I would ask the doctor. Hope he gets back shooting soon!

 

3 years ago I had the same thing happen to me. The easton acc blew up upon release and went into my hand, 2 inch below the thumb nuckle and out of my palm. I still have carbon in my hand. And lucky for me it was half alluminum and half carbon. They had to dig out the alluminun and most of the carbon. That was the most pain I have ever been through and not knowing if you were ever going to use your hand again! I still have pain in my left hand but nothing serious like poisoning. It will get better and I hope he is all right!!

 

The easton acc blew up upon release and went into my hand, 2 inch below the thumb nuckle and out of my palm. I still have carbon in my hand. And lucky for me it was half alluminum and half carbon. They had to dig out the alluminun and most of the carbon.

Anytime you have aluminum bound to carbon, you are asking for trouble. Aluminum "moves" a lot on temperature swings while carbon composites are like a rock. One moves, one hardly does. The result is delamination between the carbon and aluminum bond. This will cause the stiffness to suffer. Also, I believe that when they use carbon over the aluminum, they make all the carbon fibers go in one direction (up and down the arrow) which would tend to make a lot of splinters in a blow-up.

So if you have a carbon-aluminum arrow, take special care not to expose the arrows to large temperature swings, even over time.

 

wow sorry to here about your husband,we see pics on here quite often of that ..hope he's ok..

 

hope he gets well quickly,,,,could you tell us what arrow brand overall weight and bow#

 

carbon

I am so sorry about the accident.

It isn't the carbon that's the problem, it's the epoxy resin that is used to bind it. Carbon fibers are used in tendon replacement in the body and do fine.

The thing is, neither the carbon fibers, not the epoxy is bio-degradable. So, the materials can *never* break down and be absorbed by the body. They must be manually removed.

The tiny fragments near the surface may be expelled by the body over time; however, most will just cause lots of irritation in the muscle and flesh. They will have to be removed surgically every time. Lots of irritation may cause swelling and infections.

Bad thing is, you cannot see the pieces on x-ray so you cannot locate them that way...only by the irritation, visually and by feel.

I am sorry but your husband has a long recovery ahead before all is done.

I would keep the pieces of that arrow.... They are supposed to be inspected at every stage of production.

 

thanks so much everyone! You're very kind

I just happened to be browsing the web last night, looking for info on other instances, when I came across this "carbon poisoning" - have to admit I started freaking out!

Unfortunately we just saw the Dr. and he's now on vacation until 01/11/10 - but I think I feel quite a bit better now hearing from others that have been through it without having to have anything amputated, (although I'm sorry to hear it ever happened to any of you, I'm seeing the damage - it's unbelievable, and I KNOW it's painful :-( ).

Husband had 3 x-rays, nothing showed up - "Hand Specialists" at the hospital, (ha!), told him "there's nothing in there, and if there are any little slivers, they'll work themselves out"!!!

They actually kind of treated him like he was being a baby - a.) becuase he'd pulled the arrow out of his hand instinctively before he went in so they couldn't see the severity of the trauma b.) city Dr.'s - don't think they'd ever even heard of a carbon arrow let alone been able to comrehend the seriousness of it c.) incompetent jerks?

Thank God we found a surgeon who understood, and he's done a wonderful job.

I know he's got a long recovery, we can see some pieces just under the skin. Not like a wood sliver you can pick at and push out, it's so flexible, almost like part of the skin...

Dr. says more than likely he will have to go in there again, he just really needed to get the large pieces under the muscle and against bone and... yuck. We'll have to worry about the one's under the skin later.

Surgeon bluntly told him he'll probably have problems for the rest of his life.

Sorry I don't know the bow# and arrow weight? (lol, is that what you'd asked for? Sorry will look at the question again and ask Mike when he gets home LOL).

It was a Carbon Express, Predator 6075, Carbon Composite Shaft. Crazy thing is, guy at the store told him same thing happened just recently to someone he knows, same arrow, same thing - he'd inspected his arrows!

We have the arrow as sort of a sick souvenier, (sp?) - if you mean to have it inspected to see if the manufacurer is at fault in anyway... I'm 99.9% sure they won't accept responsibilty.

 

That liability is probably why the manufacturers say to inspect every arrow before and after every shot.

I'm not so sure I do that as thoroughly as I should myself. How much inspection is reasonable to expect? Checking for dings when you pull is one thing, but flex testing every part of the shaft before and after the shot seems enough of a hassle to make carbon a less attractive alternative to aluminum.

Sorry about his injury. It way sucks. Hope he heals quickly.

 

hmm

man that sucks hope he heals up soon did a lil looking on the net after i read this and saw another carbon express injury aswell as an easton al through the hand http://www.texasarchery.org/images/Overdraw/dangers.htm looks awfully painful

 

prayers sent

 

Sounds like what happened to me... I pulled the arrow out so it didnt look as bad as it was. Sat in the waiting room for 2 hours with nothing for the pain!!! The doctors took xrays but luckily there was carbon fiber sticking out of my hand so they knew it was there. My arrow broke when I released it. The arrow entered by my wrist and stopped in the top knuckle of my thumb. Cut the tendon in 2 spots and took 1 hour and 45 minutes of surgery!

Back to shooting my bow 3 months later. splinters still work there way out and I cant move my thumb as much but I still think it could have been worse. I regret is not getting a pic before i pulled the arrow out cuz i only got a couple after.

Good luck with it though and I hope he has a speedy recovery.