Be Careful, or You Might Lose a Finger

And if you did…you’d be just like these famous people who also didn’t wind up with a full set of 10 fingers.



Neil Armstrong

As a pioneer of space flight, he was the first man on the moon and one of only a handful of people to ever brave leaving the planet. And yet it was an accident on Earth that wound up losing him a finger. In 1979, he was working on his farm and got his wedding ring stuck in the gears of a tractor. He didn’t get it out in time—his ring and ring finger got torn clean off. (He then packed it in some ice and drove himself to the hospital to get it reattached.)

Jerry Garcia

The leader of the Grateful Dead is one of the most influential rock guitarists of all time, despite losing two-thirds of the middle finger on his right hand. The loss happened when Garcia was a little boy—he was holding down a piece of wood for his father to chop…and dad missed.

James Doohan

Scotty from Star Trek lost his finger in the legendary and legendarily brutal battle on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day in 1944. Fighting for the Royal Canadian Army, Doohan was hit by multiple rounds of friendly fire in the chaos. Four bullets went into his leg, one went into his chest (which would’ve likely killed him, had it not been blocked by a cigarette case), and the other hit his right middle finger, which had to be amputated.

Daryl Hannah

When she was a little kid, the future star of Splash and Blade Runner was playing at a well near her grandmother’s house. Her left index finger got stuck in a pulley, and, well, so long finger.

Rahm Emanuel

Current Chicago mayor and former White House Chief of Staff to President Obama joined the working world as a teenager in the 1970s with a job at Arby’s. He was cutting some roast beef on a meat slicer one day…and went a little too far and gave himself a deep cut. The finger got so infected it soon had to be removed.