Post #225784 by Bay Park Buzzy on Sat, Apr 8, 2006 10:13 PM

GMAN was real close to what happened with my accident. Specifically what happened was that I was holding the saw at waist level spotting a cut I was about to make. I use a 4hp 16 inch electric McCulloch saw. When I hit the trigger button, I felt something hit me in the face. It was a shock and I couldn't figure out what hit me. I thought that something came flying in and hit me. My head hurt and I took a quick inventory of what happened. I remember asking myself what I could have been hit by. I yelled a bad word when I realized the only thing that could have hit me was the saw. I looked to the ground and saw a huge pool of fresh blood. What happened was that a rope from my tarp blew into the saw sprocket. It ran up the rope as I took my finger off the trigger. After disengaging the trigger, the saw still spins for a few rotations while shutting down. The saw continued up the rope and was now between shoulder and head high. When the blade hit the tarp, it cut the tarp right down the center. When the tarp was cut, it lost tension and caused the whole tarp to drop about ten inches towards me. Unfortunately, my face was only about six inches away at this time. The blade struck me in the forehead at my hairline and made four parallel cuts all the way down through my eyebrow. It then continued further down, taking three sizable pieces out of my nose. Additionally, I had a small gouge on my cheek. I was able to drive myself to the emergency clinic for first aid. I got right in, bleeders have priority, and received my stitches. I was back home in less than an hour. I don't know how they count stitches, but I had about 22 visible threads with around 46 separate stitches. So, I got somewhere between 22 and 46 stitches total. They stayed in for about 10 days. I did not take any pictures at the time because I was mad and depressed and thought that I did not need any other souvenirs than my new set of scars. In hindsight, I should taken a couple, not for myself, but for others as a warning about safety and how quickly things can change. I was wearing safety goggles at the time and they probably saved my eye. I found them when I got home later and there was a big gash in them and the corner was cut off. Like the doctor and everyone else said, it could have been a lot worse. thankfully it wasn't worse, it could have easily been. I have since added a hard hat to my safety supplies and fixed my tarp.