Thumb Bummer

Cut off part of my thumb with a chopping maul.

Basically, it was just after my 50th birthday and we needed kndling wood for our fireplace. It was approaching dusk as I was almost finished with an hour of chopping, and got to work on an old snag full of knots. Bad idea.

The 6-lb maul bounced off the splitting wedge and ricochet’d onto my left hand.

Crap, that hurt!

We found my thumb remnant with a flashlight, washed it off at the hospital and now it is in my freezer as a reminder in case I ever run out of beef bullion while making soup.

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Rugby in the Military Nationals

May 2004 I was playing Rugby in the Military Nationals, our Team from Ft Benning had made the finals verses a mixed Forces Team from Northern VA. I made a Tackle and someone stepped on my heel. POP and I knew it right away. I hoped for a ankle but My Achilles got ruptured. Totally torn in half. Got a little pill from the Sports Med Doctor there and went to the hospital… after the game and awards. Had surgery two days later and was running again on it two months later. Missed three days of work. But I can’t run like I used to since the surgery.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Head Gash

my buddy got knocked off a porch last weekend by a dog and here is the result, uture excellent scar

(6 votes, average: 4.83 out of 5)

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Brain Surgery

Okay, this is not my scar. It’s my beautiful wife Jamie’s. Since she is okay with this, but would never post it herself, and since her story is really OUR story, here you go.

In 2004, I noticed Jamie was not hearing me 100% in normal conversation. I asked her to get her hearing checked. After getting the normal runaround from doctors for a couple months, Jamie finally got an MRI. It turned out that she had a vestibular schwannoma – a tumor growing on the balance nerve running through her ear canal. For a couple in their mid-twenties, finding out that one of them has a brain tumor is a fairly catastrophic situation.

We met with specialists from the UW Medical Center, and planned to have Jamie’s tumor surgically removed. If anyone has ever gone through such an invasive surgery, you know that there is some uncomfortable paperwork that is filled out prior to the operation. When I signed the sheet that said I would release the hospital from all liability in the event she died on the operating table, the wind officially left my sails.

Well, as you see by the picture, she didn’t die. She is very much alive and very much the poster child for the UW Medical Center’s skull based surgery center. She recovered surprisingly quickly, having to re-learn how to walk, since they had to sever her balance nerve. But three weeks after surgery, she was wakesurfing with me behind our boat. Amazing.

The real story, though, is what transpired after surgery. I walked around work like a zombie for weeks, only wanting to be home soaking up time with my wife, who I thought I would lose through this process. Her surgery reminded me of how precious life really is, and how fragile. I didn’t want another day to go by without being able to drop whatever I’m doing, and go see my wife.

So I quit my job, started Pillar Development, and moved to Ellensburg. I’m fulfilling my dreams because life is too short and too precious to just let it slip by. And Jamie has gone on to support others who have to face brain surgery at the UW, and has even had a documentary made about her process.

Thanks for the fun and unique site, you guys. It’s good stuff.

Chad Youngquist

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Carpenter + Ladder + Ice

My acquaintance with gnarly scarring began back in the early 1970″s when I tried to cut my nose off with a chain saw while clearing trails in California. Luckily, my forehead got in the way. For about 10 years afterward, that scar would have won contests. After 30 some years that scar has faded to unnoticeable. Six knee surgeries and two shoulder surgeries since then have added more scars but nothing compared to my latest brush with the scar devil. Picture an extension ladder, a 12 foot wall,and an inch of ice under the ladder feet. Now picture an almost 60 year old carpenter clambering to the top, at the very end of the day, in a hurry to get one more beam set, shifting the ladder over to one foot to get out of the way of the forklift. I’m sure you can fill the blanks. Ladder goes down, carpenter’s face meets ladder at the bottom. When Tyson (my son and co-worker) got to me he was greeted with a good view of my skull with a large flap of skin peeled back. After a wild ride to town to the hospital, my friend and local surgeon, Ken Harris, sewed my face back together, describing it as “a spectacular injury” Looking at the immediate aftermath, I am sure you will agree that it was scary to imagine what I would end up looking like. However, Ken did such a good job that most of my friends say I look “almost” normal. Oh yeah, I also tore all the ligaments in my left wrist and so, collected a few more scars to repair that.

(5 votes, average: 4.60 out of 5)

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Crispy Critter

The Story begins on July 3rd, 2004. It was a really hot day and i started it off early, woke up at my Glass Studio that morning and got to work hoping to get some work taken care of before it got really hot outside. Not sure but i think it was supposed to be in the high 90s that day, not really weather condusive to glassblowing. After a few hours of work i got a surprise visit from the mother of one of my apprentices. She had found a nice High chair with a foot rest on it that she thought would be perfect for our studio. We chatted for a little bit and then i got back to work. I hadnt sat down and blown glass in 3 years since i had started. I had been working big pieces in the torch( by the way i was a lampworker not a soft glass blower at that time) and standing while i worked was just a more comfortable Posture. Since i had a huge order i needed to fill, and the mercury was climbing steadily i decided to give this nice new chair a shot, hoping that it would allow me to conserve some energy and therfore get more work done.
After about 45 minutes the chair just wasnt doing it for me because i was working a piece of glass tube about the size of a soda can. So i needed to stand up to get the proper leverage on the piece and continue working comfortably. I stood up, pushed the chair back behind me with my foot and continued working. Since it had been years i had worked with a chair i forgot that the chair was behind me. An hour or so later i took a step back to lift the piece of glass i was working on into the light to get a good view of the colors and in that motion slammed the heel of my foot into the ring foot rest on the chair behind me. OUCH!!
the following thoughts occured in about 2 seconds. My first thought was Holy &^$%, i think i just split my ankle open and blood is probably gushing all over the place, during that thought i began to look down at my ankle to see what had happened, i am also thinking wow, maybe i should put this piece of glass in my hands down and tend to my ankle, and then i am thinking well, it doesnt really feel that bad, at this point i got a look at my ankle, and i think yeah its not bad ill be ok…
That is the point where the nerve reaction from pinching a nerve in my ankle reached my brain and caused me to black out, yeah, i hit my ankle pretty damn hard on that chair.
So, im not sure how much time passed by, but the piece of glass i was working on slid down into my hand when i passed out, and i landed on my back, im not sure why but i must have been touching my stomach or chest while i was blacked out and set my shirt on fire which quickly spread to my Shorts, it so happened i was wearing polyester that day too so i went up in flames.
I wake up and start to come out of a foggy mental state quickly, the music i was listening to was in slow motion and i saw the flames all around me and sort of thought wow im in hell, snapped out of it, realized that the soda can size piece of glass had melted to all the skin on the palm of my hand and gave it a good shake to get it off my hand, that didnt work so i shook again and it finally flew off my hand, which caused all the skin from my fingers to peel off to the top of my hand, it looked like my hand, then a glove halfway off on top of my hand, they actually call it “degloving”.
So now im standing up, ripping off my shirt with my left hand because it was on fire, and then i tear off my swimming trunks which were starting to catch fire also, this is all within about 20-30 seconds i think.
Im a mess, i stomp my shirt out and tap on my stomach which basically sounds like hard dried leather and i think to myself, well, im not going to be able to take care of this on my own. So i grab an extra shirt out of my back pack, throw it on, wrap a towel around my waste, make sure the studio is not on fire and jog to my car so i can drive myself to the hospital. I get to the hospital which was luckily about a half mile away(no way was i waiting for an ambulance) Walk through the doors that say emergency room and approach a women at a desk then begin to askfor help, she was a snotty rude women who kept repeating sir i cant do anything for you, you have to walk down that long hallway, take a right then when you get to the end of that hallway you take a left and then take another right. im statrting to yell at her but quickly realize i may go into shock soo and just start jogging down those hallways and finally get to the “emergency” area, where an equally rude women tells me i have to sit down and wait for help, im showing this lady my hand and screaming if i dont get help right now i will die here in you area, luckily a generous nurse had just walked into the area and brought me a wheelchair, sat me down and told me she was taking me into the treatment area to do her best to stabilize me.
I kept my cool the entire time, and could finally breath a sigh of relief because finally i was being helped and could get something for the pain, which is impossible to describe.
They informed me that there wasnt much they could do aside from stabilize me and try to rid the pain, informed me they were goingt o send me to Loyola which would be about an hour ride and then they would be able to begin to assess my condition.
when i arrived at Loyola i finally felt like i was in g ood hands, they rushed me into the burn ICU, gave me an inhalation of propfol and thats the last thing i remember for several hours.
What follwed was a 3 week hospital stay. I had burned about 19% of my body, Really messed up my right hand,(which was my dominant hand) but did not hurt my foot at all!
I ended up having 2 Surgerys, one for Skin Grafting, They shaved the skin off my thighs, to apply it to my stomach chest and Hand. Luckily my left hand was only minorly injured.
My doctor said that if i wasnt an artist, they would have just amputated all the fingers from my right hand. int the end i lost about a half inch off the tips of all those fingers, and everything above the first knuckle of my pointer finger, that was the second surgery, an amputation of that finger. He said i would have to work really hard to get the use of that hand back, but since i was an artist it would be worth it to me.
aFter i got out of the hospital it took about two months of healing and another two months of physical therapy to be able to bend the fingers on that hand again. after 4 months i was finally able to use it enough to hold a piece of glass and do the work with my left hand instead of my right. Finally, Back to work.
Things happen for strange reasons, at the time i was teaching people, helping others alot and being a very selfless person, and when i got out of the hospital all i could do was take care of myself, so it taught me the fine balance between taking care of yourself and others. dont get me wrong,i took great care of myself before the accident, But it caused me to really kick lifes ass and not slack on the future. Nothing will come to you, You have to achieve it and make it yours. I am still a very patient person, but now i do my best to never be lazy.
Thank you for reading my story, may you all be well.
The pictures are from just after the accident, i will upload new pictures soon

(3 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Dog bite scars faded, the memory is not…

One afternoon when I was just a little “squirt” of a 4th grader in 1979, 9 years old, I got invited to a friend’s house to play. I lived on a steep hill and my friend lived further down, so naturally I took the opportunity to ride my bike. As I began coasting down the hill, I saw the owner of a notorious Airedale terrier playing with her dog. That dog had bit a couple of the neighborhood children, most recently on a girl’s hand, and was on orders from local law enforcement to be contained at all times.

After enjoying the wind in my hair all the way down the hill (no helmets back in these days) I was turned away by my friend’s mother just as I arrived. As it turns out my friend had forgotten about a dentist appointment. So, I began the ordeal of to pushing my heavy, Huffy bicycle back up the long hill. (Even though this was 20 years ago, my heart rate starts to increase as I type in this story.)

I was finally nearing the end of my journey, only 3 houses down from home, when the Airedale spotted me and immediately began barking, growling, and bolting across the street toward me. I thought I could keep the bike between me and the dog, but he ran right around and lunged for the back of my legs. I threw the heavy bike down and started to run. He was right on my tail, snarling and sinking his teeth into the backs of my legs. My parents could hear my screaming, but because I was not expected back quite so soon, and was not known for screaming, they assumed it was one of the other children in the neighborhood. Much to my horror, the owner did not come out to call the dog home, and nobody came to help me–I was on my own. At one point I fell flat on my face and had to get back up. It was a very scary moment and time seemed to slow down. At that point the dog suddenly backed off and headed toward home. Since dogs instinctively go for the neck, and he had a perfect shot, I am very glad he had enough 4th grader blood for the day.

Eventually, as my parents explained later, the screaming kept getting closer and was eventually pounding on the front door. I could tell my parents were in shock as they tried to find something in the house to patch up two 1.5 inch gaping lacerations–fat and muscle tissue exposed–on the back of my right leg, just behind the knee and a smaller .5 inch laceration and puncture wound on my left calf. My father excused himself with a large pipe-wrench to go retrieve my bicycle. Eerily, he found that the dog had been chained up. Since my parents could hear the screaming 3 houses away, why did the dog owner not come out and deal with the situation? My dad started to get angry.

He loaded me into the car and drove into the dog-owners driveway and started laying on the horn. All the while, the vicious dog was jumping up on the car door, growling and snarling. After a couple of minutes, the lady emerged from her house and my dad opened his window a couple of inches and yelled to her that he was “going down to the clinic to get his son sewn up” among other choice phrases. Under other circumstances, this would have been a gleeful spectacle for 4th grader to witness. The lady just stood there with nothing to say.

I got 7 stitches in each wound on my right leg and two on the left leg–16 total. The sheriff came to my bedside that evening to hear my story before going to confront the dog owners. When we warned him to be careful of that dog when approaching the house, he put his hand on his gun and said “I’ll blow him across the floor.” It was like having Clint Eastwood going after bad guys for me–totally sweet!

The owners were ordered to have the dog destroyed before it could hurt anybody else. They dog owners were strange people and clearly held a grudge against my family. They sold their home and moved away a year or two after the event. Lucky for them lawsuits were not popular at that time or they might have taken care of my college fund.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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My Thumb

Cut it on a food processor blade. No, it was not on. I actually was picking up a dude that was floating the Reecer and needed a ride back to his car. I reached down to move a box of junk that was on the passenger floor and the blade got me good. Had to just put pressure on it till got back to my house bc I didn’t have any paper towels or anything like that in my truck. got home and tried to get it to stop bleeding but couldn’t after 2 hrs I went in to the ER. they put 5 stitches in and it was still seeping blood out of the cut for another 30 minutes.

(6 votes, average: 3.17 out of 5)

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Abby throws a kick!

I was trying to load a yearling filly, Abby, into my gooseneck trailer. Abby didn’t really see it my way and did not want to load. We were trying to coax her into the trailer when her back feet started to slip under the tail of the trailer. I didn’t want her to get hung up and hurt herself so I got under her and tried to get her out and she decided to back up at a high rate of speed and spin at the same time, when she came around her front hoof hit my nose coming down. At the ER after cleaning it up you could actually see daylight through the gash. The damage; a broken nose,2 stints, 4 interior stitches and 8 exterior stitches.

(5 votes, average: 4.20 out of 5)

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Gold Finger……less

When I was 31 I was working at gold mine in Idaho. I went down to charge the mill and opened up the ball gate to get the ball bearing going and they were frozen inside the chute. I turned around to get a bar to break it loose, my feet slipped out from under me on the ice and I tried to catch myself. My hand went inside the chute and a malfunction in the valve slammed the gate shut on my hand. I got up with my hand still stuck in the gate and got a hold of the controls to open the gate and get my hand out. The Dr’s tried to save my finger, but after 3 surgeries they finally said enough was enough and cut it off!

(4 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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