Two days ago a friend lost 1/2 of two fingers on his left hand. He was cutting trim on a compound miter saw and although nobody witnessed it he obviousley had his hands too close to the blade / was not paying attention or some other foolish reason. His fingers were severed so bad that re-attachement was not possible. I"ve been working in this trade for 29 years and have seen first hand some very bad accidents. This accident hit me especially hard for many reasons

1) No first aid kit on the jobsite (not sure it would have helped in this situation but regardless there was none)

2) Jobsite was in a remote location and nobody had an exact address. We did not call 911 because we needed to act quick to get him to a hospital.

3) Nobody on the site knew first aid, all we could think of was getting him and the remains of the fingers to the hospital wrapped in a dirty rag.

For all those who rarely think of safety, please, please make the effort to review how you would deal with an emergency.

For myself I learned I need to know first aid, I need a first aid kit regardless of who I'm working with, I need to do whatever it takes to stay safe. Tools are inherintly dangerous no matter what your experience level

I hope some of you can benefit from my learning experience

One thing I learned very early on. Accidents don't happen Accidents are caused.

I'm so sorry for your friend and for you to have to see him suffer.  Patty