splinters and bone fragments

I started reading a biography about Joseph Smith this weekend and was reminded of a September 11 story I wrote several years ago about a sheriff deputy.

I was reading about when Joseph was a boy and had a crude surgery to remove part of his shin bone, which had become infected. The family was basically faced with amputation or a different, unproven, surgical procedure. It's a story well known by most Mormons. I've heard it many times.

One detail that I had never heard before stood out to me this weekend. The author described how after the wound closed for several months bone fragments would work their way to the surface before exiting the skin.

I know, it sounds terrible.

Terrible but not altogether unfamiliar to me.

That's because a few years ago, when I interviewed the sheriff deputy, he told me about a similar experience that happened to him.

He was involved in a car accident where he was impaled under his left armpit by a 2x6 -- That's right a 2x6. Don't believe me? His story is here.

Anyway, after this man's side was fileted open and the beam was removed, he spent a time recovering in the hospital before he was allowed to continue his recovery at home. I remember being shocked when he told me that for months his wife would pull splinters out of his back as they worked their way out of his body.

If my memory is right, the deputy told me that this is how he recieved the nickname woody.