Camp Meeker man on the mend following an accident that severed his hand

<p>Lon Martinsen wrote in the shaky penmanship of his non-writing hand a list of good and bad outcomes from an April 5 industrial accident in Cotati that severed his right hand.</p><p>Good: the friendly surgeons who reattached his hand, home health aide's cooking and friends, like his former coworkers at Carolyn's Canvas in Valley Ford who are crafting a foam support to hold his healing hand upright while he sleeps.</p><p>Bad: no motorcycle, no horse-play with his dog and, most importantly, no visit from his children. Without the use of his hand to cook, drive and care for them, his teenaged daughter and son might not make the annual trip from Texas to live with him for the summer in his Camp Meeker cabin.</p><p>“I'm going to miss my kids, that's for sure,” Martinsen said.</p><p>The 52-year-old screen printer has begun what doctors said likely will be a yearlong recovery after two teams of surgeons at San Francisco's California Pacific Medical Center worked together to re-attach his hand.</p><p>An amputation across the palm and including all fingers and thumb was a first for Dr. Bauback Safa, a 10-year surgeon who led the team.</p><p>“It was unique,” Safa said Thursday. “One of my senior partners said he'd only seen it once in his 20 years.”</p><p>A paper cutter blade sliced through with a clean cut, which gave surgeons a better shot at reattaching the hand, Safa said.</p><p>Martinsen was centering a stack of vinyl on a motorized paper cutter at the start of his shift at Cotati's Graphix Screen Printing for a set of decals for the North Bay Corp. when the blade slammed down on his hand. Blood spurted everywhere.</p><p>“There was no pain,” Martinsen said.</p><p>He ran to a nearby cupboard and grabbed a bunch of rags to stop the bleeding. He yelled for a coworker to grab his hand and then ran outside the Portal Street business. He told himself: “I have to keep my head on, I can't panic,” Martinsen said.</p><p>He sat outside on his knees, arm held upright on a table for what felt like 10 our 15 minutes, Martinsen said. He tried to stay calm and keep his eyes averted from the bloody mess of his hand. </p><p>He told his colleagues: “I don't want you to say ‘Oh my god.'” Martinsen said.</p><p>They cracked jokes until Rancho Adobe paramedics arrived.</p><p>Surgeons worked for four and a half hours to re-attach veins, tendons, bones and nerves at the San Francisco clinic where Dr. Harry Buncke pioneered microsurgery in the 1970s.</p><p>“Most of the concepts remain true today: timely repair of all the structures involved by an experienced team,” Safa said.</p><p>Martinsen forced a wiggle out of his swollen fingers three days after the surgery.</p><p>“Once I saw my fingers move, I was up and positive,” Martinsen said.</p><p>Two pins in each finger hold the bones in place while they heal. Thick gauze and bandages cover the exposed hand bones and muscles. A splint holds his wrist, palm and fingers in place.</p><p>Doctors told Martinsen to keep his hand warm, dry and get the bandages changed at a Santa Rosa clinic at least every other day. Martinsen said they told him he'll be surprised by how much movement he'll regain.</p><p>Safa's optimism was tempered, and he said it will depend on how much scarring builds.</p><p>“We know for sure that all these patients need at least one or two revisionary operations to release scars around joints to maximize the range of motion,” Safa said.</p><p>As the healing begins, Martinsen's left-hand writing improves daily, he's put his button-up pants and shirts in storage and he's savoring a chicken-artichoke specialty made by a home health aid who helps him for four hours each day, thanks to worker's compensation funds.</p><p>“She's a better cook than me,” Martinsen said.</p><p>His coworkers are raising money to help him pay child support and other bills through an Exchange Bank trust fund, said Michele Holman, shop manager.</p><p>“We've had people come in and drop off a few hundred bucks here and there, so there's a start for him,” Holman said.</p>