the story of what happened to Spencer's hands

Some of you know that Spencer burned his hands.  This is new information to some of my blogging friends.  

It has been a terrible weekend. 

 In the late afternoon on Friday we took Spencer to the Emergency Room.

Here's what happened to Spencer a few hours before our ER trip.

I don't really understand it, but here's how Jamie Hansen explained it (and I quote):

Piecing together the story from Spencer and Ryan, they were going to add an injector pump at an irrigation well that had not been used in a while. They did not know if it was even hooked up (live). So Spencer had his tester probes to see where a live wire was to tie in a 110 wire to run the injector pump. You are supposed to put one end on a ground, and the other probe to the live wire to test it. He was not getting any reading on the tester, and so he was trying different locations. Some how one probe must have been on a live 240 wire and the other probe touched or came close enough to another 240 wire that it arched over, and the flash of the resulting 480 arch flash made a blue light with a big boom! The shock wave was so great, that it knocked them both back. And even Ryan Jones who was slightly behind and to the side of Spencer also had flash burn on his face (although nowhere near the extent of Spencer's). My feeling is that Spencer's wounds were only from the arch flash, as he was holding the insulated probes. If he would have had direct contact with the 480, it would have killed him. He would have had a chunk missing (burned) from his hand, where the bolt interred, and a hole blown out his lower leg or foot where the bolt would have exited his body to the ground. In either case, he is fortunate to be alive. And to have loving, caring family, and Church family surround him now.

This picture was taken about one hour after the accident occurred. 

Believe me when I say that his hands looked much worse on Saturday.

When I first saw Spencer's hands, they looked different.  He had them soaking in cool water when I showed up to the farm to pick him up.  He pulled his hands out of the water and it looked like this soggy whitish gray paper-towel material was covering his flesh.  Not too gross.  (Jamie was sure impressed with the composure I had when looking at his hands).

When we got in the car, I asked Spencer what was that weird substance they had put all over his hands.  He informed me that the "stuff" all over his hands was his skin!  

And that's when I lost it.  I cried.  I groaned.  My stomach turned and I couldn't look at his hands again for a long while.  

In the ER, the doctors cut off all the dead skin with scissors and tweezers.  Spencer was on morphine at this point and going through a bit of shock.

It has been three very difficult days since the flash burn. 

Spencer's hands are a) healing, b) wrapped in thick layers of silvadine ointment and gauze, and c) useless right now.

I'm grateful for a few things at this point.

1.  I'm grateful that my husband is alive.  I realize this accident could have been a lot worse.

2. I'm grateful for hands.  Just think for a minute what your life would be like without hands.  

3. I'm thankful Spencer was able to receive a priesthood blessing before almost anything else.  He was blessed to regain "full use of his hands", and that "the healing would begin from this moment on".

 Spencer will stear clear of 480 Volt electric boxes for a long, long while.  And next time, if there ever is a next time, he will have the proper safety equipment on.  

More to come.