After coming home from dinner with the family last night I thought I'd squeeze in a couple of shots at my backyard target. Being in a hurry (first bad idea) I set up quickly for my first shot. I relaxed prematurely and had to pull back again, and did so without sufficiently looking at my arrow position on my rest (second mistake).
I settled on my target point and released - POW! I thought my limbs broke or my string came off the axle or something. My arrow sat just a few feet in front of me and the knock was missing. Then as I inspected my bow, I noticed my welled up hand with a small "gouge" out of it!
I've been trying to recreate in my mind what the arrow did when I released. I feel pretty lucky that this is all that happened! I think that when I almost let down, my drop-away either let down, or almost did and my arrow fell out or got stuck in a weird position. When I released the arrow slammed my hand and the energy got used up right at the arrow rest. I shudder to think of all that energy getting released uncontrollably within a few inches of my hand and a so close to my face! The bow seems to be fine save for a couple of nicks that may or may not be a part of yesterday's incident. The arrow also looks fine save for the knock that disappeared. Check out the pics - I definitely got lucky.