Little Boat on a Big Lake: Mangled fingers

Last week on Sunday I got the fingers on both hands stuck in between the panels of a garage door. Both hands were being squished by the weight of a double garage door that was on its way down. My fingers abruptly stopped the downward descent. After struggling for a minute to get my hands loose, I finally wedged my foot under the garage door and lifted it enough to create some space to release my fingers. I have never felt pain like that in my entire life! When I finally got my fingers out they were already purple and foreign looking because they were smashed as flat as a pancake! They looked so freaky!! I immediately ran into the house and ran cold water over them. Tears were streaming down my face. Someone grabbed me an ice bag, and another grabbed me ibuprofen. This is what they looked like after 2 hours.

They were numb all evening. Over the next couple of days the tips, underneath the nails, kept filling with blood.

Pressure in my ring finger kept growing! Ouch! I thought my nail would pop. My friend who is a nurse said to get a tiny hole drilled thru the nail to relieve the pressure and some of the blood. My insurance wasn't going to cover that! My friend, Roy, said his dad use to slide a knife in between the nail and the tip of the finger to lance it and let the blood drain out. He ran to his art closet to get me a razor knife. I didn't know if I could actually do it. I sterilized the knife and gently ran it under my nail. WHAM! Blood spurted out! It worked! And it was free health care!!!

I soaked it on Epsom salt when I got home. It's looking and feeling a lot better!