Being a proud alumni of the sawmill, and one who left with all my fingers, this is fertile ground for much discussion. The entire facility was an OSHA nightmare waiting to implode. So numerous were the opportunities for partial dismemberment, that one hardly knows where to begin.
My only claim to fame was losing a fingertip that I absent-mindedly sent into the 36” blade of the cant-saw while slicing off the mountains of boards that made up the pallet decks. Boy, did those flies love the fresh juice of cottonwood, that would ooze out with each slice. You could literally pick up one board and smash it down on the pile of boards you were cutting and stacking and kill 50 flies at a time. Very efficient.
The most serious injury I witnessed was down in the lower mill that sliced the trees into long cants, which would then be cut-to-length by a jury-rigged cut-off saw that would retract the saw assembly with a weight on a chain (really sophisticated). One of my closest brothers was working the cut-off saw when the retracting mechanism jammed, but not before he was pushing the cant forward for the next cut. The blade assembly came back across and almost severed his hand from his arm. It was not pretty. I happened to be standing nearby, when he yelled to me. Once I saw what had happened, I ripped my shirt off and wrapped it around his mangled arm. (I have no EMT training and do not like the sight of blood.) Simon quickly assessed the situation and immediately whisked him away to the hospital in Iowa City.
The injury cut through both bones in his arm and severed all the tendons leading to his fingers. At the time, the doctors gave him a 60% chance of recovery for the use of his fingers in a years time, but he regained almost full use in about six months. We were actually back on the basketball court together before the year was out.
It must have been a miracle . . .
My only claim to fame was losing a fingertip that I absent-mindedly sent into the 36” blade of the cant-saw while slicing off the mountains of boards that made up the pallet decks. Boy, did those flies love the fresh juice of cottonwood, that would ooze out with each slice. You could literally pick up one board and smash it down on the pile of boards you were cutting and stacking and kill 50 flies at a time. Very efficient.
The most serious injury I witnessed was down in the lower mill that sliced the trees into long cants, which would then be cut-to-length by a jury-rigged cut-off saw that would retract the saw assembly with a weight on a chain (really sophisticated). One of my closest brothers was working the cut-off saw when the retracting mechanism jammed, but not before he was pushing the cant forward for the next cut. The blade assembly came back across and almost severed his hand from his arm. It was not pretty. I happened to be standing nearby, when he yelled to me. Once I saw what had happened, I ripped my shirt off and wrapped it around his mangled arm. (I have no EMT training and do not like the sight of blood.) Simon quickly assessed the situation and immediately whisked him away to the hospital in Iowa City.
The injury cut through both bones in his arm and severed all the tendons leading to his fingers. At the time, the doctors gave him a 60% chance of recovery for the use of his fingers in a years time, but he regained almost full use in about six months. We were actually back on the basketball court together before the year was out.
It must have been a miracle . . .
