Those pics posted by Silver Flyer are sobering. I wish you the best of luck in your recovery, and I for one appreciate you and others posting these stories as lessons to newbies like myself.

About 10 years ago, we had a neighborhood kid who mowed our lawn, and he knocked on my front door one day, with his hand looking very much like Silver Flyer's, minus the severed pinky. He had tried to clear grass from the discharge chute while the mower was running. The analogy of these planes to a vertical lawnmower is 100% accurate!!!. Luckily, the kid in question made a full recovery, and his Marine dad gave him a lecture about lawnmower safety. I've mowed my own lawn since then.

Again, thanks for sharing your pain, and I guarantee that by doing so, you have saved someone else from making the same mistake.

Get well soon.