Freaky Friday/Freaky Finger (Viewing Discretion is Advised)

On Friday the 13th of August, Ammon had an accident.

Everyone knows Friday the 13th is an unlucky day.

There are plenty of superstitions about Friday the 13th, as well as several things NOT to do on that day, like:
-step under a ladder
-break glass
-step on a crack
-walk past a black cat
-open an umbrella inside
-spill salt
-clip your nails
-cut your hair

And we discovered a new one to add to the list:
-NEVER stick your hand under a running lawnmower.

Unfortunately, Ammon learned that lesson the hard way.

Ammon has been mowing lawns this summer. He has four customers: two of the yards he mows by hand, and two of the yards have riding lawnmowers that he uses. He's worked hard this summer to earn money, and he's been responsible with his earnings: paying tithing, paying off his golf clubs and new golf cart, he's currently saving for a laptop, and the rest he's put in a savings account for future college/mission. He likes the job, and had no problems doing it until Friday the 13th of August.

Grandpa and Grandma T. have a very large yard, and Ammon's mowed their yard the last two years. He's very comfortable with their riding lawnmower, and can usually get the lawn cut in about an hour. The week prior to the 13th, there had been a terrible windstorm in Salmon. A lot of trees surrounding Grandpa's yard had branches fall off and some whole trees had toppled over. The boys were helping Grandpa clear out the debris from the yard the same day that Ammon mowed the lawn, so Grandpa added the guard to the side of the mower so that no sticks would be thrown through the air, possibly injuring the younger boys. Ammon wasn't used to mowing with the guard on, and the following week when he started mowing the lawn (on Friday the 13th), the grass still had morning dew on it and it was pretty wet. The guard was getting plugged up with the wet, cut grass and it wasn't working quite right. As Ammon was mowing the lawn, he noticed the problem, and paused. He bent over, stuck his hand in the guard chute, and pulled out some of the stuck wet grass. He put in his hand again to get a second hand-full, and felt sharp pain in his finger. He pulled it out, saw blood, jumped off the mower, ran up to our house, and let out a blood-curdling scream the whole time he was running. It was an awful sound that I can still hear acutely in my ears. Horrible. I hope I never have to hear that sound again.

That morning, I had told Ammon to go down and feed his pigs. He left the house and I started to get ready for the day. I knew he was taking longer than usual, but sometimes he has to fix the feeder, or take an extra trip of water to them, or sometimes he likes to hang out so the pigs can be more comfortable with him (it's one of his 4-H pig goals). When he was screaming, it sent his brothers (who were inside with me) into a panic. They all started screaming too! I thought maybe one of the pigs had escaped again, so I ran to my bathroom to grab my bathrobe so I could go out and help him. When I came out of my room, Ammon had reached the house and I could see his finger was bleeding. I kept asking him "what happened? what happened?". He kept telling me he didn't know. I thought maybe he cut his finger on the fence where the pigs were, or that the pigs had jolted and injured him. I had no idea what happened. I stuck his finger under running hot water in the sink, and I dialed Josh's number. Or so I thought. I had actually dialed 9-1-1. Once I realized this, I tried to hang up, but the lady was already saying "911, what's your emergency?". I sputtered "My son cut his finger, what should I do? Should I take him to the Dr.? Should I take him to the emergency room?". I really wasn't thinking. Apparently I was panicking, too. She replied "Uhhh, yeah!". I hung up, called Josh, left him a message saying that I was taking Ammon to the emergency room. I yelled for the boys to get their shoes on, and I ran and got my clothes on. Of course, the boys were all freaking out--especially Kanyon. They all thought Ammon was dying. The twins got their shoes on, but Kanyon was throwing a tantrum. I knew I didn't have time to deal with it, so I told them to stay home, that I was taking Ammon to the Dr., that the Dr. would stitch up Ammon's finger, and that I'd be back soon. I told them everything was okay, and to not worry. They calmed down some, and I turned on the TV as a distraction for them to watch some cartoons. I wrapped up Ammon's finger in a paper towel, told him to keep pressure on it, and I set him in the car and took off.

By this time, Ammon was more calm and he told me he'd cut his finger under Grandpa's lawmower. I had no idea he'd even started mowing the lawn that morning. It made me sick to my stomache to think about. I kept envisioning a hand being put in the blades of a running lawnmower, like a giant blender. I was definitely feeling sick. I kept telling myself "don't throw up, don't throw up". On the drive to town, I thought about the younger boys left at home. I knew my ER visit would be a while (in Salmon they always are), and I didn't want them to be freaking out if I was gone too long, so I called my neighbor and asked if she could please pick up the three younger boys and take them to her house to play for a few hours. Thankfully, she was home and she answered the phone and she said yes. Right after that, Josh called me back and I told him the gist of what happened and asked him to meet me at the hospital. I was halfway to town by then (we live 7 miles out of town). By the time we arrived at the hospital, Ammon was going into shock. He was shivering and wasn't really talking anymore. I was so scared.

Josh met me at the hospital, and carried Ammon inside while I ran ahead to tell the nurses the situation of my son coming in. I filled out the essential paperwork at the front desk while they took him back and got him set up in an ER room. Josh stood by his side and when I walked in, he sat down. After a minute, I noticed Josh didn't look so good. I told him he looked all yellow and sickly. He said he felt light-headed. Josh is the one in our family who can handle hospitals and blood. After all, he lived in a hospital for 2 months when he was a teenager with his neck injuries after his motorcycle accident. But for some reason, seeing Ammon's finger partially cut-off made him queasy. He hadn't had breakfast that morning, which didn't help either. I went to the cafeteria, got him a soda pop, and brought it back for him. It didn't make his queasiness go away, and he had to leave us and go outside for a while to regain his composure. I was so mortified. I'm not the blood person in this family. Seriously, I've passed out on more than one occasion just from having my finger get pricked. I was already sick to my stomache, and I couldn't get over the "don't vomit" feeling. But sometimes you have to do what needs to be done. And in this instance, I didn't have a choice.

He'd cut off half of the tip of his middle finger on his right hand (it cut through half of his fingernail), and there was also a slice on the fingertip of his pointer. The nurse cleaned his wound--there was lots of grass in it (of course!). The doctor came in and gave him a shot to numb the area because he knew he'd have to stitch it. That was the worst part for Ammon--the shot really hurt! When the area was numb enough to stitch, the doctor said it was like "damage control". There was missing skin, missing tendon, missing nerve. He loosely stitched it together because there would be drainage, and he didn't want to stitch it together tightly and then have it get infected. Then Ammon went to get his fingers X-rayed. The technician, upon seeing Ammon, said "what did you do THIS time?!" That made me laugh--it was the same technician Ammon saw a few months ago when he broke his wrist. The X-ray revealed that Ammon's middle finger also had some bone chipped away. The nurse wrapped him up nice and big, the Dr. gave me instructions on how to care for it and what to watch for in case of infection, and we were free to go. We stopped by the pharmacy while we were in town to get his prescribed pain pills, and by the time we'd arrived back home, we'd been gone 2 1/2 hours.

We picked up the younger boys, and started the retelling of the incident. For a few days, Ammon felt like he was stupid. He couldn't believe he'd made such a huge mistake--sticking his hand under the lawnmower. He was worried about his finger getting infected, he was worried about it never being normal again, he was worried about not being able to play football (this is his first year playing on a league). He was sad and upset and worried. It didn't matter how much how I told him how lucky he was, how much his dad told him the same thing, and everyone else we told who had the same reply: he still felt like he couldn't forgive himself and that the situation was worse than it was. He truly was a lucky boy. There are so many similar stories of hands and feet getting run over by a lawnmower, and appendages being lost in the process. Ammon is so blessed to still have his fingers. All of them. Josh gave him a father's blessing a few days after the accident, and Ammon has been feeling better about the situation ever since.

Every day after the accident for the next three weeks, I had to do dressing changes for his middle finger. The first week there were 3 layers of wrap, the next two weeks there was just two layers of wrap, and by the fourth week, he just had a bandaid that he wore after dipping his finger in peroxide each day. Thankfully, his wound never became infected. It has healed rather nicely. This past week, he finally went without any type of bandage on it, and everyone got to see it for the first time. Every single person who saw it said "Whoa! That's FREAKY!!!" (that's 5th grade boy-talk for ya!!). It is a little freaky-looking, but it is far better than what it looked like to begin with!!

The following photos are of the progression of his wound. WARNING: if blood makes you sick, I highly recommend you don't look because the first couple photos are disturbing...

After the nurse cleaned the wound at the hospital on Friday the 13th:

After the doctor stitched up the wound at the hospital:
After the nurse bandaged him up really big at the hospital ("peace, brutha"):
2 days later, on August 15th:

5 days later, on August 18th:
After a week later, on August 22nd (the day before the stitches were removed):

Two weeks later, on August 27th:

After three weeks, on September 6th:

After a month, on September 15th:

And today, September 17th, exactly 5 weeks later (showing how his right middle finger is now longer than his left middle finger):

Ammon was definitely one LUCKY boy. On the UNLUCKIEST day of the year!