re: Admitting our dangerous (and dumb) mistakes might help others.

I discovered that you should never get in a hurry in the shop. I was finishing up a project and had some 2" circles cut from 1/2" stock that I wanted to round over. With the router mounted in a table, thought it would be easy to do. Managed a couple before disaster struck. Was holding the piece down with a forefinger and turning the piece with the other hand. Of course, the wood flew out from under my finger and it went into the bit. I jerked back thinking geez that was close until I noticed the spray of blood on the wall. So an expensive trip the the ER and a finger with the nerves cut and a bit of bone missing. Didn’t make it back to the shop for a couple of days and then didn’t want to approach the router but still had a job to finish. Seeing dried blood and even a piece of my hide on the table sure didn’t make it easy to go back to work. Took a 1" dowel and put in 2 finish nails that I then ground to a point and used that to hold the circles and my hand was 12" away and worked great. Just goes to prove that you should think before you act.
They did tell me that in about 20 yrs I might get some feeling back in the tip of my finger.