Decent flapper (pics)

I thought I'd share these with you guys. Seemed like a good way to start ones St. Patrick's day.

I was climbing up BCC (utah) with a friend, and trying to avoid the four feet of snow at the start of the climb, I stemmed up between the wall and a tree. I slipped on my way up and instead of harmlessly falling into the snow on the ground I tried to grab on to the tree and stop my decent. A small peace of wood (about the size of a quarter) decided to bury itself in my hand.

Right after I pulled the wood out of my hand (most of it anyways) and heading to the hospital
Anyways should have taken a better photo, but it was neat in a anatomical sense; I got to see how all those cables in the back of you hand move...

here it is with the rest of the wood removed and 8 sutures.
There was a long and boring two weeks of nothing but cardio, and then I got to get the stitches out.

stitches out, and hand taped together

And now after three weeks, I'm getting so close to being back on the wall.

so close to being done healing! Can't wait to get my palm read.

To give this post some semblance of a point, I'll mention two things that I learned from this experience.
The most important thing is to think through what your doing; and what your way down is gonna be like if you fall, if I had simply just let go I would have been fine, but I just had to keep my feet dry, and thus poked a hole in my hand.
And secondly, my insurance covered their portion of the hospital bill with no problems (i have Select health btw). That includes an initial ER vist and 2 follow-ups. Totaling around 2080, of which I'm responsible for 750$
And just a side note, I really didn't want to go to the ER; I actually stopped by two different places to see if they would stitch up my hand before going to the ER, but neither would because of the exposed tendons.

Happy St. Patty's day everyone

Damn dude, I think we might be starting this post off with the worst of the worst. That is a gnarly tear, best of luck in the near future when ya get back to it. I grabbed a tree branch in a catch a few years ago and jammed a thorn through the palm into the back of my hand, bible style. Got super lucky, no fragments on the xrays and went in between bones and tendons, only soft tissue puncture. Sore as hell for a few months though, crimp holds were ok but sloper or jug with more pressure in the palm was tender.

Wow. I dig the nonchalance with which you present this - especially after the catchy title. Best of luck with your recovery Paul. Then get back and sew that route up!