Geelong defender Jed Bews talks about bizarre pinky finger injury

Geelong premiership player Jed Bews has joined footy folklore’s long list of strange injuries as he details how he was set back almost three months by an accident when stacking the dishwasher.

A quick snip from a knife in a kitchen sink has added Jed Bews to the roll call of bizarre injuries in footy folklore.

The premiership Cat was rinsing his dishes at home in March when he went to grab some cutlery and finish stacking his dishwasher.

He felt a sharp pain and noticed a small cut in the bottom third of his right pinky finger.

Jed Bews on return, with heavy strapping on his right pinky. Picture: Josh Chadwick/Getty Images

Bews was concerned when he couldn’t bend the finger and resultant tendon damage ruled him out of Geelong’s first eight games of the year, with the defender brought back in for Sunday’s loss to GWS.

Bews’ accidental finger blow lands him alongside some of football’s great injuries, like Adelaide’s Nigel Smart burning his feet on coals at a motivational session in the pre-season, Steve Johnson breaking his ankles jumping over the Torquay Hotel’s fence and Callum Mills busting his shoulder during a Mad Monday wrestle.

“I was literally stacking the dishwasher, picked up some knives in the sink and it was one of those small sharp ones,” he told this masthead.

“I just got it in a real bad spot. It looked like a paper cut but it just got the wrong spot and went through a tendon.

“I rang the doc (club doctor Dr David Long) straight away and I think he thought I accidentally called him. I sent him a photo and he was like, ‘What are you doing?’. I was in the kitchen and there was blood everywhere and there was a gash across the finger. I thought, ‘I can’t bend it’. In my head I knew something wasn’t right.

“He (Long) said go to emergency and I went in and I was under the knife the next day and fixed it up.”

Jed Bews running with protection for his finger in April. Picture: Alison Wynd

He barely carries a scar on the pinky finger now.

“You do need your fingers, especially in footy,” Bews said.

“It was innocuous, such a small thing can have big ramifications. It was annoying but I have got through being angry, being sad, I have done all that and now I am through the other side and back playing footy.”
Bews was picked to play against the Giants on Sunday without having played a game of footy in 10 weeks, but he slotted in seamlessly to a defence missing Tom Stewart, Jack Henry, Jake Kolodjashnij and Lawson Humphries.

The 172-game defender has gotten used to waiting for a spot in the team, after not playing until round 20 last year, and eventually keeping his spot in a team that just lost a preliminary final.

“Sometimes you get frustrated. Last year was different because I was healthy, this year there was nothing I could do I just had to bide my time and wait,” he said.

“It was a bit of a risk (for the coaches) but I felt confident I could come in and do the job. It paid off.”