Well, I had planned on a really productive weekend. I had hoped to get all the rest of my wood split.
Got home last night and loaded the truck with wood to bring to the house then decided to split some of the honey locust while I was out by the wood. Had a stubborn piece that I didn't want to heft back down off the block so I walked to the house to get the saw to noodle it in half then split. Started the saw up by the house and walked down to the wood. When I got near the pile a went to slide the bar cover off. I thought the chain break was engaged but I guess not. When my makita is cold it runs a little fast, and just as I got the bar cover to the end of the chain the fast running engine rolled the chain alittle. The razor sharp cutters caught my glove and "sucked" my hand around the nose of the bar. I immediately hit the kill switch and untangled my glove/hand from the cutters. I looked at my hand and went inside.
At the time my wife had a friend over who is an EMT; she took a look at it and said it's going to need stitches. I knew it would. We headed to the hospital. As soon as they heard chainsaw they rushed me in; I assured them that it wasn't that bad. But apparently they have a protocol for chainsaw injuries no matter the severity. Really it's nothing major, just 3 small cuts from 3 cutters. The longest cut measured 7 cm, but 4 cm of that was just a minor scrape/cut that didn't require stitches. The shortest cut is only 1 cm, but that one was deeper.
I think the thing that made it bad was that my gloves were too thin to offer any real protection since they were my splitting/wood handling gloves. But there was enough material there to draw my hand deeper into the chain.
All in all it turned out ok. If I'm going to have any sort of chainsaw injury this would be it. 8 stitches total in 3 different cuts.
Lessons learned: don't assume that the brake is engaged. I had gotten a little lax about safety around idling saws and got bit by it. Even if the saw is just idling stuff can still happen.
This incident was far from major, but it will set me back on my wood splitting and other projects around the house.
ETA, no deep injuries etc. This was just a skin injury, thank goodness.
Got home last night and loaded the truck with wood to bring to the house then decided to split some of the honey locust while I was out by the wood. Had a stubborn piece that I didn't want to heft back down off the block so I walked to the house to get the saw to noodle it in half then split. Started the saw up by the house and walked down to the wood. When I got near the pile a went to slide the bar cover off. I thought the chain break was engaged but I guess not. When my makita is cold it runs a little fast, and just as I got the bar cover to the end of the chain the fast running engine rolled the chain alittle. The razor sharp cutters caught my glove and "sucked" my hand around the nose of the bar. I immediately hit the kill switch and untangled my glove/hand from the cutters. I looked at my hand and went inside.
At the time my wife had a friend over who is an EMT; she took a look at it and said it's going to need stitches. I knew it would. We headed to the hospital. As soon as they heard chainsaw they rushed me in; I assured them that it wasn't that bad. But apparently they have a protocol for chainsaw injuries no matter the severity. Really it's nothing major, just 3 small cuts from 3 cutters. The longest cut measured 7 cm, but 4 cm of that was just a minor scrape/cut that didn't require stitches. The shortest cut is only 1 cm, but that one was deeper.
I think the thing that made it bad was that my gloves were too thin to offer any real protection since they were my splitting/wood handling gloves. But there was enough material there to draw my hand deeper into the chain.
All in all it turned out ok. If I'm going to have any sort of chainsaw injury this would be it. 8 stitches total in 3 different cuts.
Lessons learned: don't assume that the brake is engaged. I had gotten a little lax about safety around idling saws and got bit by it. Even if the saw is just idling stuff can still happen.
This incident was far from major, but it will set me back on my wood splitting and other projects around the house.
ETA, no deep injuries etc. This was just a skin injury, thank goodness.