Doug,
I got an uncle that could contest to what happened to you as being seriously "LUCKY"... He sometime in the early 1980's took a chain saw to the chest, went right through his shoulder blade, out the back, and right BESIDE his Jugular....1/2 inch away! He fell from the tree he was in, removed his gaffs and DROVE himself to the local hospital, 3/4 mile away! Needless to say his 1980 Ford F-250 needed a new seat as the blood loss factor in that seat to this day astounds me, he had but 2 pints left in his body from the gash the saw made.......
The chain saw was a McCulloch 4070.....With a folding 4 foot bar!
Needless to say, he lived, and they done all sorts of surgeries over it, he was 700 miles from home at that time, and was in the hospital for 8 months over it....They had to teach him how to walk again, and use both arms, done some serious bone graphs, and ****, I have no idea what all was done to get him to a somewhat normal bodily person from it, but I can tell you, he walked for many a year with his head tilted downward to one side, and his left arm was always sort of, messed up, not 100% useless, but he literally had no resistance strength in it (The saw removed most of the side movement muscle as it cut and removed it as it fell down over his chest while in that tree!)
Sadly tho to end this, he lived up till 2 weeks after my Dad passed in March, My uncle Ned passed from a lung cancer treatment complication....The actual Lung Cancer disease isn't what took him! All i can say is all my life he was a small guy but a tuff ole bastard he was......Today, may he rest in peace.....
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