Neck Injury – Stone Carving

I would hate to be my neck. Boy, does she ever get abused. And I know better – that was the depressing thing. I warn my students about doing what I did today, especially because I am the one who carves in sarongs most of the time. And after damaging five vertebrae in my neck in a skateboarding accident in 1995 (for which I am still boycotting ToysRUs – not for the fact that the accident happened in their store, but for the way they handled it afterwards), I should have thought that I would have been more careful.

Curious at all????? Well, I had a big, rather fluffy grey scarf wrapped around my neck today, which was poking out too far from my jean jacket. I was using a 1/4-inch shaft double-cut carbide tip in an electric grinder on a small stone that I am currently carving and I leaned too close to examine my work in a detail area. Zing! Before I was aware of what happened, I was choking myself as the scarf got caught in the rotary movement and the tool head went straight for my neck!

Dumb. It so caught me off guard that it took me a while to realize that I could unplug the entire tool where it connected to the extension cord at my feet faster than I could figure out how to turn the switch off. Damn. The pneumatics are so much safer.

The things that run through one’s head during such times: concern for my stone; the sound of the stalled motor (which was surprisingly not burnt up); my scarf; how my body would have been discovered hours later, if at all – ha ha; rug burns on my neck?; air; my embarrassment over a stupid way to die; then relief that the tool did not go past my safety goggles. And then the ensuing unentanglement and discovery of a small clump of my yanked-out hair wrapped around the blades. Ouch.

Being the drama queen that it is possible that I am, it sounds worse than it was. Still . . . very stupid of me.

God, my neck hurts today. Even more than my first time as a madonnara. Hmmm. Good thing there is vodka in the house. Cures damn near everything! Anyway, be warned, and do as I say, not as I do.