Run Sheet
01/02/17
I've heard my contemporaries talk about today's youth, and, I have to admit, I've said it a few times myself, that youth today isn't as "tough" as we were lo those many years ago.
Well I'm wrong.
I have no problem with that. I've been wrong before, and I'm sure I will be again. As a matter of fact I appreciate being proven wrong about stuff like that.
Tonight we got called out to an "industrial accident" The address we were given was a local supermarket. When I arrived I was hustled into the back room by a white-faced stockboy. In the back of the store I was presented with a 20 year old kid with his left hand caught in a meat grinder.
It was one of those machines that tenderizes rib eye steaks. (How do I know that? because the young fellow with three of his fingers mangled inside told me while we were working to get him out.) There were two rotating drums of blades. His hand was stuck fast inside.
He was in a fair bit of pain as you might imagine, but he wasn't whining or whimpering. He was dealing with it admirably. No fuss, but a very distinct desire to have his hand the hell out of there, right now please.
As my crew came in and we examined the machine, I conversed with him. Evidently he had rested his hand on top of the machine and accidentally bumped the "on" switch. before he realized what was happening his fingers were inside and he had shut off the machine. He was alone in the meat cutting section of the store, 60 or so feet from a phone he could call out on.
As so often happens in situations like this a person is faced with a situation with very few choices. His only immediate choice to alert his fellow workers lay in the phone. So he picked up the 60 lb. machine with his other hand and walked to the phone. Unfortunately, holding the machine in one hand, and having his other one jammed into it, he couldn't use the phone. So he walked another 50 or 60 feet to the back of the store and waited for a co-worker to come in through those big swinging doors you always see at the back of supermarkets. (As he explained to me, "I couldn't just walk into the store with my hand stuck in a meat grinder") The next employee through the swinging doors was met with this guy carrying the meat grinder, and, when shown what the problem was, promptly got all wobbly,and nearly fainted, but she got her shit together in a timely fashion and called the ambulance and the FD.
My partner and I looked the machine over for a couple of minutes and came to the same conclusion. It was made of cast aluminum, with steel rollers. It didn't take much effort to bust the aluminum to pieces and remove the heavy bladed rollers.
One roller came off his hand very easily, but the other one had a number of blades stuck tight in his fingers. The paramedics considered a number of things and decided that the thing to do was to pull his fingers out of the blades. The fingers were still in comparatively good shape (Still attached) so we doubted they would come off when we pulled.
I looked at the patient, he looked at me, he smiled, looking a bit pale, and said "Well, I guess there's no point waiting"
We both pulled at the same time. It took a pretty hard pull to do it. All he said as the blades pulled out of the bones in his fingers was to wince and hiss "JESUS! "
In a couple of minutes he was bandaged up and on his way to the hospital. We cleaned up most of the blood and went home.
I admired that kid, he's pretty damn tough. I've seen people hurt a whole lot less make academy award winning fusses. Not him, he got through it with a minimum of theatrics. He wasn't in shock either. He had a surprisingly steady pulse and respiration.
When we got back to the hall, we
stood around for a few minutes BSing about the call, then my partner Bob
said "I wonder what'll be on special in the meat department tomorrow?