I feel for ya Andy... I hope that heals well and soon.
Unfortunately, it is inevitable.
Y'know, I'm not convinced that it's inevitable -- heck, if it's inevitable we should always be expecting it, but it never seems to happen when we're expecting it. Anyway, would there be any reason to talk about how accidents happen if they were inevitable -- after all, how could you ever avoid them if they were inevitable?
So, I said that to get around to this... I didn't get a good picture of what happenned here... (in case I can use the info to keep any of the local fingers safer...
I was BEHIND plane, engine was at idle, and I had a major brain fart when i saw one of the cowl cheeks vibrating. Plane had just deadsticked into the grass, very nice if I do say so myself, but I was worried something was broke. So instead of taking the 30 or so seconds to shut the engine down and check, I just reached up and grabbed that sucker, and heard a sound you don't want to hear.
I assume that the deadstick landing was only mentioned because it was the reason that you were checking the plane and the cowling, not part of the accident, right? So since you were behind the plane, did you go to grab the cowl and your hand slipped forward into the spinny thing?