Friday, August 21, 2009

Brett's Accident

CAUTION! This is not for weak stomachs!! I'm gagging just glancing at these pictures. So proceed with caution!!!

A week ago today, I got a phone call from my mother-in-law around 10pm. She called to tell me that Brett had had an accident and was on his way to the emergency room. I hurried to the hospital as soon as I could to meet up with Brett and his dad.

Apparently, Brett and his dad were either trying to hook our trailer to our pickup or they were trying to take it off. Anyway, there were 17 - 100 pound bags of sand (for sandblasting) on it and the weight of it broke off the jack that goes to the trailer. So Brett decided to use a different jack.

Once he got the trailer raised, the jack started swaying under the weight. Brett could see that it was going to fall, so he tried to catch it when the original broken jack came down on his foot, smashing his big toe and the one next to it on his left foot.

He ended up losing both of the toenails (one lost entirely, the other just dangeling) and breaking both toes. On his big toe, the x-ray showed that the bone was completely broken with about a 1/4 of an inch gap between the two pieces of bone. And the other toe's bone was still intact, but there were cracks all over it.

The doctor put in several stitches in one toe and sewed back on the toenail that we still had. But before he sewed it back on, he cut the nail, making a new nail for the toe that had lost it's one. I hope that makes sense. Or maybe it's better if it doesn't.

He was so lucky that was all that happened. It could have been much worse if the jack came down on a higher part of his foot. He's also lucky that it wasn't his right foot, because then he wouldn't be able to drive for a while. And I think it's amazing the little damage a 2,000 pound trailer did to his foot.

Brett's decided that he'll only be wearing steel toed boots from now on. That could have prevented his injuries. Oh well, we are certainly counting our blessings!

Here are pictures of his battle wounds. Thankfully, Brett's mom is a nurse and can handle helping him with his foot. I, on the other hand, cannot!

This is how I like it to be kept - all covered up!

5 comments:

Courtney and Andrew said...

Thats disgusting! Thanks for the visuals! Get feeling better Brett!

VALERIE said...

That looks really gross. I can remember when Ema did that to her finger. Although Ema's wasn't that bad. It is a good thing that we have a mother in law that can handle the gross stuff.

Nicole and Lurlyn said...

oh man! That stinks! Poor Brett! His toe looks horrible and I can't believe I had the stomache to even look at your pictures... :P

Matt and Janae said...

Eww...that looks horribly painful! Poor Brett! I hope that he is doing better.

T said...

uggghhh... That's awful! Hope Brett is back on the mend soon!