Lost a digit? We won’t judge… you’re an idiot, but we love you.

Recently saw some morbid interest in those that have lost a digit to a fixed drive train and figured I would post and ask how many of us are in this “illustrious club” s/.

Mine was relatively innocent. Decided to run something up to a friend of mine, only a few blocks away and when I took the bike out the front door I realized I forgot to properly seat the rear wheel or oil the chain after working on bike earlier that day. Quickly flipped the bike on front porch and seated the wheel before oiling chain. Spun crank hard when I was finished, intending to then go in and lock up but heard someone yelling up the street and as I leaned sideways to look up the block while holding a frayed rag over spinning drive train it snagged. It was an instant and I just thought it was was a nip of the tip and immediately closed my hand tight on the rag as I didn’t realize I had lost part of the digit rather thought just a cut. It wasn’t until 10-15 seconds after I realized how wet the rag was feeling and thought “oh I must have really cut myself”. It was then I looked at the rear cog and saw the tip of my finger stuck in it and went into weirdly practical mode, knowing I was alone and likely had limited time to sort shit out. Keeping finger jammed tight into the rag, I opened the door and grabbed the bike with my good hand and carried it in. When inside I was able to get a ziploc bag of ice together with my good hand and put the tip in. Called my friend who came and picked me up driving me to the E.R. Where they told me they don’t really sew on finger tips, rightfully so tbf… I didn’t know that in the moment. Regardless, I hadn’t bagged it properly, it should be in a bag inside a bag of ice. I put it in with the ice itself, maybe I wasn’t thinking too clearly in that moment lol.

They do surprisingly little for you at the hospital. They basically show you how to dress it and give you some pain meds. Stitching it mitigates natural healing which they’ve realized usually has better results. I was VERY diligent with changing the dressing twice a day usually to help with the healing and it went well. A small part of my nail bed survived so I do have a little weird nail that still protects the top. I have about 50% sensation of a normal finger tip now there… some small tool shit can be harder obv, screwing on a nut etc… but really no major life issues.