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My wife bought a treadmill to start walking on for fitness. It's a nice big heavy thing... she did it up right!

When we brought it home she thought she wanted it in the master bedroom so she could walk and watch TV at the same time but 24 hours later she decided it was just too big to go with the decor so she asked me to help her move it upstairs to the spare bedroom.

This thing is heavy and it has wheels so you can move it around but to get it up the stairs we had to turn it on its side. I took the bottom end so I would be bearing most of the weight. She was on the top side guiding it up the stairs as I pushed from below.

After a few minutes we were reaching the 1/2 way point where there is a little landing and the stairs turn the other direction. As she lifted it over the last step I gave a good heave to push it up on to the landing and *SCREAM*!!!

She let out with a blood curdling scream... the kind of scream where everyone who hears it knows whatever caused it is bad.

I scrambled around the treadmill to find her toenail on her left big toe standing on end, attached only from the root.

She was freaking out and I told her to calm down and have a seat while I get everything we would need to go to the emergency room. She must have some kind of incredible tolerance for pain because beyond the initial scream she calmed down and didn't complain at all.

Right before we were about to depart for the hospital I remembered showmeyourwound.com and asked her if I could take a picture for the web site. She has seen the site too and agreed that its something we should document and share.

I give you... my wife's ripped toenail! (see attached image). That's her toenail, lifted up like a car hood. If you always wondered what was under a toenail... now you know.

We were at the hospital within 45 minutes of the injury and as usual, the waiting room was packed with all kinds of gimps and sickos. One guy had a very deep chainsaw wound on his forearm... was to the bone but I left the camera at home.

Because she was bleeding my wife qualified for "urgent care" and got to skip past most of the folks in the ER.

They took her vitals and asked a series of questions and then put her in a room in the wound care unit. This lady comes in and was asking a few questions and as she was talking she casually reaches down and grabs the toenail, wiggles it, and gives it a TUG! My wife yells at her and I damn near pass out. She apologized and said she wanted to see if it hurts when she does that. (See if it hurts!?!? WTF?)

She said the nail was hanging on by the root and it would need to be removed. She tried to get my wife to let her remove the toenail without anything for the pain. She said the numbing agent would burn a little. They also kicked me out at this point because they said I was lookin' a little green and they didn't want me to pass out. Jamie opted for the numbing stuff because she said she didn't think she could hold still without it.

Few minutes later she came hobbling out of wound care with a nice bandage on her toe. They sent her to get an X-ray just to check that nothing was broken.

Doctor said the nail would re-grow and showed her where it had actually grown a little since the injury. (wow... but I didn't get to see that)

After we left the hospital we went over to her parents and we all went out for Mexican food.

We'll get to change the dressing tomorrow evening and I'll take another picture for you.

I'm sending you the high resolution file. Scale it down or crop it if you need to for the web site. I thought your readers might enjoy the extra detail.

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Editor's Notes:

I have to say. I'm a little choked up reading your email. It started with my eyes watering from the picture, but then I read the part about how you remembered ShowMeYourWound before you went to the emergency room. That just warms the heart.

Okay, enough with the love fest. Rule #2 when moving things is -- wear shoes. Rule #1? Lift with your knees, of course.

I wear thick leather boots whenever I go out to do yard work. My father-in-law makes fun of me for it because he thinks I'm trying to be macho (and also because my yard looks like crap), but I figure when I eventually run my foot over with the lawnmower I might save a toe or two by having thicker shoes on. I was raised to prepare for the worst and frankly, my own abilities haven't convinced me that I should do anything other than that.

Also, running this site has me doing a lot of things differently. I've always worn my seatbelt all the time, but now I wear it more than all the time. I don't put my feet up on the dashboard, and I don't cook without shoes anymore. Actually, I pretty much just sit at home and check my email, so keep sending in those wounds!

Sharky

Photos:
Under the hood- under a toenail is....blood apparently