Cutting Off Her Fingers

Cutting Off Her Fingers
Stroudsburg High School
Stroudsburg, PA
1991


OMG, this was an awful day.  For days, I was nauseated by the thought that one of our 9th graders cut off three of her fingers in shop class. This was a nightmare.

I was an assistant principal at the time.  When the accident happened, I was out of the building.  When I got back to school, I went to my office and found the shop teacher sitting in the dark.  He was ashen and trembling. He saw me and started to speak to me but he was barely audible.  He mumbled and I couldn't understand a word he said.  But I understood that something terrible had just happened.

"Tell me again.  What happened?" I asked him.

"I don't know how it happened.  I was right there.  I just urned away for a second, just a second and then she screamed. I couldn't believe it.  I've never had an accident in my class. And now she lost her fingers. I picked up three of them."

I wanted to throw up.

"When did this happen?"

"The ambulance just left about 5 minutes ago.  They rushed her out of here.  She's at the hospital. Oh my God.  I can't believe this.  I've never had an accident in my class.  And now, this little girl.  Oh my God. Oh my God."  He rocked a little bit to comfort himself as he spoke.

"Let's go", I told  him.  "Come on". I pick up my car keys.

"Where?" he wants to know.

"The hospital.  Let's go.  I'll take you there."

"Oh, thank you. thank you so much.  Yea, let's go to the hospital."

And so we do.  We go right to the Emergency Room and find that a doctor has already seen her and her grandmother told us they were preparing for immediate surgery.  We ask if we can see her. And we are given permission to slip in to the room for a few seconds.

The teacher went first and I stood behind him.  Ruth was resting on a stretcher.  She had been crying and he started to cry.  He caressed her cheek and told her how very sorry he was. "Please forgive me", he asked. She cried and apologized to him.

"I'm sorry Mr. Weitzman.  I took the safety latch off.  You told us we always had to keep the latch on and I just took it off for a second. My piece of wood got stuck.  I'm sorry," she told him. Her voice was so sad and so sincere.

An orderly came and got her and swished her off to surgery. The doctor was able to sew her fingers back on.  But they never worked with any dexterity.  Mostly they were just there.

It was an awful moment but their moment of asking forgiveness of each other was one of the most beautiful moments in my life.

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