Yeah, just came back from seeing her, thought I would share this crazy story.
A week ago, my friend goes on a work-trip/party to her bosses house on a lake near Ellensburg, WA. Shes an experienced wakeboarder/waterskier/wakesurfer, and they go out boating and she starts teaching people she works with how to wakeboard and all. Anyways, shes wakesurfing (on a surfboard on a slack line behind the boat riding the wake). She gets tired, so she tosses the line and jumps off the board.
Heres where shit goes bad. The line ends up wrapped around her wrist, and it cinches. The boat is still going. She manages to flex her wrist so that the line pops off, giving her some nasty burns and bruises, but the line then cinches again around the joint of her thumb. The line is feeding out this entire time, but when it hits the thumb, its out of length, and the handle snaps into her thumb... and it tears off all the skin, muscle, nail and nerve from past the joint of her thumb.
Of course she freaks the fuck out when she surfaces, as the tip of her thumb is just bone and tendon. You would too. Long story short, they get her to the hospital after an hour and a half, where they happen to have a competent hand surgeon (though not competent staff apparently... all of her hospital forms read "left thumb" when its her right... and to make it worse, last year that same hospital fucked up and amputated the wrong foot of a patient... yikes). Since they couldnt find the tip of the thumb, they told her she had two options - amputate the thumb below the joint or cut a flap out of skin out of her stomach and wrap it around the bone and tendon in the tip of her thumb and try to get it to take so that she could use the joint still.
So she chose the stomach thing. I have to say, I've seen firsthand tumors being removed from brachial plexi, a doctor use a hand hand drill to relieve intercranial pressure in some dudes head and even a frontal lobectomy... and what I saw today when I visited her was seriously the weirdest thing ever. Her hand is attached to her stomach. They cut a flap of skin off from her stomach, stitched that hole together and wrapped it around her thumb in this weird ass tube of flesh that connects her thumb to her tummy. Shes doing well, 7 full paid weeks of disability from work, and all her surgery is free cause of her works health plan. Apart from going stir crazy in her apartment and avoiding relex reactions to move her right hand, shes fine. She wont have a nail anymore, and has 5 more surgeries and 5 more weeks of recovery (1 more with her hand attached to her side), and then she'll be alright. Dunno if she'll ever wakesurf again though.
So kids, remember, have fun this summer, but be careful. You dont want your hand stitched to your stomach.
A week ago, my friend goes on a work-trip/party to her bosses house on a lake near Ellensburg, WA. Shes an experienced wakeboarder/waterskier/wakesurfer, and they go out boating and she starts teaching people she works with how to wakeboard and all. Anyways, shes wakesurfing (on a surfboard on a slack line behind the boat riding the wake). She gets tired, so she tosses the line and jumps off the board.
Heres where shit goes bad. The line ends up wrapped around her wrist, and it cinches. The boat is still going. She manages to flex her wrist so that the line pops off, giving her some nasty burns and bruises, but the line then cinches again around the joint of her thumb. The line is feeding out this entire time, but when it hits the thumb, its out of length, and the handle snaps into her thumb... and it tears off all the skin, muscle, nail and nerve from past the joint of her thumb.
Of course she freaks the fuck out when she surfaces, as the tip of her thumb is just bone and tendon. You would too. Long story short, they get her to the hospital after an hour and a half, where they happen to have a competent hand surgeon (though not competent staff apparently... all of her hospital forms read "left thumb" when its her right... and to make it worse, last year that same hospital fucked up and amputated the wrong foot of a patient... yikes). Since they couldnt find the tip of the thumb, they told her she had two options - amputate the thumb below the joint or cut a flap out of skin out of her stomach and wrap it around the bone and tendon in the tip of her thumb and try to get it to take so that she could use the joint still.
So she chose the stomach thing. I have to say, I've seen firsthand tumors being removed from brachial plexi, a doctor use a hand hand drill to relieve intercranial pressure in some dudes head and even a frontal lobectomy... and what I saw today when I visited her was seriously the weirdest thing ever. Her hand is attached to her stomach. They cut a flap of skin off from her stomach, stitched that hole together and wrapped it around her thumb in this weird ass tube of flesh that connects her thumb to her tummy. Shes doing well, 7 full paid weeks of disability from work, and all her surgery is free cause of her works health plan. Apart from going stir crazy in her apartment and avoiding relex reactions to move her right hand, shes fine. She wont have a nail anymore, and has 5 more surgeries and 5 more weeks of recovery (1 more with her hand attached to her side), and then she'll be alright. Dunno if she'll ever wakesurf again though.
So kids, remember, have fun this summer, but be careful. You dont want your hand stitched to your stomach.
