A former Haines High School student is advocating for safety improvements to shop classes around the state after severing three fingers while using a table saw. Her initiative has received attention from Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development.
Skyler Smith was helping build a bookshelf for a class project at the Haines School when the accident happened.
As she was cutting a piece of plywood the table saw hit a knot, causing the wood to shoot back.
“When I went to dodge it my hand went through the saw,” Smith says. “I didn’t really realize it happened until I looked at my classmate’s face at the time and he looked terrified.”
The saw completely severed Smith’s middle finger from her hand and left the ring and index fingers only partially attached.
Local medical services in Haines rushed to stabilize Smith before she was medevaced to Seattle. After 8 hours of surgery, her fingers were reattached.
“There’s a two month period where your body could reject the attached fingers. That was always really a big fear for me. I think it was the third doctor’s appointment we went back down, and they told me that I was past that point,” Smith says. “That was probably one of the happiest moments of my life because I knew I wouldn’t lose my fingers that way.”
Smith says she was surprised to learn how common her injury was. Each year in the U.S. thousands of people lose their fingers while operating table saws. She started reading online about how other people in the U.S. had been affected by these injuries.
“Sadly a lot of people, they’d share their story but it wasn’t positive. It was like, “Well, now what do I do?” It would be so easy to go down that path. They let it affect their life forever and that wasn’t what I wanted,” Smith says.
Instead, she used her injury as inspiration for her work with the Alaska Association of Student Governments (AASG). The student-led organization gathers representatives from schools around the state to weigh in on issues at the local, state and national level.
“My friend tells me, you should present a resolution about table saws. That way this doesn’t happen again.”
Smith drafted a resolution encouraging schools in Alaska to purchase new safe table saw technology. After her accident the Haines School acquired two new SawStop tables with help from the Haines Women’s Club. The new tables immediately shut down when the saw blade comes into contact with skin.
The blades carry a small electrical signal that changes when it contacts skin because the human body is conductive. The change to the signal activates the safety system, stopping the blade in less than 5 milliseconds.
The technology is expensive, but she found out there is funding available for it through the federal Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, which schools across Alaska already use.
“It is created solely to help with vocational classes. Our school, it helps with cooking, computer classes, woodshop and shop.”
The AASG unanimously adopted the resolution at its conference in April and now Smith’s initiative is getting some attention from the State of Alaska.
After writing a letter to the Department of Education and Early Development about her resolution, the department’s commissioner Michael Johnson wrote back expressing support. Johnson explained that the state is working on a new plan for Perkins Act funding.
“[The state] has to make a new plan to keep that funding for that act going, so he invited me to help out with the crafting of that and the public processes,” Smith says.
She never imagined herself advocating for something like this before her accident. Smith says before it happened she was shy.
“This accident kind of helped me come out of my shell further which it seems kind of weird because you would think it would make me go into it. But because I have had this to focus on I think that’s helped me a lot.”
And even though the safety features at the Haines School work great, she strongly recommends learning to operate the tables safely.