Bart Gibby’s Hands – Warning Graphic Content

Posted on November 20th, 2007 by Bart Gibby.
Categories: Bart Gibby News, Family.

Many people ask me over the years what happened to my hands. I even get people searching for my name and the word hands off of Google and other search engines.

So I figure shoot why not tell enough to in short form on my web site to satisfy the very curious.

Basically I lit a bomb and was not able put the fuse out before it exploded in my hands. I was 11 years old just starting my 6th grade year in elementary school. I’ll upload more pictures as I can, but right now these two will have to suffice.

The clean picture was taken today; it’s my right hand looks like currently. The bloody messy picture is my right hand on a Wednesday afternoon after school let out in 1992. The bloody picture was taken by a police officer at McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah.

The accident picture is actually a picture of a picture. That’s why it is all fuzzy, when I get my hands on a scanner I’ll upload more detailed images. I don’t actually have the negatives, just some images on photo paper and a few slides.

This post was also inspired by my coworker Dan Garfield who found a picture of an x-ray on Digg’s home page entitle "Exploded hand: Hand + Firecracker = Amazing X-RAY [pic]". Dan thought it looked exactly like my hand. But the x-ray was taken in 1997 while my accident happened in 1992.

 

Any way the bloody image might be what the guy in the x-ray’s hand might have looked like.

X-ray Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roentgenator/1435208683/

Blog post about x-ray: http://streetanatomy.com/blog/?p=201

15 comments.

Ryan Mendenhall

Comment on November 23rd, 2007.

Bart,

Thanks for being open about what happened. I think it’s very interesting. In fact, I’m the one that searched for “what the heck happened to Bart’s hand” on Alta Vista. I’m sure you saw that in your server logs or analytics ;o)

Fred

Comment on December 5th, 2007.

Wow, pretty gruesome. I’m glad to see that you have recovered and are doing well.

David Brady

Comment on December 14th, 2007.

I was working up the courage to ask. :-)

I have a friend who detonated a blasting cap in his hand when we were in middle school as well…. he can count to 9.6 on his fingers.

Gabriel Gunderson

Comment on February 6th, 2008.

Sorry about missing digit. Those pics are insane. Happy blogging and no more firecrackers!

Gabe

Rick

Comment on February 8th, 2008.

Look on the brightside you are going to kick ass at some very unique long tail keywords =)

seo exploded in my hand #1
seo warning graphic content #1
seo exploded in my hands #1

I could go on and on… ok I will stop lol

Brad McCall

Comment on March 19th, 2008.

I’m sure you’ve had at least one person mention the fact that your hand has the same configuration as the character who shares your name from the Simpsons. (Or perhaps I’m the first?)

Thanks for your interesting blog, I’ve seen the sign for Orange Soda several times, and ran across your blog with your mention of Omniture (where I work). I’ll have to check you guys out.

tim

Comment on April 28th, 2008.

Hey Bart-great to see a talented surgeon helped to restore function to your hand. I’m in that “biz” and am just curious who/where that fine MD is. I live/work in SF and have the pleasure of working with some of the finest micro and hand surgeons in the world

Bart Gibby

Comment on May 15th, 2008.

Tim,

You can read a ton about him online. I am very pleased to have had him as my surgeon. My hands work and he was a fantastic person too. He even took me to a Jazz Game once. He has/had season tickets.

This is his profile online:
http://healthcare.utah.edu/orthopaedics/students/faculty/hutch.htm

Why are you interested in my Dr.? You guys looking to sell PIP joints to him

If you every make new artificial tendons, muscles, etc for your artificial joints let me know. I’ll need some skin graphs and so forth but I would love to get my missing fingers back in some manner.

Cheers,

P.S. Your website needs some help, search engines don’t like it very much.

Clint Eagar

Comment on July 1st, 2008.

Hey Bart – you’ve inspired me to write about my eye getting poked out.

While my accident wasn’t near as bloody as yours it was still pretty traumatic for me.

Tom Steele

Comment on October 12th, 2008.

I see no pictures…

Dave Magill

Comment on October 12th, 2008.

Doesn’t work in Firefox, but does in IE. Pretty gruesome stuff.

Nobody

Comment on October 12th, 2008.

No pictures visible

Bart Gibby

Comment on November 9th, 2008.

Pictures are hosted at my Picasa web album. You may have to use Internet Explorer to see them for some reason. Working on solution.

Stu the One-Armed Bandit

Comment on January 27th, 2009.

Something reminded to come take a look at this again. AWESOME!

Bart Gibby

Comment on January 31st, 2009.

reply to a new friend:

your hand must have been almost totally crushed, burned or blown to pieces in order to have to have all that done. I have also heard of some infections that attack nervous system that could cause your experience.

You don’t need to tell me what happened. It just helps me to relate more to you writing out my thoughts.

In therapy, I saw a carpenter, a logger, several burn & hunting accident victims, and even those with arthritis who had joint replacements.

A co-worker of mine had the nerves for his whole right arm ripped off his spinal column while he held on the motorcycle break during collision. He has never been able to feel the entire arm since. That guy has like 5 kids and is a writer for a living.

Causing pain to your self to gain the ability to zip your fly or hold a pencil, as you are well aware, was the daily grind.

Are you able to use your dominant hand?

The mental trauma for kids is lower compare to adults from what I have been told. I can’t begin to relate with dealing with that at the age of 20.

I sure grew up fast, adults complimented me all the time on how well mannered I was. For those two years I had no one my age to play with… just adults really.

7 1/3 digits are enough for me to do SEO and make a good living.

I take it your in the computer realm as well?

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