Gazette reporter learns snowblower safety lesson

It was going to be such a lovely Valentine’s Day.

I had secretly gotten the day off on Feb. 14, 2014. I was going to take my wife out for breakfast.

But first, I had to get rid of the thick, wet snow that had fallen overnight.

I didn’t expect to spend the rest of the day at Ellis Hospital.

I pulled out the snowblower as I’d done many times before, roaring down the driveway as snow flew.

Then I got to the driveway apron, and the spray of snow fizzled to a stop.

Something had jammed my machine.

I turned the key, stepped around the snowblower and looked. A piece of ice was stuck in the chute, blocking the snow. Without a thought, I flicked it out with two fingers.

And the tsunami of snow behind it grabbed those fingers, twisted them and broke them in nine places.

The pain was intense. All I could think, in that moment, was that I’d somehow cut my fingers off.

That’s what some people do in snowblowers, after all. I’ve written about it. I, of all people, would surely not be so stupid as to actually put my fingers into a snowblower.

How could I be so stupid?!

Paramedics raced to my house and eased off my mitten. I wouldn’t look. Gazette photographer Peter Barber, who lives around the corner, looked for me and gave me a thumbs-up.

“They’re still attached!” he said.

I had no idea that “still attached” could mean “might need to amputate.”

At Ellis, I met three other people who’d fought their snowblowers and lost. Two had put their hands into the blades below the chute, trying to clear out the wet snow.

All three of us wished we’d gotten a stick or something to use instead of our fingers.

And then the fourth guy came in. He’d hit his clog with the plastic tool that came with his snowblower. And the machine, still on, had grabbed that stick and pulled his hand into the blades.

At that point we decided that if our snowblowers ever got clogged again, we would drag them back to the garage and wait for the snow to melt.

One by one, the others were wheeled away. But the ER doctor took photos of my hand with his iPhone and texted them to plastic surgeon Dr. Jerome Chao, who takes a couple snowblower cases each winter. He only takes the worst ones.

It wasn’t hard to talk him into taking mine.

Two fingers, twisted beyond recognition, and broken into fragments. Blood supply questionable. Nerves probably destroyed. The joints would need to be rebuilt.

He was in.

It took longer for me to comprehend that I needed emergency surgery. The fingers weren’t cut off — they were just broken! I’d had broken bones before! Slap them in a cast. What’s the big deal?

The doctors explained that, short of surgery, they weren’t sure they could save my fingers.

Making matters worse, I was desperate to avoid anesthesia.

I had just learned, in the ER, that I was finally pregnant. But the fetus was less than four weeks old, and a common side effect of anesthesia is miscarriage.

Was I going to have to decide between having this baby and keeping my fingers?

I begged the anesthesiologist to do a nerve block instead. He explained that fingers are so sensitive that only full anesthesia will work. He promised to avoid one type of anesthesia that’s been found to cause birth defects. But the miscarriage risk? I’d have to take my chances.

He didn’t give me much time to argue.

“You’ll have to trust me,” he said.

I awoke to find two metal pins sticking out of the tip of each finger. I couldn’t see the fingers themselves, since they were covered in bandages, but my fingertips were black.

That didn’t seem like a good development.

My wife was instructed to squeeze my fingernails every few hours and watch for the very slight change in blackness. If she did not see any change, that meant blood wasn’t flowing and we should head back to the ER.

But she had to do this without touching the pins, which were holding my finger bones together.

And did I mention I wasn’t taking pain meds because they’re bad for developing babies? It wasn’t a good time.

Five weeks later, the surgeon pronounced my bones “mostly healed” and pulled out the pins. He surveyed my fingers, now pink and straight, and smiled.

The joints worked. The tendons worked. There was just one minor problem: I couldn’t bend the fingers.

The scar tissue was so thick that even after months of physical therapy, I couldn’t bend them.

But the surgeon’s assistant shrugged.

“You’re really lucky to have them at all,” she said. “I still have the pictures on my phone.”

I’ve learned how to use the fingers as pinchers, like a crab. And eight and a half months after the accident, I gave birth to a completely healthy girl.

Soon, I will have another surgery, to remove the scar tissue. My surgeon thinks I will be able to bend my fingers then.

But I’ve already learned my lesson.

Pay a kid $20 to shovel. It’s a lot cheaper than going to the emergency room.

Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or [email protected]

Categories: News, Schenectady County