OP, I'm sorry you had to go through this, and I hep your finger heals well.
This is why I like fixed blades. Even a small fixed blade is way safer than any folder. It's a folder, bottom like the rte. It's already broken in the middle and is held open with a mechanical lock of some kind. It's a bit safer than a slip joint infused with sloppy knife handling, but it still can bite. The knife manufactures these days have made a mint selling over built knives to young guys who don't now any better. I've seen horrible accidents with locking blade knives when the owners thought they were okay doing something that they should not have.
I used to be a machinist before I retired. We had a young man in the sheet metal shop amputate his right index finger at the middle joint. He was doing something he should not have been, a couple of the older men in the shop told him to knock it off and use another tool. His smart reply was, "It's a Buck knife, it'kk take it." Well, it didn't and the shop foreman had to run upstairs to the cafeteria for a cu of ice to put the finger in when the EMT's transported him to the ER, and then to the hand trauma clinic at Johns Hopkins up the road in Baltimore. They re-attached his finger, but it was never totally right again.
About ten years ago I had to had some surgery on my left thumb for a tendon condition called trigger finger. In and out procedure on an outpatient basis. While sitting with my wife in the waiting room, we got totaling to the middle age lady and late teenage son sitting across from us. His right hand was heavily bandaged and he was waiting to go back for surgery on his finger. He had been "messing around" his words, with his knife and the blade folded up on him. The knife in question was a modern tactical and the lock had failed. Shocking. As a result, the kid had major nerve damage and the docs were going to try to get some use back in the finger.
Both instances they could have been using a fixed blade and been fine. But both instances both kids had faith in their super tactical blade locks. It's a known fact that sometimes mechanical things just fail. Put enough stress on it, and metal sheers, or some little piece of grip or pocket lint keeps the lock from engaging totally.
When I was a kid, pocket knives didn't even have locks and nobody cut themselves. They knew how to use a pocket knife. If it was something that the pocket knife was not up to, then they used another knife; the old hunting knife, or skinning knife, or the old Camilllus MK2 brought back from the war. But it was a fixed blade. What we all called a 'sheath knife' back then. We didn't have an artificially created market with super duper over built knives that manufacturers made outrageous claims about. Yeah, Cold Steel shows weights hung from the handle of a folder with the blade in the vise, but how many times did they set up that shot before they got the shot they needed? Don't believe the videos.
Carry a little pocket knife for opening your mail, cutting a box drown, whatever. But keep a fixed blade around for use on stuff that you wouldn't use a slip joint on. Your fingers will thank you, and you'll stay of the ER.
Everyday pocket knife with un-folding backup;
