Heart to Hart

COEUR d'ALENE - It didn't really even hurt. Just a small prick where the pin punctured the skin in the webbing between the fingers on her left hand. "I didn't see it when I went to pick something up so it just jabbed me right there," said Brittiany Hart as she described what happened while she was cleaning her home on April 5.

COEUR d'ALENE - It didn't really even hurt.

Just a small prick where the pin punctured the skin in the webbing between the fingers on her left hand.

"I didn't see it when I went to pick something up so it just jabbed me right there," said Brittiany Hart as she described what happened while she was cleaning her home on April 5.

The healthy 23-year-old cleaned the tiny wound with alcohol and dismissed it as not a big deal.

But it was.

Within a few hours, a finger on her left hand curled over. By the next morning, her hand was curling in, too.

"It was clear within a few hours this wasn't a normal poke. This was something more," Hart said.

Because she didn't have health insurance, Hart was a little reluctant to see a doctor. She knew, though, that she better go.

Good thing.

The first doctor gave her a tetanus shot and sent her to a hand specialist, who asked her to straighten her hand. She couldn't.

The specialist, Dr. Peter Jones, asked what she thought was a strange question.

"When was the last time you ate?"

About 10, she answered.

"OK, it looks like you're going to surgery at 4," he said.

The Coeur d'Alene native was incredulous.

Surgery, from a pin prick?

Jones told her that without an operation, she could lose her hand, and if the infection continued to spread, her arm.

In the medical world, Hart's illness was known as tenosynovitis, the inflammation of the sheath that surrounds a tendon. It happens sometimes to those who work with tools like electricians and carpenters when cut by something with bacteria on it.

In Hart's case, the infection moved swiftly.

"I was very scared," she said. "He told me if I had even waited another day, it could have been a lot worse."

The surgery was a success, but for Hart, it was the beginning of a lengthy return to health and work. She had to keep her arm above her heart attached to an IV pole for a month, even while sleeping.

The arm was wrapped in a cast. She went to the hospital daily for two weeks for antibiotics. She is also undergoing physical therapy to regain full use of her hand.

"There was a while I was really afraid my hand was never going to get better," she said.

Meantime, she was out of work six weeks and the medical bills mounted: $30,000.

Enter her employer, Coeur d'Alene Brewing.

At the onset, her managers told her to take care of herself and not worry about her job. They assured her she was always welcome back as a bartender.

"They've been just awesome," she said.

And they're doing more.

The Heart to Hart fundraiser is 3-10 p.m. Saturday at the Coeur d'Alene Brewing Company.

There will be food, beer, music, a silent auction, and servers will pitch in their tips, too - all for the love of Hart.

"The community support has been amazing on this," said Rochelle Van Slate, manager at Coeur d'Alene Brewing.

Van Slate said Hart has done a wonderful job since joining Cd'A Brewing 10 months ago.

"She works her butt off," Van Slate. "She's a rock star."

With a small staff, Van Slate said everyone at Cd'A Brewing pitches in, including Hart.

"She's the sweetest girl I've ever met in my life," Van Slate said.

The fundraiser touched Hart, a 2005 Bridge Academy graduate.

"I just have cried almost every day thinking how much these people honestly cared about me," she said. "It's a family here. We really do take care of each other."

"I know I'm not the first and last person this has happened to," she continued. "I'm just lucky enough to have such generous, loving, caring people around me that they actually want to do something to help me, and that is amazing to me."

She's proud that her hometown has rallied around her.

"I wouldn't want to live anywhere else," Hart said.