BEAVER — A chain saw bucked and slashed the neck of its user, a Port Angeles man, as he was cutting wood on Wednesday.
Two State Patrol troopers stemmed the flood of blood until Nick Larson, 51, could be taken to Forks Community hospital after the 3:30 p.m. accident near Beaver.
A hospital nurse said Wednesday night, in answer to a request for Larson’s room, that Larson had been discharged.
Larson was with his wife cutting wood on Conley Road, about one mile east of Beaver, when the chain saw hit a rut in the wood, bounced up and burred into his neck — missing the artery, said Trooper Todd Bartolac, State Patrol spokesman.
Troopers Allen Nelson and Eric Tilton heard the dispatcher’s report of a chain saw accident while they were patrolling U.S. Highway 101 and rushed to Larson’s aid.
“If it hadn’t missed his artery and they hadn’t been there, he probably wouldn’t have made it,” Bartolac said.
The original report was that the chain saw had injured a man’s leg.
“While en route to the scene, they heard that he had a very serious injury to his neck,” Bartolac said.
The troopers immediately began planning for the scene they would find — pulling out plastic gloves, a first aid kit and, just in case, an automated external defibrillator, Bartolac said.
“They were directed into the woods where the man was with his wife,” said Bartolac, who did not know the wife’s name.
“The man was still awake and conscious, and there was a very serious cut to his neck,” with massive bleeding, Bartolac said.
Nelson and Tilton performed first aid, controlling the bleeding as well as trying to keep Larson and his wife calm.
As they worked to save Larson’s life, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Peterson arrived with a trauma kit.
Clallam County Sheriff’s Deputies Jim Dixon and Brian King also arrived to help.
Nelson and Tilton accompanied Larson in the ambulance to Forks Community Hospital.
Bartolac said that the cut was deep, but he didn’t know exactly where on Larson’s neck the cut was.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
