This morning we went to pick up our first ever brand new car. Seeing as DH is in his 40’s, we are a bit slow off the mark. So it was a big event, yey!
It’s a bright metallic blue Toyota Isis, and it’s lovely.
Moved the car seats over from the old car to the new, showed the kids that there are now sliding doors on both sides of the car - showed them that while one side is automatic, the other isn’t, and if they don’t fully slide it back it could slam on their hands. They stood there wide eyed and solemn, and agreed that they would be very careful.
We shake hands with the dealer, get the car keys handed over ceremoniously, and get ready to set off. DH told my 8 year old we are now shutting the door. Suddenly there was a heart rending screech of “My hand’s stuck in the door!”
It was. In the back, where the door comes in to shut - right by the back of the chair where he’d been stretching back to pick up the seat belt without looking. OH MY GOD!
DH got the door open in short order and out came his poor mangled hand - I don’t think the bones are broken but he has a huge bruise across the base of his knuckles, and a squashed place on one finger, and lots of blood blisters.
He sobbed that he hates the new car and wants the old one back for over an hour. Things were made a bit better with the application of two small ice packs bandaged on with YARDS of bandage, and a goodly amount of tape. And a Macdonalds.
There, there. My sister got her hand slammed in the sliding door of a VW microbus in the '70’s. She lived on to play the piano. Give DH a kiss, it will all be ok.
It was the 8 year old who got his hand squished, not the husband!! And on the automatic door side, too… Groan. Take all the precautions you like, something always slips through the net.
I felt so sorry for the salesman - he was there with his happy spiel and was into the “good luck, we wish you many happy hours in your new car” when it was screech, tears, snot, talk of hospitals and x-rays! His face was the picture of dejection as we left, even though we assured him it was nothing to do with him or the shop, and that the hand was probably OK.
Yeah, my stomach just about turned over when I saw his hand. If the swelling is still bad tomorrow we will go to a hospital but he can move his fingers, so I don’t think anything is broken. It’s lucky it was a new car, and that automatic type really - the rubber round the door is all new and bouncy, and it shut slowly, not slam.
The car is a 7 seater though smaller than we are used to (we have just got rid of an Odyssey) so if the kids go right at the back for a few weeks, they will get used to the doors.
Our kids don’t want us to sell our 1993 econoline. Which is like a pair of wonderfully faded beat up jeans to drive. Never mind that our new vehicle has a tougher suspension and an internal DVD player and leather seats.
They want the econoline.
They nearly cry over it on a daily to weekly basis.
Huh? Just because you can move something doesn’t mean you don’t have a broken bone. You can have your femur snapped in two and still be able to move your leg, the muscles which move the whole operation don’t break just because the bone does.
It’s at least a common folk belief that if you can move your fingers, they aren’t broken. I’ve heard this throughout my life. Don’t know if it’s true. Never heard it applied to other bones, though.
Fun times are often ruined by such things. One time I was visiting my nephew in Maryland and his young son, about 10 at the time, was going to the Army-Navy football game with his friend whose father was the photographer for a local newspaper. The had field passes so they could be right down on the sidelines. The first thing that happened was that the poor kid got a couple of fingers shut in the car door in the excitement,
Back in grad school my roommate went to pick up his brand new car, which he’d been bragging about to all and sundry.
He didn’t even get it home. On his way from the dealer’s he got run into at the intersection.
The trouble was, his hand didn’t get caught between the leading edge of the door and the door frame, but in between the back edge of the door frame and the back edge of the door - I guess there are no sensors there…
I really don’t think his fingers are broken - one of them is still a bit squashed looking but a few hours of ice packs and they have rounded back out, and he was playing fairly normally by this evening. I will of course keep an eye out over the next few days.
Look on the bright side - I’m sure your eight year old will be very careful about where he puts his hands in the future, and if you’re lucky, so will the other kids.
Clarification: If you can move your fingers without nearly passing out from the pain, it’s probably not broken.
It’s still worth an x-ray, though. I know plenty of people who’ve had sprained fingers (myself included) where it helped to get them immobilized. Plus, think of all the cool stories the kid will be able to tell! “Daddy’s new robot car ate my hand!”
I hate those automatic door thingies. Van doors are meant to be slammed, hard.
They can have my econoline when they pry it from my sprained, twitching fingers.
I’d recommend you give the naming rights of the car to your son.
Let me suggest “Knuckle Biter” or “Chompy”
Then always call the car that. He’ll laugh when his hand isn’t hurting anymore. Maybe even before. And he won’t hate the car anymore if he get’s to name it.
I swear I’m not making this up: Years ago, my grandfather bought a Tercel, brand-new, and drove it straight from the dealer to his insurance office to get coverage established. Literally minutes after he had signed the policy, a gust of wind blew the insurance company’s sign off the roof, and down into the parking lot, where it landed on my grandfather’s car.
The story would be better if the car had been crushed and totaled, but alas, the result was merely a dent and some scratched paint. Two-story building, lightweight plywood sign, not a huge amount of damage the way you imagine the story, like a massive object plummeting from a skyscraper. Still funny, though.
