Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • winter is still here, with freezing temperatures and snow causing headaches for millions of Americans.

  • And if you are using a snow blower to clear your property, we have a very serious danger alert.

  • Shoveling is back breaking work So many of us fire up snow blowers to get the job done.

  • But every winter, thousands of people end up in the e.

  • R.

  • From snow blower injuries like these, being a little impatient reached in to clear the snow, and that's when it hit me.

  • Murray Daniel's right hand was mangled in a terrible snowblower accident.

  • His wife called 911 Yes, I have an emergency.

  • He has his fingers chewed off by a snowblower, a partial amputation quite mangled up.

  • Daniel says he released the controls that make the blades spin, but the machine was still on Idol.

  • It must have been some built up tension in the machine, and it took off the ends of my three middle fingers.

  • Oh, wow.

  • So right above the knuckle right above the knuckles, Jason Butler says the same thing happened to him on a machine similar to this one.

  • I just reached in and I reached down too far I heard my finger snap.

  • It was literally sounded almost like a shot.

  • Two of his fingertips were ripped right off.

  • So why did these gruesome injuries keep happening year after year?

  • Conway, New Hampshire Fire Department Chief Steve Solomon says most injuries occur when the discharge chute gets clogged with heavy snow or ice.

  • All right, be ready.

  • Using these plastic mannequin hands, Chief Solomon agreed to show us what can happen sometimes when people mistakenly try to clear a clog shoes.

  • So let's take a look.

  • What happened.

  • Oh, wow.

  • I think the only finger that would have survived this would have been the thumb.

  • The thumb?

  • Yeah, that's scary.

  • You should never put your hand in the snow lower.

  • And this is why.

  • So what should you do?

  • If it does get clogged, you're gonna have to clear it.

  • Don't do the machine running and use a stick, a broom handle or a small shovel to clear it.

  • And then when you restart it, it'll be able to throw it out every time it snows.

  • Were worried that we're gonna see snowball related injuries.

  • Doctor Ryan Cats, a plastic surgeon at the Curtis National Hand Center at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore saved what was left of Jason Butler's hand.

  • And how's your motion there?

  • Let's see.

  • It's good, it's you make a full, tight fist.

  • Good straight.

  • Now, don't ever put your hand in a snow blower, and that seems logical, but you might feel compelled to do it when the machine clogs up.

  • Butler, an I T professional for Maryland, had to relearn how to type with only eight fingers.

  • As for Murray Daniels, a retired pilot and engineer with the Passion for the Piano, the injury was especially devastating in the emergency room.

  • I kept telling the doctors and nurses, I fake piano, Please save my hand Whatever you could do.

  • Daniels is grateful that the doctors at Brigham and Women's Hospital outside Boston were able to salvage his hand pushes on and it sticks on stays on by section.

  • With the help of thes three prosthetics and lots of rehab, he's finally back, tickling the ivory's.

  • If I can get one person to not do this stupid thing that I did, then all this is worth it.

  • Snowblower manufacturers pose clear warnings to keep hands and feet away from all moving parts, experts say, even after you turn off the engine, don't use your hands to clear a clog because the blades can still make a final turn and cause injury.

winter is still here, with freezing temperatures and snow causing headaches for millions of Americans.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it