Playing The Odds: How to Avoid Most Hand Injuries
⌚️ read time: 6 minutes
The Pareto Principle: “80% of the consequences come from just 20% of the causes.”
This is what came to mind when one of you recently asked me a great question: “Dr. G, what are the 20% of things I should be aware of to avoid 80% of the hand injuries I might encounter in a typical day?”
Or in other words, tell me the few mistakes that lead to hand injuries that you see people make over and over again.
I’m so glad you asked.
1. Table Saw/Circular Saw/Miter Saw
Probably no surprise here, but these bad boys are finger eaters.
Whether it’s big lacerations resulting in tendon/nerve injuries, fingertip amputations, or devastating full finger/hand amputations, I would need more than 10 fingers (oof, that’s a brutal pun for this article) to count the number of these injuries I’ve seen in the last couple months alone, not to mention my career.
Look, I get it. There aren’t great alternative options to have wood cut for a project other than doing it yourself. Trust me, I’ve looked.
The hourly employee fresh out of high school at Home Depot is not making precision cuts for you. There are so many projects around the house I’d love to do but have ultimately (sadly) ended up scrapping because of how many of these injuries I see.
The worst part?
More often than not, the patient was using ‘perfect technique.’ They had all the safety guards on, they were using a push stick, etc. But the reality is, we can’t control everything. Whether a momentary distraction, a knot in the grain of the wood, or a broken blade, bad things happen and our hands are rarely spared the consequences.
I will say I’ve seen a few minor injuries from these fancy (and expensive) electrified blades that stop the instant they detect human skin (I have no affiliation, video below).
So I would strongly consider this technology if you use these tools, either professionally or recreationally!
2. Kitchen injuries
Again, no real surprise here. Hand surgeons and avocado enthusiasts have a long, close history together.
While avocados are probably still the primary offender (slippery food plus various stabbing maneuvers to get the pit out — learn how I cut avocados here), the kitchen, in general, is rife with danger for the hands.
Peeling carrots, cutting food, using power mixers, food processors, garbage disposals...you get the point. Lots of blades.
And if your kitchen is anything like ours, add in the tired children in that 5-7 p.m. ‘witching hour’ and the whole place is chaos. A perfect environment for a half-second lapse in concentration that has the potential to change your life forever.
I’ll never forget the pregnant mom of four who came to me after trying to cut an orange with a butter knife…she was pushing so hard on the dull knife that when she slipped, it went straight into her ring finger between her wedding and engagement ring, severing both tendons and both nerves.
An absolutely devastating injury that kept her from holding her children in that hand for 4 months.
Or the busy dad of three who was rushing to take out the recycling so he pushed down on the recycling to compact the contents…only to realize the sharp lid of the tomato can had gone clear through his finger. Another absolutely life-changing split second.
These things happen fast and sharp objects are everywhere in the kitchen. And those sharp things have a knack for finding the most important functional part of our hands… the palm and the palm side of the fingers. Where almost all knife slips go.
Keep your wits about you. Engage others to tone down the chaos. Keep your hands safe.
3. Walking + Dog + Ice
If you had asked me ten years ago what the number one risk factor for breaking your wrist was, I probably would have said skiing, skateboarding, or some similar impact activity.
But what has absolutely blown the competition out of the water, year in and year out, is the apparently diabolical combination of walking your dog when it’s icy.
You wouldn’t believe the number of times I hear this story. If it weren’t such a bummer for these patients, it would be borderline comical.
Now, to be clear, ice is just the cherry on top. I don’t know if it’s because there’s been a recent surge in dog ownership or what, but I see an absurd number of injuries from walking the dog.
Wrapped leashes sprain and break fingers, dogs lunge and pull their owners to the ground…and don’t even get me started on the hand injuries from dog bites.
Dog passes another dog on a walk, dogs engage, dogs fight, owners reach in with their hands to separate the dogs…the rest is history.
I love my Fido just as much as the next person. But if you have dogs, are around dogs, or take care of dogs, I want you to be on alert with these lovable but unpredictable beings.
And if you’re going to walk your dog in icy conditions…may the force be with you.
4. Speed and impact sports
This one I probably don’t need to spell out, as it’s pretty obvious right? Whether it’s some sort of speed sport or contact sport, you can imagine hands/wrists/elbows get broken frequently.
Just imagine the impacts and mishaps that are bound to happen with skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, mountain biking, E-biking, motocross, scooters…
And of course, athletics like football, lacrosse, hockey, boxing…you get the point.
I will say that skateboarders seem to have it particularly bad within this cohort. I imagine it has to do with the fact that they land on cement when they crash. Their predilection for specifically getting what I would consider the worst type of wrist fracture (learn about scaphoid fractures here) is always surprising to me.
Like a Pavlovian dog, when I see ‘skateboard injury’ on my clinic schedule, I immediately start planning how to treat their scaphoid fracture.
Takeaways:
Increase your awareness around specific high-risk daily activities and you’re likely to eliminate the vast majority of potential hand injuries in your day-to-day life.
It turns out, sharp tools really are dangerous to hands! I see this most frequently with table saw injuries and kitchen accidents.
Also of no surprise to anyone, impact and speed sports put us at high risk of wrist and hand injuries. What may surprise you though is how risky it is to walk your dog…especially in winter.
The whole point of the Pareto principle is recognizing the unbelievable amount of work it would take to get 100% out of anything. Call it diminishing returns, call it marginal utility, call it ‘getting an A- is just fine, I don’t need the A+.”
Sometimes that extra squeeze is worth it. But in the case of injury, we all know there’s no realistic way to keep ourselves completely safe. Unless you’re ready to live in a bubble.
So instead, make the most of your effort and incorporate these few tips in your life to keep yourself out of most hand injury danger.
