Nicholas’ Finger

Nicholas was work­ing at a demo­li­tion site here in town. He was vol­un­teer­ing because it’s a church prop­erty get­ting set for ren­o­va­tion. He was knock­ing down a brick wall with a ham­mer, and appar­ently they weren’t giv­ing their vol­un­teers any pro­tec­tive gear to use. A brick exploded and hit his bare hand.

His right index fin­ger has been shred­ded. It’s impos­si­ble to tell how deep it really was until we hear back from the doc­tor. Thomas and I think it must have been pretty bad because when we talked to Nicholas he was shak­ing but was clear-headed and in no pain. He could move his fin­gers but didn’t feel any­thing. I don’t see how you can not be expe­ri­enc­ing shock and be in a pretty bad state if you don’t feel this.

What amazes me most, though, is that who­ever it was who brought Nic back home just left him at our front gate. The car was gone so they had no way of know­ing whether we were even home. They had this teenager injured due to their neg­li­gence… and he was left at our house with­out even speak­ing to my mother. Luckily Dad wasn’t too far away so he was able to rush home and pick up Nic and Mom to go to the hos­pi­tal. Dad arrived just in time, because Nic had been here for about fif­teen min­utes and the bleed­ing was start­ing to increase again. His shak­ing was get­ting worse. Ridiculous.

Anyway. He’s off get­ting shards of brick washed out of his fin­ger and get­ting stitched up. Assuming he comes back with the whole finger.

Graphic pho­tos follow.