Years ago I worked at a fabrication shop. They had a 10 foot manual bending brake, which is a big tool for bending sheet metal. The jaws on that dude were solid steel and probably a couple inches thick.

I had both my hands up to my knuckles in between the jaws and was lining the sheet metal up with the edge of the brake. I didn’t realize that the person before me had loosened the jaws up to bend some real thick stuff. When the jaws were loose, they would open and close really easily. Sometimes even falling closed on their own.

It felt like it happened in slow motion. I watched the handle that opens and closes the jaws suddenly swing forward and the upper jaw clamped down on all my fingers. It didn’t hurt but I was stuck. I hollered for help but no one else could hear me over some of the other machines running.

A few seconds later, one of the other guys turned around and saw me, he ran over and opened the jaws back up.That’s when the pain set in. Holy hell did it hurt. I think must have jumped around, shook my hands out, cried, and yelled a few sentences filled with four letter words until the throbbing was even remotely bearable.

Somehow, miraculously, I didn’t lose any fingers. I didn’t even break any of them. But they were all black and blue for a good week and a half after that.

I should have been smart enough to know not to stick my fingers in that thing. I wasn’t. But I sure as shit never did it again.