Right Thumb Jammed in van door

Brian Henry · Post by **Brian Henry** » 6 May 2002 12:53 pm

I arrived at the gig and unloaded the axe and amp etc from the van and then closed the van door jamming my thumb in the door. The pain was 20 on a scale of 1-10. It swelled up to the size of a tomato and I just knew that no pick ever made would fit. Anyhow to cut a long story short the boys in the band had to go on without me and i went to the emergency roo9m to have a hole put in my thumb. Ten days later I can barely fit a thumb pick on it. Am I the only steeler that this has happened to.

tb

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 6 May 2002 1:08 pm

Recently I was cutting up one of those unsolicted charge cards they send in the mail and snipped off the tip of my left index finger. This was about 6 hours before my gig. I was still able to play steel very carefully, but no lead guitar. That was a stupid thing for me to do and I will be more careful in the future.

John De Maille · Post by **John De Maille** » 6 May 2002 1:08 pm

tb,
About 15 yrs. ago, I managed to cut open my right thumb on a table saw. It was really a mess.I've been a carpenter for 32 yrs. and I guess my time was right for a major accident. I couldn't play steel for 6 months or so. It took 42 little stitches to close it all up. I've lost about a 1/4" to the length and a little girth to the thumb. I now wear only small thumbpicks, because of that. Give it some time, and I'm sure you'll be O.K.

Pete Grant · Post by **Pete Grant** » 6 May 2002 1:37 pm

I did that once, and just before a gig. Probably not as bad an injury, since my thumb only swelled up to the size of my big toe. I played the gig that night with my fingers only. It was really weird. Then, the rest of the next week or so, I used a Dunlop metal thumbpick since it was adjustable.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 6 May 2002 3:58 pm

The closest I ever got was the night of Aqua Fest 1976 in Austin TX when I was with Alvin Crow's band. I spotted an old girlfriend by the side of the stage just before gig time, so I went over and gave her a hug. Little did I know that our bus driver, a former biker gang member named "Sleazy," was now dating her.

Sleazy freaked out and threw a full beer cup at me. If I had a calmer head on my shoulders I would have simply bit the bullet and turned the other cheek, but I instantly spun around and gave Sleazy a full roundhouse punch right between the eyes. At that point I felt the somewhat sickening crunch of my right hand 4th metatarsal bone cracking. Then Alvin started yelling at me to get up onstage.

I gave it the old trouper's go at it for two songs, but my hand was quivering and swelling up. My current girlfriend was there and said sweetly "baby, I think you broke your f*%^kin' hand." Smart girl, I always pick smart girls.

Anyway, Sleazy lost his job, and I was out for 6 weeks with a cast on my hand. It would have been 3 months, but I told the doctor I couldn't pay him if I didn't get back to work. He took the cast off and said, "take it easy with that thing, and by the way, your boxing days are over." Funny how things work out like that.

In the mean time my dear friend, the late, great Billy Marshall filled in for me for those 6 weeks. I'm not a big guy at all, and I got a lot of notoriety in town for punching out Sleazy

Gary Nunn's cousin Milton said, "wow man, you slugged Sleazy and lived!!??" Like I said, he was a biker. And I was young, dumb and... oh, never mind.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Barbara Hennerman · Post by **Barbara Hennerman** » 6 May 2002 5:09 pm

Bob (my husband) was working six nights a week and somehow I thought I had turned the stove off under a pan of grease, however, I had turned it to High. The pan burst into flames and for some unknown reason, Bob grabbed it to get it off the burner and splashed hot grease back on his hand.

Well, it was ungly. We rushed him to the hospital ER and he had 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Needless to say, he couldn't work that night so they fired him.

Talk about adding insult to injury!!!

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 6 May 2002 8:22 pm

back in the early 80's I was working a day job in a place that had a freight elevator, the kind where the doors open vertically, meet in the middle about waist high...
I went to open the elevator, and gave the top door a shove up... and my right hand slid into the wall with it... my palm was relatively flat, but it took the skin off the back of my middle finger from the cuticle to past the second knuckle (no bone or serious muscle damage thank goodness)... and I was playin 5 nights/week at the time...
I play with thumb and three finger picks so I worked the gig with my rigid digit in a bandage splint and used the picks on my index and ring fingers to get thru the next week or so...
Have you heard about the Bird? Well, everybody says that the Bird is the word

(as I type I am looking at the scar- it's only funny in retrospect)

then there was the time in Sault Ste Marie when I kicked the stage in a hissy fit the first night of a week engagement, ended up with my volume pedal foot in a cast... learned a lot about anger management and right hand technique

Herb almost said it- young, dumb and full of...<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 06 May 2002 at 09:27 PM.]</p></FONT>

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 7 May 2002 11:43 am

I found something at the drug store for cut and sore fingers that seems to work really well. It's not exactly like a new finger, but it is called (New Skin) and it sure helped the end of my finger, and I think it will work well on those sore hang nails you get sometimes on your picking fingers. It is a small bottle of liquid about like finger nail polish. It doesn't give you that stiff feeling, and it is flexable and antiseptic. It even says on the box that it is good for (Musicians).

B Bailey Brown · Post by **B Bailey Brown** » 7 May 2002 12:27 pm

I have either cut, or nicked my thumb or fingers on a kitchen knife over the years. I don’t remember missing a job, but I have played a few with a band-aid under my picks. There is something about bloody picks that turns my stomach! I hate the sight of blood, especially when it is MINE!

Those jobs were not comfortable, but I got through them.

More recently, I took a job for some friends here in San Antonio doing woodworking shows around the country. I was demonstrating a product using a table saw and a Router. Believe it or not, before 3 months ago I had never used either a table saw or a router. Luckily, the product I was demonstrating was a safety device to keep you from hurting yourself. Even so, I can’t TELL you just how careful I was out there! I have never been all that good a steel player…but one slip with that equipment that might have cost me a finger would have taken me from “Not very good”…to “Forget it!!”

B. Bailey Brown

Jimmie Misenheimer · Post by **Jimmie Misenheimer** » 7 May 2002 6:28 pm

I'm probably dreaming, but didn't Bob Seymour loose some finger-tips in an accident with a saw a number of years ago??? Probably wrong - hell, I can't 'member nothin'... Jimmie