I have been cutting cord-wood for home heating for about thirty years. Never had a problem. Never got hurt. Never hurt anybody.

A friend of mine makes his living cutting down trees, and he delivers about ten cords of tree-length logs to my pasture every two years. I pay him a couple of hundred dollars for them. (These ten cords heat my house for two years.)

I have a marvelous, 30-year-old, industrial-strength Husqvarna chainsaw, that has served me well over the years. The chain-brake no longer works on it, one of the vibration-dampening mounts is busted, and it takes a few pulls on the cord to get the thing going, but, once it gets started, it rips through wood like a streaker running across right field in Fenway Park.

Every year, when I’m finished cutting, I drop the saw off at Walt’s Power Equipment in Hebron, CT, and every year, Walt works his magic on the machine and informs me that he’s not sure how much longer the old boy is going to last. I always tell him, “Walt, the day that you cannot get the thing running for me is the day I by a new one.  Until then…”

I’m kind of partial to the old saw.  We’ve been through a lot together. You might say that I have developed an affection for it…until last Sunday when the thing almost killed me…literally.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day last Sunday, and I was working on the woodpile in the pasture. Mindlessly cutting wood. Sending chips flying in all directions. Marvelling at how well my new sound-dampening ear protectors were working. 

After about a dozen cuts into the pile, I dropped the saw to my side, and stepped back to figure out where to cut next. 

When I lifted up the saw to cut again, I was surprised to see that the blade was discolored. Upon closer examination, I saw that the thing was covered with blood and denim. Perplexed, I looked down at my jeans, and discovered that my left pant leg had a ragged rip in it, and blood was oozing out of it.

I was, at first, incredulous. What the hell happened? I felt no pain whatsoever.

None.

There was no blood spurting out into the air. There was just blood around the tear in the pants. I must have just nicked myself. 

So I put the saw down and explored the tear.  What I saw scared the living hell out of me.  The muscle in my leg just above my kneecap had been laid open. The cut was deep and long, and the meat was just jaggedly hanging there in two shredded strips, creating two puckered, bloody lips.

At that point, panic set in, and I began running across the pasture towards the barn, where Mary was working in the horse stalls.

When she heard me scream out her name, she immediately knew what had happened. She flew out of the barn, and shouted, “Should I call 9-1-1?” I was too panicked to hear her, but, when she saw that I was running, she decided against the phone call. Instead, she ran to the house, grabbed a towel, and then came running back to me.

I wrapped the towel around my upper thigh as a tourniquet, and hobbled to the car. 

Mary hopped in behind the wheel, and calmly drove me to the Windham Hospital ER.

Of course, we hit every traffic light, and got behind every slow, Sunday driver along the way.

When we got the ER, she dropped me off at the curb, and then drove off to park the car.

Now, if you ever want to go to the head of the line in an ER, just mention the word “chainsaw.” It works like a charm.

As I hopped through the automatic doors of the hospital, the security guard looked up from his desk.

“Chainsaw cut,” I said with surprising calmness.

Everybody wearing scrubs in the place jumped into action.  Within thirty seconds, I was in a wheelchair being rushed to a private room.  I immediately had two nurses and a doctor hanging over me.

Up until this point, I had experienced no pain whatsoever.

The doctor’s name was Elizabeth Walsh, and she was excellent. She looked at the wound and said something like, “I’ve got to poke at this a little. I’m sorry.” Then, very gently, she pushed the flesh around so that she could see into the deep cut.

It didn’t hurt.

Then she went in with a warm saline solution to cleanse the wound. The warmth actually felt good. 

Next, she said that she wanted a couple of X-rays taken to make sure that I hadn’t nicked a bone. (If bone was involved, there was more of a chance for a severe infection.)

Within five minutes, I was lying on the gurney and being wheeled down to an X-ray room.  They took three shots, and I was back in the original room with Mary within five minutes.

After examining the X-rays on her computer, Dr. Walsh came back and announced that it was a clean cut. I had not hit an artery, a tendon or any bone.

She said that if I had severed the patella tendon, they would have had to go in fishing around for it.  Tendons are like rubber bands under tension. If the patella was severed, it would have recoiled up to my hip and down past my knee. If that had happened, My leg would have been useless because I would not have been able to bend my knee.  The doctors would then have to go in through the wound and find the ends of the tendon, pull them back, and then tie them together again.  (The mere thought of it almost made me vomit.)

She smiled and said, “Believe it or not, it’s a good cut.”

I looked at her and said, “If it were on your leg, it would be a good cut!”

We both laughed. 

Then she pulled out a syringe and said, “I’m going to give you a tetanus shot.”

Since I am left-handed, she gave me shot in my right arm.  “This is going to pinch a little,” she said with a sympathetic grimace. 

It didn’t.

“You’re arm is going to be sore tomorrow.”

It wasn’t.

So far, so good, I thought to myself. I have yet to experience any pain whatsoever!

Then, Dr. Walsh pulled out a hypodermic needle that was about the size of a medium-sized horse’s leg.  It was filled with Lidocaine, a pain-killer.

She told me that she was going to inject the stuff directly into the wound in order to numb area before the stitches went in.  She told me it was going to pinch a little.

It didn’t.

It pinched a lot! A WHOLE FUCKING LOT!

It felt like somebody had stuck a white-hot stiletto into my leg.  My entire body went rigid. My back arched. My mouth opened wordlessly.  My hands involuntarily clawed at the air.

When she pulled the needle back out, I immediately flopped back down onto the gurney, as limp as a dead fish.  My breath was coming hard, and perspiration had broken out on my forehead.

“Hang on,” she said.  “I’ve got to go in again!”

She had to stick the damned thing into the wound five more times.  Each time was just a painful as the time before. The pain was so great that Mary had to turn away because watching me in agony made her sick to her stomach.

When that ordeal was finally over, the doctor profusely and sincerely apologized for the pain that she put me through.  I actually had to console her by saying something like, “It’s okay. I know that you had to do it. You are taking good care of me.”

We then had to wait for the numbness to set in.  When that happened, Dr. Walsh took out a pair or surgical shears and began trimming away the excess, shredded flesh that surrounded the wound.  I watched with fascination and absolutely no discomfort whatsoever.

Next came the stitches.  She asked me if I wanted six or twelve stitches. She explained that 12 stitches would leave less of a scar.  So that is what I opted for.

Then, she took out the small, curved needle, threaded with nylon suture, and stuck it into the flesh around the wound.

The pain was absolutely amazing.  I let out an involuntary shout, and my whole leg went into spasm.

“I’m so sorry!” Dr. Walsh said. “Would you like some more Lidocaine?”

“No,” I replied breathlessly. “But let’s make it only six stitches, okay?”

When that ordeal was over, Dr. Walsh gave me three prescriptions: one for the painkiller Oxycodone, one for an antibiotic, and one for Kevlar pants. (The third one was, of course, a joke. But she told me that they really existed, and that I should buy myself a pair.)

It is now five days since the accident.  The swelling in my leg is beginning to subside. (My knee swelled up like a softball.) And I’ve gotten to the point where I can bend the knee and actually put on my shoes and socks by myself.

So far, I have taken four of the Oxycodone pills, and I have no desire to take any more. They work wonders for pain, but the pain is bearable now without them, and these things are incredibly addictive.

The body is slowly healing itself.  I can feel myself getting better bit by bit every day. 

I am completely amazed at how one spilt second of inattentiveness can have such consequences! We are truly fragile creatures, and life is extremely tenuous. 

If I had cut through an artery, last Sunday could have very easily been my last day of life. I could have just bled out in that pasture right next to my woodpile and running chainsaw.

Thank God for Mary Ellen! She was a rock. She was the level-headed one through the whole ordeal.  She grabbed the tourniquet. She drove me to hospital. She was the one who put up with all of my pain and complaining during days immediately following the accident, never once complaining herself.

She did not break down at all until she saw beyond a doubt that I was going to be all right. Only at that point did she allow herself to feel anything, and she was hit with a migraine headache from the stress. It was only then that she let on to me how frightened she had been that I was not going make it.

That lady is nothing short of amazing.

I am a truly lucky and grateful man.