So I was planing barefoot last night...

[FS7]

..and I ended up dropping an eight foot Goncalo Alves board, probably 8-9" wide, on the top of my foot. Both feet, actually, though the left took it a lot harder.

That hurt. Stupid should hurt, and that was stupid. I think I've managed to avoid anything serious, but it did take a few layers of thin skin off the top of my foot. I'm sure it'll be Neosporin and bandages for a few weeks, but thankfully the bone seems to be OK.

This reminds me of the time that I wanted to quickly cut one more hole in cornhole boards before bed. The hole saw skipped, and 1.5 toenails disappeared. Last night, I just wanted to see what the grain looked like.

As it turns out, the board is pretty plain. Sigh...

[Bill Holt]

IMHO "barefoot" in the shop is as smart as barefoot mowing the yard.  But I have to admit, my shop shoes would only protect the skin in case of falling board.

Confession is the beginning.  Hopefully you have learned a valuable lesson.

I'm glade nothing is broken and hopefully the foot will heal quickly and will not hold a grudge!

[jteneyck]

So this is the second time you've gotten hurt woodworking while barefooted?  

John

[Cdshakes]

So this is the second time you've gotten hurt woodworking while barefooted?  

John

Third time's a charm? 




Colin

[Cooler]

I was a bouncer in a bar years gone by.  We did not allow anyone in wearing flip-flops.  

If you step on broken glass wearing flip-flops you will end up being cut worse than if you were barefoot.  The flip-flop captures the piece of glass and makes it move around and cause more damage.  

I stepped on a nail protruding from a piece of moulding I had just ripped off.  I was wearing Nikes.  Luckily it did not break the skin.   But running shoes are worthless in the shop.  I doubt they would have protected you to any degree.  Either from impact from above or penetration from below.  

A girl fiend off mine was an Olympic alternate (figure skating) and later a skating instructor.  One of her students did a vertical jump and accidentally planted her following foot on top of her landing foot.  The skate blade sliced right through the leather and through about half of the tiny bones in her foot.  It was over a year of recuperation after the surgery.

A Kevlar spat would have prevented that injury.  I wrote to several skate manufacturers but none were interested in providing that as an option.  I learned that this was not a freak accident.  There were one or two a year.

Steel toe shoes would protect your toes, but not your instep.  You need to modify a canine Elizabethan collar to fit your ankle.

[FS7]

Yes, it's the second time. For a smart guy sometimes I'm pretty dumb.

My initial concern was about the impact. I know foot bones are particularly fragile, and I did break one snowboarding once (Jones fracture, which took months to heal). This was the midfoot (instep) and while the bone structure seems thicker I wasn't sure. I knew from the first time that foot fractures don't appear right away - I stopped abruptly about halfway down the slope trying to avoid a child, which I went around, but then I saw another even smaller child and I had no choice but to stop hard. That twisted my foot in an odd way, and the fifth metatarsal broke. After feeling sorry for myself for a few minutes (knowing something was wrong) I eventually finished boarding down the slope and then walked with a slight limp all the way back to the lodge (about a half mile). It wasn't until after a few hours of sleeping that I realized I couldn't put any weight on it. I wouldn't really know how this one turned out until this morning.

It wasn't clear last night how much was damage to the skin and how much to the bone. I cleaned and dressed it (it looked like a minor avulsion). This morning and today, weight bearing is pretty much fine, but the wound is still wet. I think I was saved by the fact that it was the rough edge of the lumber, so the surface area of the impact was distributed rather than a single point (or a line) which might have been way worse. Tennis shoes would generally do very little to prevent punctures (I know this from experience), but they would help prevent skin damage. The bone might still be bruised (I am sure it is today) but I wouldn't have layers of skin sheared off.

Sometimes it helps admitting you've done something really dumb. It will make me feel better to keep an old pair of shoes in the shop, but that's not really going to help much in this case. There are steel tongue work boots available, which might be worthwhile to prevent this in the future.

[FS7]

https://www.amazon.com/Impacto-Guard-Met...lp_pl_dp_2

Took a bit of searching but I think combined with regular old shoes would go a long way towards being safer.

[MKepke]

<snip>
 But running shoes are worthless in the shop.  I doubt they would have protected you to any degree.  Either from impact from above or penetration from below.  
<snip>

I'm going to disagree.

Running shoes - or other modest closed toed shoes - won't protect against all injuries but they will protect against many common shop injuries like stubbed toes, scrapes, slivers and dropped chisels.

Yes, I have personally (and intentionally) checked that a normal pair of leather sneakers will stop a 1" bench chisel dropped from bench height, blade first.

This incident can be considered a freak accident - as almost none of us have such a board of Goncalo Alves in our shops. But in the interests of science, I will volunteer to drop a big**s board of red oak on FS7's feet to see if we can reproduce the result - or if he wises up and wears boots. :-)

-Mark

[Cooler]

My  logger boots would offer a good bit of protection.  I never wear them in the shop.  I mostly worry about fingers and eyes.  I'm betting that is a consensus among wood workers.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001WL...UTF8&psc=1

[FS7]

My  logger boots would offer a good bit of protection.  I never wear them in the shop.  I mostly worry about fingers and eyes.  I'm betting that is a consensus among wood workers.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001WL...UTF8&psc=1

My snake boots would work as well, but there's almost no way I'd wear those regularly in the shop. I think those plastic things on top of tennis shoes is the best option in terms of what you'd actually wear. This is for a hobbyist's home shop - if you're working in a shop full time or have defined blocks, then yes, you can dress appropriately.

Dropping large, heavy boards is unusual, but there are plenty of large, heavy boards that many of us have. Birch, hickory, white oak, red oak, bubinga...off the top of my head there are a bunch of really heavy boards that many of us have. It's harder in the middle of planing too - I am wearing gloves that get less grippy because of the sawdust and the surface of the board itself is much slicker. Depending on how you carry it (in this case, I set it on the infeed table and it slipped off) it isn't hard to see how it could happen.

Yes, we worry about fingers and eyes, but chisels, screwdrivers, planes, both sharp and heavy or blunt things can fall on our feet. Many times I have dropped something and moved my foot away in time, but if I didn't I would worry about it.