Frank Boettcher wrote:
On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 01:02:05 GMT, "CW" wrote:

I don't believe it.

Nor do I. But at least it is more believable than the guy who was
posting on the Saw Stop thread that his wife was a surgeon that does a
thousand a year.

Keep in mind that some injuries require multiple operations to repair.

My neighbor, who lost two fingers to a table saw had one restored,
but after two years had it re-amputated as the previous operation(s)
were not adequately successful.


It doesn't correlate statistically with my experience as a maker of
saws in defense of personal injury claims and providing individuals as
technical experts in depositions.

I would think that only a small number of table saw
injuries result in a personal injury claim being filed,
if you mean lawsuits, more if you mean workman's
comp and still more if you include health insurance
claims. E.g. a home-user who removed his guard
is not likely to even consider suing.

Surgeon specialists can do a lot of work. When my
father had bypass surgery it was his surgeon's thrid
operation of the day, and it was only mid-afternoon.

I amskeptical of that number if if refers only to
table saw injuries. It is borderline believable that a
hand-surgery specialist would perform 1000 surgeries
per year for power saw (of all sorts) injuries. It is
entirely beleiveable that she would have a thousand
face-to-face, or face-to-hand visits for saw-injuries
if you include simple stiching, pre-surgical consultation,
and follow-up.

Suppose ahand-specialist performs an average of
five operations a day, five days a week, (allowing
two days for consultaion, doing rounds etc). That's
1250 operations a year. Unless she is a table-saw-
injury-hand-surgeon specialist that seems unrealistic.

The statistic that I do believe is ZERO tramatic
amputations or other injuries from contact with the
blade when using a guard.

Problems with poorly designed or utilized guards
can cause kick-back but it is pretty hard to imagine
one that brings a body-part into contact with the blade.

BTW, The Cleveland Clinic does research on animals
and so has some veterinarians on staff. For restoring
traumaticly amputated fingers, it was routine, and may
still be routine, for a verterinarian surgeon to assist
as he was _really_ expert at working on a small
scale.

--

FF