Jake Owen Updates His Condition After Hand Injury

Jake Owen may never be able to play the guitar again -- but he doesn't care. In the wake of a terrible go-kart accident that shattered his right hand, the singer says his main concern is healing up enough to hold his infant daughter, Pearl, who was born last Thanksgiving day.

"I don't care about my hand. I don't," Owen insists to CMT. "Nobody has come up to me and been like, 'Hey, man. Sorry to hear about your hand. I bet it sucks that you can't hold your baby right now.' Everyone's more like, 'I bet that sucks you can't play guitar.' I can't even hold Pearl right now. That's the worst part about it. I could care less about guitar."

The accident happened over July 4 weekend, while Owen was racing go-karts against Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer -- both of whom are professional NASCAR drivers. He was wearing full protective gear, but sustained a very serious hand injury despite his gloves.

"I have 40 stitches, from the interior out. I shattered my fingers -- the bones inside," Owen relates. "The doctor said it was like taking a cinderblock and dropping it on your hand. Like it spider webbed the bones inside my fingers. So he had to suture the bones back up to even make it a bone and then put a screw in there to keep it together."

Despite his injuries, Owen was back on stage the following weekend, playing at Fenway Park with Jason Aldean. "All I could think about was, 'I'm not about to bail on Boston, a city where people just lost arms and legs from this coward . . . bomber,'" he states. "I thought that if those people are Boston strong, then I'm gonna be Boston strong."

Owen adds that his prognosis may not be clear for another eight weeks, and it's possible that he'll never be able to bend his fingers correctly again. That could preclude him from a number of activities, including playing guitar, golfing and surfing. "But mostly, I just want to hold Pearl," he says.