If you are lucky you have never sustained an injury which kept you from playing guitar for more than a few days at most. I have had various injuries that have cost me about two years of playing time that I can never have back, not to mention playing after an injury and being limited by healing until most of your physical sikills return. Do yourself a favor, and never drive in a car with your arm dangling out the window. You just might end up having your arm dangling from your wrist like I did. I was driving home from seeing a band one night, with my arm out the window feeling the breeze flow through my fingers, when I hit the curb and my car flipped over on its roof. The car then hit a telephone pole upside down, shearing it off and flipping the car end over end before it started rolling sideways. Sometime during the cars rolling 4 times, my wrist (still hanging out of the window) was caught between the pavement on the road and the roof of my car. Both bones were snapped clean (instead of being crushed, thank God) and ripped through most of the flesh and skin on my wrist, leaving my hand down beside my wrist with both forearm bones sticking out of my arm like beef jerky being pulled out of a blister pak.(sorry for the graphic imagery) I had other injuries, but none would affect me like the damage to my fretting hand and arm. As you may have guessed, I was drunk and am ashamed to this day, after 13 years of allowing myself to be so irresponsable . I just thank God that I was alone and no other vehicles, people, or personal property of others were damaged or involved. I left the scene in shock not knowing I was injured, and passed out in a parking lot as I became disorientated.(From blood loss I would later find out) I woke up to the sunrise in a pool of my own blood in an empty lot, and discovered my wrist and hand swollen to the size of my thigh. I got to my feet (barely) and began to walk towards the hospitlal. I don't know how long it took me to get there, but I know I passed out and fell down at least once. I walked in to the emergency room about 6 hours after my wreck with bad compound fractures of both bones and severe infection from having my bones and flesh exposed to the air and whatever else crawled on my wound while I was unconscious. After three operations and 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital I was released and began physical therapy to try and regain movement and feeeling in my hand and wrist. Trying to play my guitar over the next six months was the best therapy for me, and after about a year I was able to use my hand again and had regained all feeling except in the middle finger, which is still numb today but fully moblie and usable. I hope nobody else has to go through this self induced agony, and I hope the most serious injury anyone has to deal with is a hangnail that keeps them from using a finger for a day or two.

Rob Koontz is a guitarist/singer/songwriter whose music is very melodic and somewhat moody. Not quite depressing but not your happy go lucky pop either.