Just Call Me Captain Lucky
- August 11, 2003
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Or Major Bonehead. Either one will work.
Yesterday, I was using our riding mower on one of our drainage ditches. It was twilight, so it was hard to make out objects in the grass. I was almost done with this one ditch when I saw a 20+ foot length of 1/8 inch steel cable jumbled up right in front of the mower. I quickly jerked the wheel over and just missed it. That was lucky.
Unfortunately, the bonehead part came into play then. Instead of disengaging the mower blades, I left them running. While still sitting on the mower, I grabbed up the cable in my left hand and tried to pull it out of the way. I didn’t see a section of the cable underneath the left back tire, so when I backed the mower up it sucked up the cable. In two strong, quick jerks, a 3 foot section of the cable had been wound around the blades, killing the mower almost instantly. I got off the mower and started pushing it off of the cable so I could keep mowing. That’s when I noticed my left hand.
The meaty part of the hand between the thumb and forefinger had a small gouge and was swelling up very fast. The pain was intense. It felt like my hand had been hit with a sledgehammer twice. After only a few seconds, that part of my hand went numb and I couldn’t move my fingers. That’s when I decided to go inside and put ice on it. The ice helped with the swelling, so I went back out and finished the lawn.
Later that night, the swelling went down to where it didn’t look so ugly and I could move my fingers a bit. It kept oozing this clear liquid though. That was nasty.
I figured this morning my hand would be very sore, but it wasn’t! In fact, there’s no bruising or swelling at all. It’s scabbed over already, and I can use my hand like nothing’s wrong. Actually, I can’t open any jars with it yet. I can’t really squeeze anything very tight.
The major lucky part of all this is that I didn’t lose my hand. If the mower wouldn’t have died so fast, the cable could’ve either ripped my hand or fingers off. Or even worse pulled my hand down into the mower blades. It gives me the shivers when I think too long about what could’ve been. I’m just extremely glad the mower died as fast as it did. And extremely lucky.