Baseball: OHS coach continues to recover from fluke mowing accident

Odessa High baseball coach Mike Munguia will turn the lawn mower off the next time.

Nearly losing a thumb will do that to a person.

Munguia was cutting the grass at Pressley Field last month when he reached down to brush some grass off the rollers on the back of the mower. His left thumb was nearly severed at the base when it was caught in the spinning blades.

"I was fixing the field to get it ready and had the blades going in reverse and self-sharpening," Munguia said. "One of the maintenance guys left a cap off one of the sprinkler heads, so I got off the mower and normally when I do that, the blades disengage, but not when they are going in reverse.

"I went back to brush off some grass, and the next thing I know, my hand's in the blade," he said. "I really didn't want to look down because I thought my thumb was gone."

The thumb wasn't gone, but it was broken in two and hanging off his hand where the thumb meets the palm.

He went to Medical Center Hospital, where Dr. Benjamin Cunningham reset the break with two pins. Cunningham performed the microsurgery needed to reattach the nerves, tendons and veins in two separate surgeries.

"I got a call and was told that I needed to go to the emergency room to see how Mike was doing," said Ron King, the OHS football coach and athletics coordinator. "When I got there, it didn't look good at all."

Munguia severed one artery in the thumb, but the other was intact and providing a strong blood flow. He credits that fact for saving his thumb.

Now, he says, he is dealing with the nerves coming back to life. Also, he goes to the hospital for intravenous antibiotic treatments to help accelerate the healing process.

"It's a weird feeling, like electricity is running through your hand all the time," he said. "But the doctors say that is a good thing, so that's positive."

Mungia learned his lesson from the ordeal.

"You can bet that I'll be looking at everything from now on before I put my hands anywhere near things," he said. "You don't realize how much you needs two hands to do things until you only have one hand available."