My mother began the conversation with “your father had a little accident.” All the normal worries spun around—possible heart attack, car accident, or even death itself. The tone of my mother’s voice held a failed attempt at sounding calm for my sake. But then I relaxed knowing that nothing really serious could happen to dear old dad because, after all, he’s the toughest guy I know. He’s fallen off the roof, been though a war, and I even line drived him in the family jewels one summer playing softball. So what could possibly happen?

“Your father cut off some of his fingers” my mother continued.

This is the kind of thing to watch out for if you end up living in a foreign country. Expect odd news from home. So the story goes…

On Good Friday my father was putsing around the cellar cleaning up some old sawdust. He turned on the table saw so he could use the attached vacuum. A momentary lapse of memory (a senior moment?) caused his hand to run straight into the saw. Table saws aren’t forgiving. They grab and bite down. There is no clean cut.

But it happened so fast that all my dad saw was a mangled hand. He ran upstairs and started to towel off the blood. “Then I noticed that my finger was missing.” Hmmm…

Apparently the human body has a defense mechanism that prevents profuse pain when appendages detach. So my dad wrapped a towel and a 10 gallon zip lock bag around his wounded hand. He went back downstairs and started to get worried that the vacuum had sucked up his finger. He was just about to dig through the sawdust when he spotted the finger by his foot.

Working in a hospital lab for 25 years taught my dad a thing or two about medical procedures. He wrapped his pinky in a wet paper towel and put it next to the rest of his hand. “Those zip lock bags really come in handy for a number of different uses.” Spoken like an expert. I wouldn’t be surprised if zip lock uses his story for their next commercial.

Then my dad grabbed his keys and wallet and ran out the door. “Time was of the essence.” And of course there was no car in the driveway as my sister was borrowing his truck. So, what do you do when you’re all alone with missing fingers, bleeding in the driveway with no ride?

My dad jogged over to his only neighbor whose car never fails to sit in the driveway. The neighbor hasn’t driven it in years but keeps it maintained.

My dad knocked on the door and attempted to hide his hand. “Hello Lilly,” he began. “I had an accident with my hand. (trying to downplay the situation) Can I borrow your car?”

Lilly, being the kindhearted neighbor, didn’t even ask a question. She handed him her keys and they parted without a word.

Once my dad got to the ER he was told to wait in the hallway for a few minutes (probably to get a room prepared). Shock was starting to wear off with weakness taking its place. The ten gallon bag was filling with blood. He noticed a desk nearby and leaned on it. What he didn’t notice was the pot bellied security guard behind the desk munching on a donut.

“Hey you,” said the guard. “You can’t sit here.”

My dad explained his missing finger and that he was either going to lean on the desk or fall on the floor.

The guard pointed down the hall. “There are some chairs around the corner.”

There’s a lot to be said for bedside manner. Or shall we say desk-side manner?

After successfully ignoring the guard, my dad was whisked away to a private room. The nurses started unwrapping his towels to assess the damage. One nurse said, “Well, you only have four fingers here. Three on your hand and one in the bag.”

My dad started to get nervous. He pleaded, “My ring finger is hanging on by a thread.”

“Nope,” said the nurse. “It’s not here.”

My dad’s voice became urgent. “The ambulance is going to have to swing by my house on the way to Presbyterian Hospital to pick up my other finger.”

The nurse paused. “I don’t know if we can do that…oh, wait. Here it is.”

His ring finger was still hanging on by a thread but nestled in the palm of his hand.

Six hours later, after a helicopter ride to Presbyterian Hospital, my dad underwent an eight hour surgery. The surgeon called it a “super-bowl of all hand surgeries.”

Three days after the “accident,” my dad’s fingers are pink and circulating blood. They are still monitoring him in the hospital but he should be home in a few days.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for him.