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Flyman416

Anybody with less than ten digits?

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Hello everyone, an unfortunate thing happened to my friend earlier this week, I think he was about to go hunting when he set his gun down and a cat jumped on the shotgun and set it off. The shot hit his right hand and mangled his pinkie and probably his ring finger too. his parents took him to the emergency room and they couldn't put it back on or fix it. My friend now has nine fingers! Does anyone else have nine or less fingers and how do you cope with it?

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when I was a kid my dad's best friend had lost both of his thumbs in a farming accident when he was a teenager I would sit and watch him tie flies and mimmic his grip on material to this day I still catch myself grasping different things without using my thumb funny thing about him is he also played guitar and you wouldn't have known he had no thumbs

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Wow i wouldn't imagine playing guitar without thumbs, my friend only knows how to play classical music on guitar and he needs his pinkie for that i would think. Both for fretting and picking (if he had lost his pinkie on his left hand).

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I still "have" all 10 digits, but I only have use of 9 of them. about 15 yrs ago I managed to break my left index finger pretty badly which broke the bone and did some nerve damage. I won't go into full detail but it involved a younger me, alcohol, and a hand strapped to a mechanical bull :D I ended up not getting it taken care of and I just put one of those half cast type of braces on it myself and not going to the doctor. Long story short the bone fused back together bent, I lost about 75% of feeling in it, lost about 75% of strength in it, and it is pretty much useless.

 

BUT you would be very surprised at how quickly the human body/mind is able to overcome changes. Basically my left index finger is unused most the time, yet I still do everything I always have which includes rod building, tying flies, typing on the keyboard faster than probably 90% of the people I know, build things all the time, work on cars and all sorts of small details work without any problems, all while having my left finger bent and not even using it. After a short time your body&mind adjust and you don't even realize that your not using all 10 fingers.

 

It will take him a while (probably a year or so that's about how long it took me) but after awhile he will adjust to it and it won't seem different to him.

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My wife's grandfather lost the middle three fingers of his right hand in a farming accident years ago. He can't type very well, but he is of the generation that doesn't type much anyway. He has been big in softball and can catch and throw a ball just fine. Your buddy, if he is ready mentally, will adapt and get over it just fine. The best use of the lost finger will be a reminder for gun safety - no round in the chamber until you are in the field and actually hunting.

 

Deeky

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My wife's grandfather lost the middle three fingers of his right hand in a farming accident years ago. He can't type very well, but he is of the generation that doesn't type much anyway. He has been big in softball and can catch and throw a ball just fine. Your buddy, if he is ready mentally, will adapt and get over it just fine. The best use of the lost finger will be a reminder for gun safety - no round in the chamber until you are in the field and actually hunting.

 

Deeky

i'm sure he will recover quickly too he somewhat ambidextrous ( i think i spelled that right) he writes and throws things with his left hand and does everything else on his right, not sure about shooting, he is mostly left handed though. his mind is strong and he is also strong physically one Monday at school he walked on a broken foot all day long and didn't even know why it was hurting he twisted it while playing ultimate Frisbee in his back yard on like a thirty degree slope. i don't think his mom is taking it very well. he can't play guitar for awhile he only knows how to finger pick classical songs like Greensleave (classical song look it up on YouTube its a neat song)

 

Also i don't know if he was about hunt are just shooting clay pigeons probably the latter but he still should have had the safety on as well, damn cat.

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he might want to be glad it was just a finger and not the side of his head

If I know Luke, he's probably praying his heart out right now thanking God it was just his finger and not death.

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it's horrible to hear about this. Thank God it's "just" a hand.

 

I cringe EVERY TIME I read or hear about someone being STUPID with a firearm. There are no accidents with firearms.

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Ok everybody, i just called him and got the full story of what happened (my first story came from an unreliable person). so what really went down was he was doing algebra 2 when he saw some black birds outside so he got his shotgun and went outside after hitting a few he went to the other side of his house where he leaned his gun against a tree, and then HE leaned against the tree his cat Sasquatch came walking up and he bent over to pet him with his hand still on the tree. everybody knows how playful cats are and they do double smack thing their paws right? well that's what happened the cat did that to his left hand and landed on the gun and Boom. He had the choice of keeping his pinkie with 3 or 4 surgeries and months of physical therapy or amputating it and only having to replace the bandage everyday or so. Nothing else was hit just his pinkie.

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Good thing it wasn't his thumb and index finger. He'll manage fine without a pinkie. On a side note he may want to take a firearms course on safe gun handling so a bigger accident doesn't happen later.

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I don't know too much about safety and stuff but, if your not using a gun shouldn't you put the safety on?

 

yes you should have the safety on when not using it, but if it was a single shot, most of them have no safety so you have to make sure the hammer is down, and he might have forgotten to put the hammer down.

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