Mike Nub

November 4th, 1999. 12:30 A.M... It was your average graveyard shift at the factory where I worked, deep in the backwoods of Indiana. I worked in the raw rubber department of a company that made cabin seals for cars. The first of the machines I worked on transformed raw polymer, black carbon, and various filler chemicals into a 40 kg glob mixture, then sent it to the second machine where it was pressed into a ¼” sheet. That was the “B” mill, a 70 ton monster of a roller press. As the rubber passed in between the two lower rollers (set side by side and held in place by rows of massive springs), the mass was flattened under immense pressure. During this process, I frequently had to work around the rollers, having my fingertips only inches away from peril. I was in the middle of a batch when the crew went to break. As they all left, I told them I was just finishing up, because if I had left half a batch there unfinished, it would have solidified and become trash…I was being a good employee, or so I thought. As the last of the batch usually was fairly small, as it was with every other, I decided to re-mill it through the rollers, to use it all, saving the company probably just a few dollars, but an all important few it seemed. This time something went wrong. As I tossed the last of it back into the rollers, I hadn’t realized how soft the rubber had become, making it extremely sticky, thus my glove stuck to it. Before I could pull away, my fingers were already caught. The pain seemed like nothing compared to the horrifying thought of getting sucked through and slowly flatted. I pulled with all my might, trying to get out, but it was two late. All in the matter of a second or two, my fingers were crushed and stretched out about 18 inches, the fingertips bursting from the pressure as they exited the bottom side. As my glove got sucked through, it caught a bracelet I was wearing, and pulled it through as well. I guess it must have been a well made item of jewelry, cause instead of breaking, it simply pulled off, taking all the skin from my wrist down off with it. The term I heard my doctor call it was “degloving”. The tendons in my arm snapped, balling up around my elbow. The blood vessels all over my hand ripped apart. My mind exploded with the thoughts of dying this way, all the things I had never done and all the opportunities I had wasted. The scream that came out of my throat then is a sound that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. I managed to hit the e-stop through all of it; I am glad that it wasn’t broken, or I might not be here to tell this story. I was left there, alone, bleeding profusely and trapped. My only view sitting atop the side of the roller was my exposed hand. It didn’t seem real. This had not just happened to me. But there I was, and I couldn’t change it. Alarms went off all over the factory, and within minutes, I was surrounded by about 30 people, some in shock, some crying, some trying to figure out how to get me out of this machine. As this was not the first time this had happened (one of the guys on my crew was missing a couple of fingers himself), there was actually equipment set up for just such an occasion. By the time they had gotten the hydraulic wedges in there and separated the rollers, allowing me to slip free, 12 minutes had passed. It seemed more like an hour. As I was then free, and the anxiety of being trapped was slipping away, the pain washed over me like a wave of fire, consuming me. As the factory was out in the middle of nowhere, it was almost 4 hours before I arrived at the emergency room in Indianapolis. I could spend much more time talking about just that trip. The next day I woke up in my room, my hand replaced by a mound of gauze the size of my leg. I knew I had lost my fingers completely. The doctor filled me in on the rest, my thumb was half there, but had been ripped out of socket, and half the bones in my hand had been jumbled out of place. That’s when I was presented with the options. I could either have them take muscle out of my back, skin grafts off my thighs, and a big toe to give me a palm and thumb (which was only a 50% chance that it would heal correctly, and might leave me in pain for the rest of my life), or they could just amputate at the wrist. They gave me a few days to think about it, not that I really needed to think very hard on those two choices. I was out of the hospital in less than two weeks, my hand being replaced by phantom sensations and a stainless steel hook. I’ve since abandoned the hook, as well as any “hand” attachments that came with it. To this day, I still have those sensations, even though they fade more and more as time passes. I’ve never had too much grief either over the whole ordeal…guess it didn’t make much sense to. In actuality, it has in a lot of ways made me a more complete person, a stronger man, a better individual. I’ve learned how to be more outgoing, more thoughtful and more observant. Above all, I finally learned despite everything how to feel pride, something I could never grasp, even with two hands.