I just found out that automatic door closers don't care if your fingers are in the way or not....and that door IS going to keep closing.

I think it's just bruising under my fingernails, but boy this hurts.

When I'm scrambling up in the Sierra nowadays, all I'm worried about is injuring my hands or fingers.

Oh that sounds painful. I hope you don't lose your fingernails. With any luck it will become less sore in a day or two. Can you play the piano at all or does the pressure of hitting the keys hurt too much?

That hurts! I lost my entire big toenail as a kid. My mom opened the door and the bottom caught the nail. Took that sucker right off!

(Not even going to dare to read this........)

Looks like it'll just be sore and bruised. My daughter has an automatic door closer on her bedroom door - our Boston Terrier took to targeting her stuffed animals, and it worked fairly well as a solution....but I had my hand on the door jamb saying good night to my son, while she went into her room......and as the door closed, I couldn't get my other hand around to push it back open....and I yelped a lot until I could get the words out for her to open the door.....I can type OK, but I'm going to wait on the piano until tomorrow, at least.

Made a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach :\

My sympathies -

Cathy

You have my sympathies too! I burned my finger today and it still hurts. Luckily, it's not at the tip of my finger so I should still be able to play fine.

Great to hear that it's not too bad -- and sounds like it'll be fine pretty soon.

I think that things like this happen because we're not always very good at doing two things at once, or doing something while our mind is on something else, or .......something like that.

Here's the way to prevent that: Never do anything.

Oh........we're supposed to play with fingertips?
I just sort of lay the fingers on the keys like paddles, and come what may.

Actually I don't, but I've seen ladies with long nails try to play like that.....

hehe A friend told me that they had seen a piano teacher with long painted nails having a lesson from her mentor, whose nails were short. Perhaps she taught only a little.

Had a 5yo student today with an injured knee - severely limited out rhythm work. Bother! At least he could still play with his fingers.

OUCH! ..*Get well soon*

OUCH indeed. Best wishes for speedy healing.

Ouch!!

I've lost more big toe nails than I'd like to remember!!

How's it feeling today??

I slammed my middle finger in the door of a Chrysler New Yorker when I was a teenager. Yikes! I still can't believe it didn't break. But it was fine after the bruising healed.

I also jammed a finger when playing volleyball around the same time, which has made me avoid sports involving balls (no comments, please) ever since.

Several years ago I almost lost my index finger on my left hand due to a close encounter with a commercial A/C condenser fan blade. I was in the hospital for three days and had surgery on my finger to try to save it. The orthopedic surgeon did a good job salvaging my almost severed finger.

To tell you the truth, that is sort of what prompted my interest in the piano. The injury actually did cause some impairment in regards to playing my stringed instruments, which I had played most all my life. My finger injury doesn’t seem to impair my piano playing. Just a general lack of playing ability does that .

Take care of those precious musical fingers!!

Rick

Wow -- look what you started!
We're getting a compendium (I think that's the right word) of scary and horrible hand and finger mishaps.

I've got one about a hand injury that didn't happen. I was hurrying around Manhattan (running, literally sprinting between one location and another for a tax audit and they kept sending me to a different building), wearing my "dress shoes," and I guess I hit a bump and FLEW into the air.
Literally flew.

I had enough time to sort of think of how I would land. And I 'decided' to spare my hands (we're pianists, right?) and break my fall with my FACE.
Bad move.
From then on, I break my fall with my hands, pianist or no pianist.

Fortunately, today it's not as bad as I thought it would be...there's some bruising under the fingernail, but it's #3 and #4, while #2 seems to be OK. Little tender, but I could play this morning with only a little tenderness. Lucky for me - it could have been a lot worse.

Whew! That's good news.


Cathy

Piano Again - for just a split second I wondered if the Chrysler New Yorker might have broken

I have a trick finger from jamming it, too, but recently I've been playing a lot of octaves in my right hand (the hand with the trick finger) and it seems to have helped. Will wonders never cease.

Cathy

Yes -- I'm no doctor (actually I am but the wrong kind) but it sounds like you'll be 100% very soon, considering that it's so soon after the injury and you're already this good.

I noticed that interesting ambiguity too.

When I was ~ 6yrs old the door on a Chevy Caprice slammed closed on all 4 fingers of one hand. I was certain that when my dad opened the door I would see my amputated fingers fall to the ground. Surprisingly nothing was broke, but my fingers were purple, and then went thru all sorts of other colors for several weeks.

You're saying I have an unclear antecedent? I'm shocked.

Yep, I'm pretty lucky. As much as it hurt last night, I'm doing pretty well today....makes me wonder just how much of a wimp I am....I did a lot of yelping while it was happening....

Glad you're okay. I reinjured a previously broken pinkie finger on my right hand yesterday. I don't think it is broken this time, but it is painful. The finger grew back slightly crooked after the original football injury many years ago. It gives me a slightly wider reach, I suppose, since it points outward slightly.

OK, let's see.......what makes of car so far:

Chrysler New Yorker
Chevy Caprice

Let's see how many others we can get on here......

Precisely -- unclear antecedent.
I'm "shocked, shocked" that someone who knows "unclear antecedent" would ever have an unclear antecedent.

I think the two are unrelated. There is virtually no correlation between appropriate amount of yelping and actual damage.

OK, I can add one more myself.

One time I was driving in my Acura Legend from New York all the way up to a piano dealer up in Connecticut or Massachusetts or someplace like that (in view of the rest of the story I forgot any such stupid details) because they were having some stupid "sale" or whatever and got a flat tire. So, even though I didn't really know how to work the very strange jack that came with the car .....since I was in a hurry (to get there before all the good deals got bought up) and also because I'm an idiot, I tried to change the tire myself.
The jack slipped.
The car's chassis came down -- on 4 of my fingers.

Nothing happened. But I shook for the rest of the day over what could have happened.

Glad you're doing ok kokomo. Hope you're feeling better soon too TX-dennis. I broke my pinky on my right hand several years ago during a close encounter with a tree while mountain biking. It was before I started playing piano again and it is now crooked. It turns slightly toward my ring finger so it slightly reduces my reach.

Shortly after I began piano lessons last year I was opening a double hung window sash and managed to squish three fingers on each hand between the sash frame I was holding and the muntins of the other sash. Ouch. To make matters worse, I did it a second time opening the other window in the same room. We had only recently moved into the house. Several days of very sore fingertips. Haven't made that mistake again!

Before my mom replaced the ropes on their old windows she kept telling my brother not to mess around in the window, it could fall you'll get hurt, etc...so he was messing around in the window anyway and it shut on his hand, broke two fingers and...wouldn't open! So he's stuck in the window, broken fingers, banging on the window and waving at my mom in the back yard (with other hand, of course) and she looks up as she's mowing the lawn and waves at him and keeps on going because she can't hear him yelping in pain. A few minutes later when she realizes he's still in the window she finally goes in to see what's going on. She almost couldn't get the window open herself and was worried she would have to call the fire department or take the window apart to get him out.

Well I just opened this thread to see what it was about and nearly passed out! Yet I couldn't stop reading, you know, like an animal that just stares at the approaching headlights...

Hope those fingers mend quickly, kokomo!

Actually, I'm doing much better today (I must have really been a wimp...) I have red marks behind the nails, but other than some tenderness, I'm doing fine (now).

Thanks to everyone for the concern.....It helps heal the injured pride....

I think I'd rather injure my pride than my fingers - but in any case I'm glad that both are on the mend.

this thread's been an interesting read kokomo! Glad your injury was not as bad as some of these.

Someome broke my pinky once, being too rough in a sporting endeavour. I didnt know it was broken but it mended a bit crooked at the joint so I guessed. Bit disappointed not to get enough sympathy or a trip to the doctor at the time. My handwriting became unreadable for years as i got into the habit of sticking my pinky out of the way while taking lots of fast lecture notes. My music didn't suffer at all (I wasnt playing any!).

A friend of mine, also a pianist, had his pinky broken recently when he got hit by a car, and his pinky also mended 'crooked at the joint' -- it sort of sticks out.
He says (without sarcasm) that it helps his playing because he can now stretch an extra note.

....and unfortunately now I've got another one to add.
(Smilie because it's not terrible.)

Playing softball this A.M......playing center field, line drive comes out there, sun in my eyes, I'm totally skewed up, and my bare hand gets in the way when I'm trying to make the catch.
Bad bruise of middle finger. Fortunately I don't 'have to' play piano any time soon.

P.S. Made the catch so it was worth it.

I recently came home and wanted to shut the door, but I was very upset (for personal reasons), so I banged it on my finger... I know this sounds plain stupid with a normal door, but being upset can sort of mar your perception.... It DOES hurt!!

Very impressive "self-analysis" there.