Written 8-14-2001, Happened October, 2000
Oh boy, what did that guy do to his finger?? Whelllllll.... I was working
on putting a new power supply in my one of my Mom's school's computers.
The old one had stopped working and I was installing a replacement
standard AT power supply. I had the old one out and the new one in, but
not screwed in. I powered the machine on to make sure that it was wired
up correctly. It worked! So, I went to go unplug the power supply so
that I could finish securing it. The machine was an old AT case, so the
power supply fit into a kind of frame. As I went to unplug the power
cord with my left hand, my right hand touched the AT switch contacts.
Closed circuit. My right hand contracted around the switch assembly and
my left hand contracted around the power supply frame area, which
happened to have a sharp, square edge. 120V hand, to hand, right through
the chest. I yelled "HELP" and got up from the chair I was sitting
in. I ran until I hit the end of the power cord (not very far) when I dropped
the computer. I was very glad to be OK at this point. I was even happier
that my hand wasn't hurt. What I didn't realize was that it just hadn't
started bleeding yet.
My mom, who saw the whole thing, was justifiably worried. I got some
brown paper towels and wrapped my left ring and middle fingers up. It was
while I was putting these on that I realized I was going to need stitches.
I went back over to by the computer and sat down in a little chair (it is
a third grade classroom), getting a grip for a minute. While sitting down, I started to
feel really light headed. I hadn't had any breakfast or lunch and it was
about 1:00PM. I felt like I was going to pass out enough that I laid down
on the floor and put my feet up on one of the little chairs (this is what
they tell you to do to avoid shock). While I was doing this, I was trying
to convince my mom that she didn't need to call 911 (I felt stupid
enough already). I don't know how smart this was, but it turned out
all right. I wanted to drive myself to the hospital, but my mom intelligently insisted and drove me. On the way to the hospital, we called my dad (my parents are divorced) who was in the area of the hospital and beat us there.
When I got to the emergency room, I was getting into a bad mood. I sat
down at a little booth to talk to the "I'm just here to make sure you have
insurance" nurse. The first question she asked was, "Is the bleeding
controlled?" My bad mood showed here as I politely asked her to
define "controlled" :)
They brought me into a little triage room and I think they took my blood
pressure. When I was in there, I was slumping in my chair on purpose as
much as I could, because I was feeling really faint again. I think that
the nurse (not the "controlled bleeding" one) noticed because she asked if
I needed a wheelchair. My 21-year-old ego surfaced as I told her that I
could walk just fine, even though I wasn't completely sure I could.
They brought me back into a good sized room of the ER, with a sliding
glass door and 3 beds. They hooked me up to a pulse-ox monitor (the
finger thingy), a respiration monitor, blood pressure taker (the
technical term), and a heart monitor. Watching ER a
week later, I realized that the stuff from ER was exactly the same as the
stuff I was hooked up to. The gadget was really cool and it kept me
occupied for the several hours that I spent there. I had fun watching the
yellow line for my respiration, and unplugging the heart monitor and
watching myself "flatline". The blood pressure thingy was cool too. I
had a cuff on my arm the whole time and it would inflate every
once-in-a-while to take a reading. I knew what the interval was at one
point, but I forget what it is now.
They gave me an echo-cardiogram (EKG?) to make sure that I didn't do any
damage to my heart. I also had to pee (piss,urinate, pick one which suits you)
in a container. When I asked they told me that muscle destruction (which
happens in bad electrocutions) causes muscle cells to rupture and release
protein into the bloodstream which is then filtered into urine. My lack
of eating or drinking anything all day, as well as my abundance of
adrenaline and nervousness made this an arduous task. But, I triumphed
over adversity! (Just in case you wanted to know. You read this far,
didn't you?)
Well, is that enough of my trip to the hospital? I got 10 or so stitches,
a good story, and some gross pictures. Sorry for giving you such a scare,
Mom.
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