Well…as much as I’ve always dreaded it and hoped it wouldn’t happen, I am a table saw accident statistic. A few weeks ago I managed to make some careless mistakes while operating my table saw that lead to my hand making contact with the blade. I am extremely lucky and am fortunate that I didn’t lose any fingers; however my fingers did get chewed up pretty badly leading to a bunch of stitches across 3 fingers on my right hand and I’m going to be out of commission for at least a month or more. I had ordered a SawStop Table Saw 3 Days before the accident happened and was waiting for the shipment to arrive. Talk about timing! Anyway, it might sound odd to take table saw safety advice from someone who has had an accident with a table saw, but I can assure you that I have been around this tool for close to 20 years and have always had a fearful respect for the table saw and I never considered myself someone who didn’t operate the saw safely so if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. My goal with this video is to show you exactly what happened in my accident, how & why it happened, how I could’ve avoided it and hopefully give you a few tips on how you can avoid a similar situation. Check out the video to see exactly what happened. 

WARNING: I AM INCLUDING SOME GRAPHIC IMAGES OF MY ACCIDENT BELOW. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO SEE THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE ACCIDENT, PLEASE DO NOT CONTINUE READING AND INSTEAD JUST WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE THAT OUTLINES HOW AND WHY THE ACCIDENT OCCURRED.

Again, I was extremely lucky that the damage was not worse, and many people who have had table saw accidents have lost fingers or done even more significant damage so I feel very fortunate.

MY ACCIDENT

So here’s what happened in my accident. I was ripping a drawer front down to it’s final size to install in my custom vanity build and the piece got behind the blade resulting in the piece getting kicked back at me, striking me in my side and my hand being sent into the blade. I’m not sure if my hand went into the blade as a reaction to being hit with the piece or if the kickback of the piece itself sent my hand into the blade, but I made 3 critical mistakes that led to the accident and here is the result of the accident. 

As you can see I could have easily lost some or all of 3 of my fingers. I had X-Rays done and initially they thought there was no sign of bone damage so I was lucky in

but after I mentioned I couldn’t bend the finger they found I had a small fracture in the knuckle on the ring finger. Initial signs were good as far as tendon damage and I had movement and feeling in my fingers. I also had significant bruising on my side from the impact.

The ER Doctor gave me 13 stitches across the 3 fingers (3 in the ring finger, 8 in the middle, and 2 in the index). Some areas were unable to be stitched because the skin around it was too macerated to stitch so they said that would need to heal subdermally.

They gave me a clam shell splint to wear over the stitched fingers that I wore for a little over a week before the stitches were removed.

So as I keep saying, I was SUPER LUCKY! I feel so fortunate that I didn’t lose the fingers. I don’t know what my life would be like moving forward if that happened and I hate to think about that possibility. I never wanted to make a video like this but now that it’s happened to me, I sincerely hope it never happens to anyone else.

HOW TO AVOID YOUR OWN ACCIDENT

Here are a few tips I suggest to try an avoid an accident.

In addition to these tips, Woodcraft has an extensive list of safety tips which you can check out here.

At the end of the day, it comes down to developing good saw habits and never letting them slip! Always respect the tool and make sure your mind is focused on the task at hand while working with the saw. It’s too dangerous a tool to not give it your complete attention anytime you’re using it. If you can afford a SawStop (I know how hard it is to save for one, trust me!) I’d suggest you purchase one. Hopefully someday in the near future every manufacturer will be forced to include a similar technology but until that time, SawStop is the best option.

I hope this post and video are helpful to you in some way and at least get you thinking about the possibility of trying to improve your saw habits so that this type of accident never happens to you! Thank you guys so much for checking it out and for the outpouring of support across social media. It means a lot to me and I really appreciate it.

Cut safe!

Many people assume the water they’re consuming from local water agencies or even their own wells is safe, but is that really true?

So the question becomes, do you know what’s in your water supply? And if you were ingesting dangerous chemicals from your drinking water, would you even know?

The only way to really know what exactly is in your water supply is to test it yourself! Fortunately there are relatively inexpensive DIY tests you can do on your homes water supply to make sure it’s safe for you and your family, which I’m going to outline below.

I recently had to replace a large section of old water line in my house due to a breakage in one of the pipes and when I looked at the pipe, the level of rust, corrosion, and sediment in the line was disturbing.

It’s not uncommon for old pipes to be in bad shape, and even though I have a reverse osmosis system installed that I use most of the time, it got me curious about what contaminants I might be consuming in my water supply.

If you live in a city or area on public water, those suppliers have to report to the EPA by law and are required to provide annual reports to their customers but as we saw in the case of Flint, Michigan, sometimes that’s not enough. And with the incoming administration changes with the EPA, who knows how information will be presented to the public. Even if your water supply itself is up to EPA standards from the supplier, it doesn’t necessarily mean that by the time it reaches your tap it hasn’t become contaminated. There’s no way to really test for every contaminant out there but you can test for a broad range of contaminants to give yourself some peace of mind.

I purchased this simple DIY water testing kit on Amazon. There are a ton of different options out there but this one is from First Alert and it costs under $15 and checks for all sorts of contaminants like bacteria, lead, pesticides, etc.

The instructions are pretty self explanatory and require you to take multiple water samples to test for lead and pesticides… as well as nitrates and water acidity (pH).

There is an additional water sample required that tests for bacteria in the water supply. The test requires combining a water sample with an enclosed powder and allowing it to sit for 24 hours. If the sample is purple at the end of the 24 hours, the test is normal. If the sample turns yellow/orange, there is bacteria present in the supply. 

Fortunately in my case the test came back well within the normal range, but I plan to test it semi-regularly over the next few years just to make sure it stays that way.

In addition to the DIY testing kit, here are a few other tips on making sure you have safe & healthy drinking water for you and your family.

1. Always use a filtration system of some kind – tap mounted filters or even Brita filters remove many contaminants in your water supply, or for a more expensive approach, you can install a reverse osmosis filtration system.
2. Call the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1 (800) 426-4791 – to find a local water testing agency
3. Search the Environmental Working Group Website – this is a watchdog group that compiles a list of water quality reports searchable by zip code, and water provider.

If you’re still concerned about your water supply, contact your local government office for more information on local water testing agencies.