Jerry Garcia lost part of his right middle finger as a child due to a wood chopping accident.
When Jerry Garcia was just four years old, he faced a life-altering incident. It was during the late summer of 1946, while he was staying with his grandparents in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His older brother, Tiff, was chopping wood and didn’t notice young Jerry had approached. As Tiff brought the axe down, Jerry’s right middle finger was accidentally in the path and was severed. Despite the injury, Garcia adapted to the loss remarkably well, learning to play the guitar without the full use of his finger, which later became one of the many distinctive aspects of his legendary musical career as the lead guitarist and vocalist for the Grateful Dead.