Jeff Beck completes album with three fingers
The guitar great cut off a fingertip in the incident and had to tightly tape the damaged digit to another to allow the tip to reconnect with his finger.
He tells Gibson.com, “I had to finish up the album, I had to play two or three tracks without that finger. Over the Rainbow was done with the three fingers… I taped the little finger and the one next to it with sticky tape, so that it could be used.
“It’s amazing what you can do. It really is.”
Beck was complimented on his quick-thinking medical skills – the tip of his finger had already started to reconnect with his bloody digit by the time he got to hospital.
He adds, “I mean I lost it (tip); it was gone, it was just hanging off… I stuck it back and freaked out and then went to the hospital. But I avoided stitches because the surgeon said I’d done such a great job sticking it back! And it had just started to take when he had a look at it.”
And now Beck has his finger back: “It’s completely healed (but) it’s still numb on the very tip.”
Source: http://www.postchronicle.com/
I can feel your pain Jeff. I had a terrible accident occur to my finger next to my pinky on my left hand with a router. It happened before I even knew it. The router carbide blade was turning at over 10,000 rpm when it happened. all I saw was a blast of pink/red mist spray everywhere and extreme pain. Pain was terrible. I knew i was really hurt. When I looked at my finger dangling I felt I was going into shock. Blood everywhere. I was cutting out a new pickguard for an old Les Paul Junior when it happened. I’ve been using routers for decades and have never had an accident. Still don’t know how this happened. Luckily my wife was home and took immediate action and was able to clean it and get it back together before off to emergency. There was no bone damage, however, you could see the bone before we wrapped it up. The entire tip was literally pulled off the bone in a strange way. Did not affect the tip, nail, or tip pad. Very odd. The tip was all together. I had to slide the entire tip back on. Part of the side was missing – probably what turned into that pink/red mist. I was very lucky that the router did not just cut my finger off at the knuckle. Could not play for almost three months. It has been about 4 months since the accident and has healed fairly nicely. It still bothers me playing bar chords and I sometimes have to play certain chords differently, but nothing else. No lost feeling or numbness. Doctor said he did not think I would have a good outcome. Amazing how well the human body can repair itself. I’m told it may take a year or so for the missing meat to fill back in, if I’m lucky.
Streuth 52Tele54Strat59Burst! Timely warning for me though because I’m right in the middle of building a Telecaster. The main aim is to get to the end with a full set of fingers!