When Florida woman Bobbie Haverly showed up at the hospital missing the tip of her finger, doctors thought she might have lost it in a cooking accident or doing yard work.
Turns out, it was a library drop box that guillotined Haverly’s left middle finger above the upper knuckle. Doctors couldn’t believe it.
“They had never, ever heard – ever – that someone dropping off a book in the library book slot lost part of their finger,” Haverly, 62, said in an interview with USA TODAY.
A severed fingertip yields ‘a lot of blood’
On Friday, July 28, Haverly had an afternoon of errands planned before spending the weekend with her two granddaughters.
First up, she was returning an audiobook to the W.T. Bland Public Library in Mount Dora in central Florida. When she saw a line at the circulation desk, she decided to drop it off in the built-in drop box inside.
After pushing the audiobook case through the swinging door, she pulled her hand out at the exact moment the metal flap came swinging back down. As it closed, it pinched the tip of her finger between the wall and the bottom of the door.
Haverly yanked her hand back in pain. But her fingertip stayed put.
“After my fingertip got amputated, the tip of it was still stuck inside the stainless steel flap,” Haverly said. “Because it had hit an artery there was a lot of blood.”
Wound from freak library accident: ‘It looks ugly’
A former nurse, Haverly acted fast. She had the library staff put the detached fingertip on ice while the paramedics were called and carried it with her to the hospital.
Doctors were unable to reattach the tip.
Doctors contacted Haverly’s husband during her surgery the following day to say that the wound had left exposed bone that would have to be cut back to allow new skin to grow up around it.
They estimated that healing would take a couple of months, so the couple is still managing an open wound.
“It looks ugly,” Paul Haverly said. “It’s an exposed wound that needs dressing for weeks and weeks until can be exposed to the air.”
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Grieving, but ‘I don’t want this to happen to anybody else’
Bobbie Haverly hasn’t practiced as a nurse since before the pandemic, but she had plenty of errand-running, eldercare and eBay side hustles to keep her busy. All of those have been put on hold since the injury.
She also used to be an active member of her 55-plus community, regularly participating in yoga, water aerobics, pickleball and other activities. But she hasn’t left the house much at all since the injury, she said.
While she knows she will heal, she is worried that playing the ukulele, another favorite pastime, will be too painful to continue.
“So all of that is like a loss,” she said. “Like the grieving process: First, you’re in shock, and then you’re sad. And then you’re in denial. Like, ‘Why did this happen?’ And now I’m angry. I don’t want this to happen to anybody else.”
What will the city do?
The Haverlys have sought action against the City of Mount Dora and asked that any indoor drop boxes remove the protective swinging door.
Their lawyer, Chris Largey, said that the city has sovereign immunity, so there is no lawsuit yet. Instead, they have filed a letter of negligence, which gives the city six months to respond to their request. In this case they could receive a maximum of $200,000 to cover all damages or pass a claims bill, according to Largey.
“From all the attention this case has been getting, my guess is that city will come to us and resolve this case,” he said.
Mount Dora city representatives declined to comment on the matter due to the potential lawsuit.
The Haverlys aren’t looking to cash in on the accident, they said, but rather funds to cover their hospital co-payments and make up for Bobbie Haverly’s lost wages. Her sister started a GoFundMe shortly after the incident to pitch in.
“The outpouring from the community has been terrific,” Paul Haverly said.
