Worst injury to hands - What did you do.

[James A. Showalter]

All fearless men who manage to survive to maturity do so through the guidance of a strong woman.

[Pje53]

I caught the little fingure of my left hand in the spinning drive centre of my woodturning lathe. I had to go to hospital and have it repaired by a plastic surgeon. Luckily I had only partly cut through the tendon and he was able to save it, otherwise I would never have been able play my guitar again.

[James A. Showalter]

My nephew did something like that. Ended up with limited motion of his annular and pincky fingers on the right hand. Like myself with my fused wrist he's adopted a modified form of play. It's amazing how the whole body can re-wire to meet new challenges. I heard the story of Les Paul in his old age. He was involved in a serious auto accident and shattered his right shoulder and arm. The doctor told him that his only recourse was to fuse the bones together which would limit the use of the arm. He told the doctor to proceed but told him the angle he wanted it fused so that he could continue to play guitar. I saw a video of him playing near the end of his life and sure enough the arm was set in that one position. He was flat-picking but it was pretty serious play. There was no doubt he could finger-pick it too.

[Dirck Nagy]

What a morbid topic for such a beautiful autumn day! Worthy of a Hungarian!

I have broken all of my fingers at least once, with the exception of my LH little finger....mostly as a kid, via car doors or stacking wood. (3x RH thumb, 2X RH index finger and LH thumb.)

But the worst was when I broke my RH scaphoid at work. The pieces weren't growing together properly, and I was in a cast for a full year...January to the following January. I was hooked up to one of those clunky Electro-magnetic bone growth stimulators. From what I understand, it was relatively new technology at the time. I couldn't even hold my guitar, much less play it. This accident was the catalyst for my decision to devote myself to classical guitar. Seriously, the guitar was what I had missed the most!

cheers!
dirck

[James A. Showalter]

Well Dirck, at least you recovered from your scaphoid fracture fairly actionable. I can't complain either because I am still able to practice guitar. It's somewhat of a challenge for me and even the moderators on the lesson forum who try to get us into proper form. I fractured my scaphoid in the military in 1976 which was initially misdiagnosed. Then I went 26 years with it broken before I figured out what really happened. By then fusion of the wrist was the only option. So I'm learning a modified form of classical guitar. I'm no Hungarian but I am committed to learning classical guitar even if I have to use my toes to play. Now that's a morbid visual. I have ugly toes.

[BrianTakamine]

Years ago as a farmworker, I was driving rebar with a sledge hammer, to support raspberry canes, holding the 9 pound (?) sledge with my right hand, and don't ya know, I missed the rebar, but my fingers didn't. Cut my index finger, right hand, not bad enough to need stitches though. Working as a carpenter, several times I have hammered my left hand fingers, but those were minor injuries, although one time I passed out from that in freezing cold weather. I can see from your alls stories, I have been lucky, so far.

[CurtVal]

I got a hairline fracture of the tip of my ring finger on my left hand. Tried to catch a foul ball at a Yankees game. I misjudged the ball and it caught the tip of my finger. Swelled up instantly. I practiced and taught on it the next day. That was the worst pain ever. I finally went for X-rays and it was fractured. They bandaged it up and was told I wasn't going to be able to play on it for a couple of weeks. I got home took the bandage and splint thing off and just dealt with the pain. Looking back on it years later, that was so stupid.

[cliffbryant]

A couple of years ago I learned Sor's Op. 29 nr. 13 (number 19 from the Segovia 20). Did some kind of damage to my left hand and I had to quit playing for a month or two. Anyone who's tried this piece knows about the frequent bar chords and left hand strain this piece can cause....

[AndreiKrylov]

worst injury to my hands is just playing guitar a lot for 50 years...just amount of work.. just time... is the worst injury to my hands...

[Stephen Kenyon]

Driving into the back of a queue of stationary traffic at 50mph isn't recommended on any level, but especially if you have two fingers facing away from you around the wheel. The effect of very suddenly stopping from that speed like that is to force the fingers apart unnaturally. Nothing broke (except three cars, a no claims bonus, and quite a lot of self-confidence!) but it took six weeks off to recover. Funny thing is after 24 years I'm not quite sure which hand it was!
So moral of the story, keep your fingers on the far side of the wheel; I was also told its common for thumbs to break in such accidents if the base of the thumb is at or near the wheel, again, keeping the palm on your side of the wheel is the thing.
That and not driving into the back of a queue..

[Richwilly]

I grew a benign tumour in the middle bone of finger 4 which required a bone graft. That certainly smarted a bit.

Having dodgy eyesight and a lifelong passion for playing cricket means I have either broken or dislocated every finger on both hands at some point. On the plus side I always know when it's going to rain.

[kervoas]

I crushed the tip of my left hand index finger a few weeks ago. Bone broken, nail falling off etc. Worst of all is a lack of sensation in the fingertip, except for pain if I try pressing down on a guitar string. Guess I'll have to be patient, but the lack of sensation makes playing very difficult - I can't feel where the finger is on the fretboard.