Jump to content
I Forge Iron

hurt at work


Recommended Posts

got my middle finger on my left hand caught in a hydraulic drum dumper at work last saturday , it was flat as a pancake till i got to the hospital, didnt break any bones but got 12 stitches, and kept my finger by shear luck, this got me thinking, has anyone else had a really bad hand injury blacksmithing? or doing anything else?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the HEY! Don't you know better than to put your finger THERE?! Go sit in the corner and think about it for a while!

No, I haven't done myself any serious mischiefs smithing; the usual unavoidable little burns, bumps, nicks, cuts, bruises and such, the worst ever was a black fingernail. Yes, I'm lucky!

Well, I DO stay away from TREES though!:o

I'm really glad you weren't hurt worse and wish you the best of recoveries.

Frosty the Lucky.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yowwwch! That hurts just hearing about it. Glad you got to keep your digit!

My only major hand boo-boo was getting tangled up in a frisky young colt's halter when I was turning him out. It popped the knuckle on my R/ring finger real good.
I thought I'd just dislocated it so I yanked on it, got a pretty good pop out of it and went back to finishing chores.

Got up the next morning and it was double sized and black as midnight - fast forward to the next day (after taking a thumpin' from the wife for not going in right away) and I'm in surgery watching the doc remove the 4 pieces I'd shattered the knuckle into. He fixed them up nice and tidy like ( with a little grinding here - drill a hole or two there) and voila! - Not so good as new.

That finger is now at an angle where I can finally do that Mr Spock "Live long & Prosper" thing with no trouble at all!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

um, I am fairly safe at work but I have put a zip disk into my little finger on my left hand. Now when I touch the top of the finger I have feeling further up and off to the side.

I will say that in the trade the saying goes " removed "


Blacksmithing is dangerous enough, then we add moving parts, pinch pints, danger zones, etc. Please just be careful in everything you do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back about 30+ years ago I was moving a full large oxytank on a concrete loading dock and it hit a patch of ice and went down, I went with it and cradled the valve stem with my hand to make sure it wouldn't hit anything and had the misfortune to have my right pinky just a little too far under the tank and smashed it flat---over 6 breaks in the last joint, the end popped open like a smushed bug.

I wrapped it up and spend all night awake with it raised. Went to the clinic in the morning and after the obligatory "You dumb idiot why didn't you come in yesterday!" (Sad to say they had this speech canned wrt me due to other incidents..) They told me I was lucky it had bled all night else I would have been in during the early morning hours due to pain.

They splinted it and wrapped it in gauze forming what they called a baseball bandage---looks like a comic strip bandage. And had me back the following day and gave me two choices: 1 leave it splinted and have a "normal looking but non functional finger"---wouldn't bend at that joint. Or 2 remove the splint and break open the joint and keep working it while it healed and have a semi working but not so pretty finger.

They graphically described what it would feel like to go the second route---Glen would just delete the language they used---and they were right! Finger is a bit crooked and a lot wider than the other one and semi works---tends to freezer up in cold weather and hurt; but all my fingers are catching up with it as I age.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've got a queazy feeling in me tummy. As someone said in another post "smashed my finger and I almost puked"

Worst accident I've had was on a lathe. I was in a sixth grade wood shop class. I was adjusting the speed on an old Delta wood lathe with a pulley cluster. One of my classmates came over and switch it on while I was laying on my back adjusting the belt on the top pulley. Thank God for loose belts and small motors. I was able to stop the motor and pull it backwards to remove my thumb from the pulley. Otherwise who knows what would have happened. I can only imagine, and it ain't pretty :blink: I only ended up with about 10 stitches across the knuckle of my left thumb and it still works fine. Now if someone come up to a machine I'm working on, I move away from the machine- even with lock out in place. Yup, I'm paranoid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can tell you that the worst injuries for me were not the immediate traumatic ones they were the ones that crept up by thinking I was "bulletproof".
I won`t bore you here and go thru it again but I posted on a thread about arm strain if you care to read it.

Long story short,bulling thru and ignoring what my body was trying to tell me led to a life changing event and a permanent disability.

Hind sight is always 20/20.What I am going to suggest to you is to accept and be always aware of the fact that you we chose to work in a potentially dangerous environment,the craft requires it.
Along with building your skill set and developing you hands ,eyes and mind I will urge you to also develope and learn to listen to that small voice in the back of your head that says"Watch it here!" or "That`s enough for today" or"Get those safety glasses,ear plugs,faceshield,etc. and put them on NOW!".
If you need a second opinion you need only look at or count the posts of those asking for support for disability hearings,surgeries,etc on the appropriate sub forums here.

Stepping down off the soap box now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bob hope your feeling better and wish you a quick recovery. I haven't had a serious injury blacksmithing, but had a few working as a carpenter.

The worst one was falling from scaffolding and landing flat footed on concrete,I think after 40yrs. old you splat instead of bounce. One week I was in the ER four days out of five. They wanted me to come in the day I missed to change my bandage but I was out of town.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Along with building your skill set and developing you hands ,eyes and mind I will urge you to also develope and learn to listen to that small voice in the back of your head that says"Watch it here!" or "That`s enough for today" or"Get those safety glasses,ear plugs,faceshield,etc. and put them on NOW!".


Alway good advice Bob!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fortunately I have not been injured smithing in any serious manner except for the usual bumps, bruises and burns. I have done some dumb things that brought on these injuries and thanks be to God that they weren't more serious but you got to be careful. Most of my back injuries have come at the hands of "gators", tailgaters that is. :P
I hope that your finger is mending well and that no permanent damage is done other than scaring. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I learned a lesson not to be rushing and skip a safety step for even a really small job. I just needed to quickly grind a little rough spot with my die grinder and didn't need to put on my face shield(I had glasses on). Well the grit and grindings found a way around my glasses and I then spent a couple afternoons with the eye doctor while he plucked grit out of my eye. Luckily only one eye and no permanent effects. It wasn't a lot of fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i have always found that when you think , " man this is dangerous" you dont get hurt. it's always the everyday chore or "easy" tasks that get you...
we always need to stay alert and take a second to look at what we are about to do!
as for me i found out that i get to keep my job, which is a relief, and now i get to tell my story to the whole plant in our site wide meeting...
ugh... i just love public speaking, but i hope that it helps others be safer at their job...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some old f*rt , probably yours truly, once said, "Experience is the sum of all your mistakes." I am very experienced.wink.gif

Some decades ago I tried to burn a wooden handle onto a rat-tail knife tang by clamping the handle in the vise and pushing the blade into it with a pair of tongs. You should always do it the other way 'round. Clamp the blade and, WEARING GLOVES, push the handle onto the tang.

I still have the scar on both sides of my right hand.sad.gif


Be glad it wasn't worse, and may you be blessed with speedy recovery.

J.D.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have seen some bad things in my short time as tradesman and nearly had some bad things happen to me using mostly hydrulic equipment every bend you make with a big bender has the potential to hurt you and bad

milling machines and gear drive presses dont stop when you turn them off they keep going until all the gears stop

just today I nearly picked up a 8000lb piece of steel with a 7800lb strap that was worn eventually we got the same thing done without the strap

just be sensible I could have used two straps and a link but if it broke then you have a 2 pound bullet

I shudder at the thought of the damage it could do you never know where it might go.

sometimes I just think to myself of what the shear or ironworker or press brake can do to a human being

the effect is similar to what would happen if whatever body part was under a powerhammer,

just think of it as GONE and never coming back

sometimes its simple stuff that hurt people though like getting a piece of steel off the rack that is too big or something rolls off and falls on you.

or even the accumlative damage from welding smoke and grinding dust or the numerous flashes or the sounds of steel on steel or grinding/cutting

some people never worry about it and always seem to be fine, but then again some people smoke 2 packs of smokes a day and inhale welding fumes and dust and never get cancer either.

so what's the answer I guess maybe just think abit and try not to rush into things even if you are pressured into it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No injuries from smithing yet, but I've just barely started, so give me a few days. That being said, let me tell you about the dumbest thing I ever did. I've had my share of bumps, bruises, and self-inflicted gore, but this one takes the cake. I'm speaking of the Great Snowblower Incident of '07. Yup, had to capitolize it.
I own an old (okay, practically antique) Ariens 8 HP snowblower. It's getting tired and tends to clog if the snow is a bit sticky. I had nearly completed the driveway after a storm when the chute clogged. This particular model has a pair of manual clutches, one to turn off the auger at the front, and one to disengage the engine. I flipped the auger clutch ,engine still running and clutch engaged, and for some reason I reached in through the auger at the front with my gloved hand to unclog it. I heard a thunk, and realized that the auger clutch just engaged again. THUNK! Luckily, where it is an old and tired machine, my hand in the impeller was enough to stall the engine. You may all stop cringing now. After an eternity of hollering for my wife, or fifteen minutes or so, with my hand stuck firmly in a several hundred pound machine, she found me and called the fire department. It was like a keystone cops episode. Tewnty people tearing an old snowblower apart to free me. It's the only ambulance ride I have ever taken. I didn't break any bones, but I have a lovely three inch scar on the back of my right hand and a matching one on the inside. The first two fingers of that hand are a bit stiff, too. I'm xxxx lucky. I shudder every time I think of it. I still have that snowblower, it still runs, and I shut off BOTH clutches and use a stick to knock out clogs. My hands go nowhere near the moving parts unless it's OFF. I can be taught.
Okay, someone top THAT one! :P:blink:
Edit: Sorry about the finger, glad to hear that it'll be okay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


I've got a queazy feeling in me tummy. As someone said in another post "smashed my finger and I almost puked"

Worst accident I've had was on a lathe. I was in a sixth grade wood shop class. I was adjusting the speed on an old Delta wood lathe with a pulley cluster. One of my classmates came over and switch it on while I was laying on my back adjusting the belt on the top pulley. Thank God for loose belts and small motors. I was able to stop the motor and pull it backwards to remove my thumb from the pulley. Otherwise who knows what would have happened. I can only imagine, and it ain't pretty :blink: I only ended up with about 10 stitches across the knuckle of my left thumb and it still works fine. Now if someone come up to a machine I'm working on, I move away from the machine- even with lock out in place. Yup, I'm paranoid.


There is absolutely NO excuse for that kind of behavior! Where was the instructor?

Was the kid 86ed from the shop class? Anybody who pulled a stunt like that while I was in school would be out that day and if anyone was injured never to be allowed in any shop class again.

I have a reflex reaction to anyone touching a control on a machine I'm operating from a lathe to the family car to a screw jack or. . . Well, anything. The best the idiot can expect is being shouldered violently clear of my machine though worse has happened a couple times, once resulting in a nice little pool of nose blood on the floor. That idiot not only argued telling me to take it easy but actually reached for the controls AGAIN to prove his point!

Sorry for any rant vibes but that kind of BS just sets me off. :angry:

Frosty the Lucky.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a small wound, but my own stupidity and lesson learned.

When I was learning to stick weld I didn't quite grasp the concept of keeping an even distance, and often touched the electrode to the steel; obviously this just causes the arc to stop and the electrode sticks to the steel.
I twisted the rod until it snapped off, and to this day I have no idea why, but I grabbed the little stubby bit still attached to the steel. It, obviously, burned straight through the glove and left me with a perfect scar on my finger. It makes my fingerprints unique on my left hand!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of the unfortunate jobs the day crew had to do at a plant I worked at was to clean up the scene after a night shift worker lost his life.
The machine was locked down but from the reports there was still one lock on the lockout device(his) prior to the accident.
They were in a hurry to get the draw bench back on line(no surprise) and couldn`t find him anywhere,they ASSUMED he was outside smoking. So the night foreman used his master key to remove the lock and fire the machine up.
Turns out he was still under the machine cleaning up hydraulic fluid and they found this out when pieces of him were thrown clear of the cables and chains after the first cycling of the machine.
After that it became common practice among mechanics to lock out a machine and then pull and pocket the fuses/breakers.

I take Frosty`s approach a little further and don`t allow people to approach me or talk to me when I`m using equipment that requires my complete attention.
In return I refuse to approach someone else under the same circumstances.I place myself in their line of sight so they know I`m there and then wait for them to finish and approach me.
How many times has an ER doctor or nurse heard"I was only distracted for a second" I wonder?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope that night foreman was tarred and feathered and rid out of town on a rail! That lock should have stayed there until they had the owner present even if they had to get him marched in by federal marshals!

Working in a custom wood shop we had a "new" hire that got tired of waiting for the 3' wide 10 hp belt sander to cycle down so he could switch belts---so he reaches in and grabs the belt thinking he will stop it---I mentioned 10HP right? well the belt grabbed his hand and smashed it down to the knife edge (guess why it's called that?) He was extremely lucky in that it then did stop else it would have been sanded off the arm!

Anyway we had to do an emergency disassembly of the machine to get his hand out---damaging an expensive machine. Then he fussed that he didn't want to put his hand in the pitcher of ice and water for the ride to the hospital where upon we explained that he could do it or we'd knock him out and then do it.

Soft tissue damage---he was *very* *VERY* lucky and *very* *VERY* unemployed!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am glad to say the foreman lost his job over that and rightly so.
Never heard the result of the follow on civil suit.

It was unfortunate that it took something like that to drive home the safety issues that were being ignored in at least that plant owned by an international company.
They had an even more high tech plant built in Florida(the plant I was working in at the time was in NY)and the maintenance mechanics used to talk about how the injury rate must be thru the roof if the same disregard for safety was going on around those high speed CNC machines.
Just in the maintenance department at our plant,on our shift there were employees that had lost an arm,an eye,more than one finger and minor things like scars were too numerous to mention.All on the job injuries.
From time to time you`d hear the stories of those too badly injured to return to work there or anywhere else.

Made the oil field and the ship yards look like a safe place to work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Made the oil field and the ship yards look like a safe place to work" now that's scary! I worked in the patch a couple years as a mudlogger and they were saying that career rig hands had a 20% chance of a major on the job injury sometime in their career and I could well believe that; hard to have minor injuries when you are in the multi-thousand horse power range with 300,000 pounds on the hook.

I myself saw a chain break and hit the guy throwing it---lucky devil; it was dead of the winter and the multi layers of heavy duty insulated clothing kept him from a fatal injury.

Where I work now we've had very strict lock-out, tag-out training and I'm a software tester that only gets to play with the antennas under rare circumstances!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have worked heavy industry since 1978. Big Heavy from 1981 to 2002. Boiler modules that went 272,000#, 25,000# drop forge hammers, 8" screw machines etc.
A few accidents I worked as First Aid or clean up:
Guy sees a hopper hang up on a chip dump elevator. Gets a log chain, gets a forklift driver to raise him up about 16' him standing on the forks, and toss the chain onto the hopper. Hopper falls back from the chain impact, and 4000# of hopper pins him into and onto the forks/mast. The lift driver freaks, breaks and runs, and the guy is now alone in an annex, pinned and 16' in the air. We heard the screams, and the only way to get him down was to lower the mast with him in it. Then we got enough men to hold the hopper and lowered some more and pulled him out, then once he was clear, dropped the hopper. He had multiple open fractures of both legs and one arm. He also had a deep laceration from the top of his left big toe that ended over his right ear. The wounds all full of the grease on the mast, and steel shavings and dust etc. He had to have muscle grafts to be able to walk some, and never returned to work. The forklift driver left the plant and was not seen again. My union Safety steward, also a first aid guy helped on the first aid, and then we spent 3.5 hours cleaning our friend out of and off the forklift. Once done, we went to my office and de-stressed a bit, and we right there had a handshake agreement. If either one of us ever saw another person standing on the forks of a lift, we would get the other, and the two of us would walk the stander and the driver to the gate, and the union would not stand any complaints. He put the word out on his side and I on mine. I worked with that union man for another 10 years and we became very good friends. He has now passed and I miss him every day. Neither one of us was unaffected by that accident. We both had nightmares and flashbacks and would occasionally have to lock the door to my office, have some coffee and work thru that.

A contractor installing a chip processing system dropped a wrench into a 24" deep drag conveyor that moved slowley. He reached in to grab the wrench. The top drag link, a 4" x 4" by 1/2" angle caught him, and dragged his arm into the space between the links and the casing, a space of perhaps 2". Luckly, another millwright saw and threw the switch, and stopped the conveyor. A general alarm went thru the plant then under construction, and every millwright, and steel worker and electrician, and yours truely, the First aid guy all showed up in seconds, the millwrights carring big hammers and prybars. The motor and gear box were literally hammered off the conveyor, and about 10 men layed into the pinch bars and reversed 100' of conveyor, as others were pulling about 40 bolts from the covers. We had him out and laying on a picnic table in perhaps 2 minutes. Now this was a BIG boy with 20" biceps. I was really afraid to see what his arm would look like as I cut the shirt away. The skin was NOT broken. Not a scratch!. But all the muscles in his upper arm had been pulled internally down around his elbow. Turning black from the bleeding as I watched. We packed that arm in ice and cold packs, and the ambulance had him at the hospital perhaps 10 minutes after it happened. After several rounds of surgery, and 18 months of therapy, he is again working the same job, installing these systems.

Friend comes into my office, limping, red faced, and sweating. Tells me he has a problem. He was using a "zip wheel" on an unguarded air grinder, and the wheel split in two. He tells me he is afraid to look, but he thinks the half 4" wheel is stuck in his "privates"! He had a pretty big belly, and could not exactly see. I look and there is the wheel half, sticking out of his thigh, not his tender region. Thats a good news bad news thing cause it is stuck about where the big artery runs. A quick trip to the ER, and he was lucky.

We had many old New Britian Chuckers, and they had a bad habit of the chuck closing and the drum indexing when the operators hand was in the wrong place. Many crushed hands and fingers there. I finally scrapped the last one in 1996.

We had an operation that used 10 ton presses to expand seat rings in place. The tooling was very hard to last, and pretty brittle. The operator help the valve in their hand with the pipe ports vertical, dropped the bottom ring on the tool, and stepped on the pedal and the press came down with 10 tons and expanded both rings. Once in a while a tool would shatter, and I would get to pull some shards from their chest, or take them to the ER for the deep ones. Now we got a gulf war I vet in, a very attractive, very busty red haired girl, who was the neice of the union steward from above. She was running this operation, and a tool snapped and yes sir bingo, shard to the bust. She is not to upset, I call my buddy, her uncle to both help, and be my "No hanky Panky happened" guy, and in the first aid room she peels off the work shirt to display a purple, lacy bra containing barely her 21 year old self, and a shard stuck clean through!. I tell her that we need to go to the ER, and she says ER H#$%, and peels the bra off, grabs the shard and pulls out a 3/4" by 1" shard. A little blood, and I handed HER the gause pad to apply pressure:). Her uncle is laughing his butt off at my discomfort. Now I like to see those items as much as anybody, but I am trying to be proffesional, and haveing a heck of a time. She put antibiotic and a bandaid on it and went back to work. She suffered no problems from the wound, but demanded we buy her a new bra cause that one had a hole in it, and became a friend as well. Neat, earthy family that. Good to have your back.

At the upsetter forge shop, we had a 10" upsetter. This used a powered porter bar to move the 542# billets. Used two chain hoists to raise/lower and tilt the billet. Now these were all or nothing control upsetters that once you stepped on the pedal, caused a grip slide to slam shut and hold the porter bar against a back stop. The back stop took most of the 2500 tons of force from the upsetter tool slide. When the operator team of two guys, who were holding the handles on the porter bar got the alignment off, the bar would snap into place, break the hoist chains, and usually flip the operators about 10' in the air and 12' laterally. Remember those 542# billets? after forging the huge axles would be dumped intot tubs to cool and be moved away. One of the special concerns for those operators was were the box of hot forgings was placed. If you got flipped into the box there was 2200F forgings in it, and the operator would explode into a smoke and fire ball of body fat in an instant. Saw a demo where a road kill possum was tossed in. Humans would not have lasted long.

And now I am a EH&S Specialist in a very safe clean shop, and have a strong passion about some things. When I train a forklift driver and tell them my list of pet peaves, I tell them why. Like don't hang onto the cage with your hand wrepped around the upright, as I have picked up the finger pieces from a friend who did that and found a open pipe. 2 fingers 4 parts. Or don't hang you foot in the foot well, I had to ice the crushed foot of my 63 year old diabetic worker who found a tub of forgings with his foot. Don't sturn and slide out of a forklift, back out holding one with both hands so I don't have to pack you to the hospital like two of my guys that broke ankles that way.

Never ever work on or in machines that have not been locked out. I have more stories from that sector, but I am feeling a little PTSD'ed right now.

Please be safe out there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow!

And I thought having a 100# propane tank land on me while I was dragging it across the ice was bad.

I too work in the oil patch. Fortunately, I havn't been here long enough to see some super bad stuff go down. I work on submersibles, and VFD's. There's a bunch of electricity everywhere. I am thankful that our HS&E people keep nagging us about being safe. I've been taking that safety home for a few years now, and seem to have not really gotten too hurt because of it.

This one time, I was welding some stuff in the garage. Just gluing two pieces together, minding my own business and all. A week earlier I ruined my right hand welding glove, and was only wearing my left one. One thing leads to another, and I pick up the hot steel with my gloved hand and walk to the bench. Why I decided to transfer the hot steel to my other hand is a mystery to me, but I did, and ended up with two melted fingers. Man, that hurt!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was working as a millright in a lightbulb factory. Building a new hopper over a glass grinder at the end of a reject conveyor.
Had my own lock on the "supposed" lockout station. At one point I had to stand on the grinder drum itself to weld the bottom of the new hopper, there was no access to the outside since it was submerged between floors. I had just stepped off the drum to grab a handfull of rods when the grinder came to life. Some engineer testing circuits on a new computer system inadvertantly started the grinder in spite of my lockout lock. I didn't even pick up my own personal tools, just got in my truck and drove home and never went back. Do not trust lockouts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That`s why we pulled and pocketed the fuses/breakers.
If someone is stupid enough to see them missing and then go and get replacements and remove your lock,put them in and start the machine all you can hope for is that a good buddy may arrange for that person to need a ride in the ambulance along with you.
Most of them can fit 2 people.
I`ve seen it happen in the oil field.The man who crushed my friend Bill Porter got to ride to the hospital beside Billy`s body.
The Haliburton operator on the intensifier that blew up on me got to ride along with me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...