My first couple of years in carpentry saw my body get beat up in all sorts of ways. Amazing what can happen to you with those tools in your hands. I rarely cut my hands these days because I've developed (don't get too cocky, cmac) a sense of where my hands are at all times in relation to what could happen did something slip and the force with which I'm pushing a tool suddenly was not resisted like it was, causing me to push the tool out in some unexpected direction.
I drove a sharp carving chisel clear through the fleshy portion near the tip my left middle finger once, in my 20s. Note to self: don't hold the object you're applying the chisel to.
Once on a job, one of the subcontractors pushed his finger into a table saw blade. It was set up on a porch that had a relatively low ceiling. There was an arc of blood parallel to the blade splattered on it. He wasn't badly hurt, didn't lose the finger, but it was a cautionary tale for all of us.
My only nail gun accident happened with a 1/4 inch wide stapler, called a narrow crown stapler. The thing was acting up and I was examining it, holding the shoe at the tip back to look at it (not pointed at my eyes of course). On a regular gun, it's pretty ease to hold the shoe back and fire off a nail across the room to see if it's working right. This was my first time doing that with the stapler and my finger was too close to one side of the staple. Drove it through all right, no nail involved, thank God.
Hurt worse than I would have imagined. I just pulled it out, held by bleeding finger tight within a balled up fist, and walked to the porta potty like nothing was going on so I could bandage it up in private. Things like that, if it's not serious, you don't want anyone knowing that you did it.
