about the universe forum commander Shop Now Commanders Circle
Product List FAQs home Links Contact Us

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Casualty on the Work Site

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

The good news is that I am posting, the bad news is that I am being a little clumsy with the typing (something not really visible since I back space to correct myself). Things on the move were not as simple as they seemed. The "truck high dock" at our old warehouse is higher than the truck we are using to make the move, and "truck high dock" at our new warehouse is lower than the truck we using to make the move. This makes getting pallets on and off of it something of an adventure. We found that we had to "charge" the gate at the new warehouse, or the pallet jack's rollers would become wedged in the trough at the back of the truck for the door to seal. Unfortunately, as we were trying to get the last pallet off, the load "shifted", and as with most humans, the brain called for action before it had rationally thought out the problem. I reached out to try to steady the load, and the inertia was more than my merely mortal flesh bone and sinew could control. The result was that the top of the pallet drove my hand against the wall of the warehouse and then tried to focus all of its inertia on a single tiny spot . . . that being the tip of my right pinky finger. The pressure was great enough that the skin ruptured and spurted blood from the tip while grinding the flesh behind the cuticle to create another bloody wound, and with all of this caused a relatively minor laceration on the ring finger of that hand.

All digits, however, remain firmly attached, the pinky shows no signs of being "broken" or "mashed beyond recovery". Upon return to the office, the hand was cleaned, various excess pieces of flesh were trimmed away, and neosporin and bandaids were applied. The period of "throbbing" passed very quickly (I do not know if that is a good or a bad sign, but for now am assuming that things are okay). Having a blood wound on the tip of the pinky finger does, as you might imagine, make typing somewhat difficult, but I will get by.

If this is the worst we suffer in the move we will have more than ample reason to be grateful.