saw this happening in slow motion - and his thumb went into the blade. Those of you who have had table saw injuries have a good idea what it did to his thumb. It pretty much shredded most of the top 3/4". Thank God it was above the last joint and didn't affect tendons, etc. In the emergency room, I watched as the surgeon tried to put "thumpty dumpty" back together again. This involved clipping off bits of chipped bone and pulling out the remainder of the nail with a forecepts. Through it all, my little guy was such a toughie. He cried for about 5 minutes after the accident and then when they were putting in the novocaine, but that was it. While they were stitching up his thumb, he said he wants to help me finish the box as soon as he can use his thumb, but he'll let me do the sawing. He was, and is, in a lot better shape than I was. I've been just sick about it ever since it happened.

My wife and I both agree that it was purely an accident and that I wasn't being unsafe or inattentive, but tell that to my heart. We're hoping that there was enough skin to cover the bone and he won't need a skin graft. We're also hoping there won't be any permanent nerve damage, that his nail will grow back, etc., but only time will tell. Still, there's no question it could have been a lot worse, thank God.

In retrospect, the only two things I would have done differently would either be not letting him help on that part of the project because there's just no safe way for a 6 year old to have his hands anywhere near a spinning table saw blade, or I perhaps I should have actually had my hand on top of his. Even with the latter, I'm not 100% sure he wouldn't have dropped his hand out from under mine anyway.

My wife is encouraging me to look into buying a SawStop. Not sure if the budget can handle it, but I sure would have paid twice the price to avoid yesterday's events.

Not sure if this will fall under the category of "a word to the wise" for any of you. Hopefully you're all a lot smarter than I am.

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"The best marriage advice I ever received was: 'You can live with ugly, but bad cooking can kill you.'" Uncle Albert Styndl