How are fingernails made and where do they start?

My uncle was drunk a few nights ago and was telling a story about how he was trying to be like Evel Knievel…blah blah blah… and he ended up getting the tip of his finger stuck in the chain of his motorbike and then it broke at a right angle. He said his nail was ripped out, and it did, but when he was giving me his “grade A anatomy” of where the fingernail starts, he kept pointing at the middle section of the finger. I have my doubts, but I’ll ask the collective.