I decided to put a short shifter on my 96 300ZX Slicktop during the week around 10pm at night in the apartment parking complex. I pull the center console and begin to remove the shifter and made it as far as getting the new one mostly installed before I dropped a wrench that fell between the exhaust and body. Well with my TRex arms there was no way I could reach from under the car so I shoved my arm deeper into the whole between the shifter and car body. I could almost put my finger on it but needed to twist my hand around the other direction, couldn’t do it with my left hand, I was sitting in the drivers seat at this point. So I decided to rotate by putting my feet on the roof and lay head facing up in the passenger seat to get the right angle. I pushed and shoved and was finally able to put a finger on and drop the wrench to the ground. Well at this point I realized my wrist had swollen from all the twisting and shoving I had done and it was much larger than before and I couldn’t pull my arm out. Of course PANIC ensued and of course the best reaction is to pull harder and harder like a monkey with its hand stuck in a jar! Well that made it even worse. I panicked for bit more and after all the yanking wasn't doing anything I was able calm myself down. Of course this is before I had a cell phone and it being during the work week the place was dead at 1am. Well I laid in the passenger seat with my feet up on the headrest for another hr or so, I imagined what I was going to tell the first person that I saw in the morning getting ready to head to work. Lol. Finally deciding that embarrassment of asking for help or worse the fire dept showing up and cutting on my car to get me out I tried forcing my hand/wrist into a different position and finally yanked hard enough to rip a lot of skin and get my hand out.
I might have learned something from that, not to keep a phone or tell people what I was doing....it’s to use the little gripper tool, magnets on sticks to push/get tools instead of shoving your hand down a little hole.
CTopher