hook in hand

Excerpt from In Each Job an Achilles' Heel by Paige Parker, The Oregonian, Sept. 22, 2007

One hour into his shift, Brian Harvey's hands gripped the broom as he swept the grain elevator's floor clean. A conveyor belt rattled above him. A 36-horsepower industrial squirrel cage fan, missing its safety guard, whirred behind him. He drew his arm back to push the broom forward, one hand at the top of the handle.

Something caught.

"The first blade comes around and cracks the skin. The second blade comes around and takes the joints. The third blade . . ." Harvey's voice trails off.

"There was no clean cut about it. It was all taken off in a series of vicious blows."

Alone in the basement, Harvey saw the blood pool beneath his work boots and knew he had to find help.

His legs carried him up a flight of stairs, through a doorway, down one short staircase and up another. Around silos, across railroad tracks, around a train.

About 20 yards from an office, his feet crunched on gravel, and his legs gave way. He splashed blood on a nearby window to catch someone's attention.

Then he passed out.

Harvey woke up at Legacy Emanuel Hospital & Health Center, his hand wrapped in bandages. His brother had managed to find three of his fingers in the grain elevator's dust recovery system. Doctors tried to reattach one, but the damage was too severe.

After three days, doctors sent Harvey home. Before the bandages came off, Harvey convinced himself that maybe his injury wasn't that bad. Then he saw what was left.

The son of a North Bend marine clerk, Harvey was "born with a hook in his hand," but now, his name was removed from the list of eligible casual longshoremen. Though he was right-handed, Harvey struggled to spearfish, hunt or play soccer. Without a thumb, he couldn't use a spoon.

"My hand -- to a male, it goes back to being a caveman," Harvey says. "It's in your psyche. It's a tool."

He replayed the moment of his injury constantly. Phantom pains racked his hand. Harvey says it took years of psychoanalysis to accept his injury.

"You just cannot ever imagine your hand disappearing one day," he says. "It's not even possible."

Eleven months after his injury, a San Francisco surgeon harvested the big toe from Harvey's left foot and the second toe from his right and attached them to his hand, fashioning a grip. With that surgery, and about 300 sessions with a physical therapist, Harvey regained more than half the use of his hand. Insurance through his union covered his medical bills. Workers' compensation covered his living expenses.

Three years later, after Harvey threatened legal action, his employer rehired him. He worked for eight years as a longshoreman and is now the union's drug and alcohol director.

His first day back, Harvey had to pull a shift in the same grain elevator where he'd nearly died. On his lunch break, he took a trip alone to the basement.

"I just wanted to face it," he says. "You know how you get back on that horse and face your fears? I stood there for a while, and it all flashed back to me. I thought to myself, 'Man I was lucky I made it out of there.' "

To prove how far he's come, Harvey reaches across a desk.

"Shake my left hand," he insists. His grip is so strong, it hurts.