One fan too close for comfort

​ACCIDENT-PRONE musician Jason Carter came a cropper and nearly sliced off his fingers in a freak accident whilst doing a spot of summer DIY at his holiday home in France.
Mr Carter, 49, originally from the English county of Cornwall, has travelled to more than 100 countries around the world performing his harp guitar and classical guitar pieces, and now lives in Saar with his wife, Lydia, and son, Xavi, seven.
“My first thought when I injured yourself was ‘Oh, not again - at least it's a different finger!” he said.
Mr Carter was up a ladder whilst a ceiling fan was running nearby and turned to speak to Xavi forgetting the proximity of the swirling blades in the family’s ‘newly-renovated cave’ - the ground floor room of a French house in the mediaeval village of Sauve in the Occitaine region.
With blood gushing from the wound, Lydia rushed him to the nearest hospital in Ganges, a 25-minute drive away.
He received stickers and the hand was bandaged and he’ll be out of further DIY-ing action for at least a fortnight … which is probably the safest way to stay until the family return to Bahrain on August 19.
Mr Carter considers he was ‘blessed’ despite the pain. “Yes, if the fan hadn't hit me in the shoulder two weeks earlier during a similar incident which damaged the motor it would likely have taken the finger clean off,” he explained.
He’s already back plucking the strings although ‘with less fingers.... no pain, no gain!’ he The musician, who is also a renowned film-maker, admits to being ‘naturally accident prone’ with various finger and other injuries recorded over the years.
In 2007 he sliced off part of his index finger of the same hand when he was trying to remove the lid of a tube of super glue when he was fixing his false nails which he uses to play classical guitar. 
As he was on a remote island in the Baltic Sea with no access to medical care it was 12 hours before the piece of finger was stitched back on. By this time it had already began turning a gruesome greyish colour. 
Hoping for the best, the doctor agonisingly sewed through his fingernail four times to stitch the detached fingertip back into place. 
Predictably the vital little piece of his index finger died and parted company with his hand two days later and he awoke to discover the blackened finger on the pillow beside his head. 
“The big question was, which recycle bin to put it in?” he said.
As a result of the injury, Mr Carter had to cancel concerts in seven countries with no certainty that he would be able to play again.  “Miraculously the finger started to grow back all by itself and was completely restored and healed ready for more concerts within two months,” he added.
Mr Carter was recently among the performers who joined together to serenade the former Dean of St Christopher’s Cathedral, The Very Rev’d Chris Butt, and his wife, Tricia, before they departed back to the UK recently. The audience at the cathedral’s Alun Morris Hall were riveted by his intricate playing.
He’s not the only one with a history of calamity. Director of Performing Arts at the British School of Bahrain, Mrs Carter, 43, an English expat from Kent, who considers Bahrain to be her ‘adopted country’, said she used to be very non-squeamish until she almost severed off her right arm in 2007. 
“So now whenever I see flesh that is not supposed to be seen, I remember that terrifying moment when my arm opened,” she said. “I saw all those lovely squidgy parts that should never see the light of day for a split second before my blood made a pretty good interpretation of a jolly red fountain shooting sky high as my artery burst open.
“Happily, I only partially shredded the nerve and managed to keep most of the feeling in my arm after internal stitches and 22 external stitches. However, despite my rather jolted memory of that long gone moment, I successfully bandaged up my husband's finger and made the journey to the local hospital without incident!”
The Carters are also preparing to take part in a special concert on September 21 to celebrate International Day of Peace at the Cultural Hall, hosted by Ministry of Culture of Tourism, details of which will be announced shortly.

---