oops, gotcha moment

[Eddie Mullins]

I have scars on three fingers on my left hand from a close encounter with a skill saw. I was in grade school, don't recall just what age I was. Luck is the only reason all three weren't lost. I remember well chomping down on a towel while they were being stitched back up. I have had a healthy respect for power tools ever since. Got a few other scars over the years, but nothing major. Maybe I got assigned a full time angel after the saw incident : ) .

[Marksnagel]

The following words were used several times in the preceeding replies:

 

Just

Quick

Last

Only

Hope

Distracted

Anger

 

I will just quickly do this last one and only hope I don't get distracted by my anger.

 

I am not pointing fingers because mine have many scars from lessons learned. We all take short cuts because we are in a hurry. It's in our blood. I know because every now and then I see mine.

 

Mark <><

[Quarry Dog]

Yeah, it is usually when I'm in too much of a hurry, or when I'm not paying attention, that I burn myself or do something that almost earns me a Darwin award.  I find it amazing that I still have all of my major body parts.  In all seriousness though, I am pretty careful nowadays, but I don't know how I made it past my teenage years, to the 28 I just turned last week.

[ptree]

As an industrial safety guy, and former Parachute instructor/jumpmaster I will offer that there are usually 2 classes of folks that get hurt doing something inherently dangerous. Beginners and the very experienced. The beginners because they may not have been trained for the thing that bites, and the very experienced that are complacent and omit or ignore things.

In my experience in experienced folks it is the failure to take care of the small things that bite us. Think of the small items as stairs that lead to a high platform, to fall off of. Remove any single step on the stairs and you can't get to the top to fall.

 

As a 23 year old, feeling immortal, I was a professional jumper, doing demonstration jumps for both military teams and for money for the club I belonged to. Accepted a contract to jump at a mall to open a labor day sale. Omitted steps? Failed to go visit the landing area, failed to see it in fact till we flew over. Failed to account for winds over the building itself. At 30' up and cruising in at about 32mph on my wing parachute, the rotor downwash from the wind over the mall collasped my chute placing me back into freefall at 30" and gave me an extra 15mh of tail/down wind. I did an excellent PLF, yet broke the left knee, tore my ACL in half and both menicus were torn. Took several small fails to yeild a life altering accident.

A year later jumping at an airshow, we had 2 jumps scheduled, one to open the show with a jumped in US flag with 2 biplanes circling the jumper at about 120mph, scarey! but the wind was high. landed, and since the second jump was scheduled for just 15 minutes from the first landing I packed up like a demon, and did not really note that the wind had increased to 35mph. Once out and opened I found myself backing up at about 10mph as the wind had further increased and was exceeding my forward speed by at least 10mph. Had to turn downwind to NOT land behind a NAVY Blue Angels jet that was running, turned back but landed cross wind. The TV news had a great clip that showed my feet-head-feet-head-feet role as I landed at 42MPH sideways. Broken wrist. Again small things ignored, bit me.

 

There are those very rare, did not do anything worng occasions, but very rare. 6 weeks after the above, I was guiding students in to land using a bullhorn at the home DZ. Standing in the middle of a 450 acre farm that rented us space, when a stray rifle round hit me on the same hand that I had broken 6 weeks before. The cast came off Friday and I got shot Sunday. The vercro-steel and canvass wrist brace saved me as the wrist did not rebreak. Lots of blood, lots of swelling etc. The excellent first aid kit we kept, and the many mine rescue-nurses and military folks that were in the club had me sat down and the blodd flow stopped quick.

Happened to be the same summer that the TV show Dallas had their cliffhanger with the tagline "Who shot JR?" The shooting made the papers and I may have heard 10,000 times, Who shot JR?

 

So.. the thing is to take care of the little things and not take a step towards the top of the accident ladder. Wear safety glasses from the time you open the shop door till you close the door at the end of the day. follow all of those little piddley safety rules we are all taught. LISTEN to the voice in the back of your head when it says "This may not be a good idea"

[3DistinctKnocks]

My wife calls me "Tim the Tool-Man Taylor"!  Recently my wife was out of state picking up a horse while I was at home with the kids (twins were 11, youngest was 7).  I figured I'd go ahead a fit up an old double bit axe head to a new handle.  Rasped down the section that fits into the head a bit to get a good fit.  Thought I'd do a little better with a pocket knife.  My wife calls my knives "suicidal sharp".  My idiot self places my right hand onto the wood to "clamp" it down while I shaved off some wood.  The blade turned toward the pinky side of my hand and I thought prophetically to myself, "Self...it would really suck if this knife slipped."  No  sooner than I thought it, the blade skipped off the hickory and stopping itself into the meat of my right hand. 

I dropped the blade, clamped my other hand over the wound and wriggled my pinky to make sure it still worked.  Good to go.  Blood everywhere.  Called to Jayme and told her to get her sisters in the house.  Jayme did that and, seeing blood, asked me what happened.  Seeing the wound, she ran and got the trauma kit and helped me bandage it tightly.  Peggy grabbed the phone off my belt and called my dad, asking him to meet us at the ER since mom was out of town.  Morran (the baby) started cleaning up the blood off the floor. 

11 stitches later in the ER where I work (don't laugh), my wife arrives with horse trailer still attached.  Everyone gets a good chuckle.  I work at the hospital and do NOT come to the ER unless its truly an emergency.  They see me come in out of uniform, they start dragging out suture kits.

 

Moral to the story...never cut TOWARD your skin!  Goes for cut off wheels, knives, chisels, etc.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Like most of you I have a long list of near epic failes. The two ill share are on of mine, and one of an old friend.

Every day when I dress (or undress for that matter) I am reminded to use a wip as an arm extension. When I first started training horses I had a PMU, draft mare that wouldn't move forward. I stepped in, beside her right hip and gave her a love tap on the rear. She returned the favor. I have a scar that runs around my left shoulder, and a across my bicep. As well as one on my forearm. I took both feet, full extension ( the rule is to be far away or snuggled right up to the back end of a horse). Ex said she never saw the mare move but I flew 6' up and 15' back. 6" to the right...

 

Now for the story of "ten penny" a retired carpenter I once new, related to me how he got his handle (after more than a few beers) he was installing stiles on a porch railing. He braced up against the top rail ( he's rather tall) and as carpenters ar want to do he had the airnailler cranked up...

 

Nailed a rather sensitive (and to my half of the species) and important piece of his anatamy to his thy. New the man 5 years before he let me in on how he got his nickname.

[Waylon63]

I am a volunteer fire fighter. We had a "neighbor" ( he lived about three miles away) 2 summers ago was welding outside on a windy day. He was kicking the ends of the rods under a trailer he was welding on. It started a fire that burned 4 miles yes FOUR Miles long and a half mile wide before 4 fire departments were able to stop it. It crossed 2 section lines. Fortunately there were no structures lost. We set a "back fire" and setup our fire streams on wide fog/spray to stop it. The flames were as high as the power lines and it sounded like a freight train as it came across the prarie.

[SoCal Dave]

I love this category.  It reminds me of the movie Jaws when they were sitting around the table telling stories of shark attacks and the Captain said he was on the Indianapolis when it sank.  Keep them coming.  

[HIGHSIDER]

Fire!!...Here was I, a little careless..(no tell the truth)... :(..Okay, very careless. Cutting steel with an angle grinder where the sparks fell like the proverbial rain shower onto everything & anything only to cause a fire that burnt the workshop down once I closed up shop that evening...Oh boy, A lifetimes work and collectables gone over one momentary brain lapse of pure stupidity. Yes, I'll admit it, what was I xxxxxxx thinking???. lesson learnt now, the hard way....BE VERY CAREFUL WITH FIRE!!  

[Dabbsterinn]

recently i learned two things

1) i can make a knife really sharp

2)im not a really smart man

 

So it went down something like this, i just finished sharpening my new, shining Bowie knife (pics on their way, still figuring out how to work the camera) when i decided to give it a swing to see how well it chops

but seeing how my smithy is located, there's pretty much nothing i could chop, except dandelions that grow like crazy on the field, so i picked one up, held it in my left hand and chopped away, that went pretty smooth and so i continued, 5-6 heavily mutilated dandelions later, somehow my common sense died with the dandelions and i nearly took the tip of my middle finger off, there was no pain really, just the quick "well, that's unfortunate" and walked back to my smithy, there i slapped some toilet paper and duct tape on that because i bleed like im in a Quentin Tarantino movie, then i was just tinkering with things in my smithy, putting tools back where they should be for a few minutes until my bro in law could drive me home, there i got some band-aids on it and then it started to hurt a bit, all of this is not really that bad, I've had far worse wounds than that and fixed with less but the real kicker was, that the next day at  6:00 i was competing in a sea fishing tournament, now as everyone here knows, the sea is salty, that doesn't really feel nice on a nice, deep gash in the fingertip, so i had it pretty well wrapped in band-aids then i was not really smart again and forgot to take it off until just earlier today, then it had been 3 days with it on, and oh dear, it looked like i don't know what, you know how your skin turns after being in water for a while?, like that, just a whole lot worse, it's fine now though and it's healed pretty well what I aim trying to say here, keep your off-hand about as far away from the knife as you can, i could have evaded pretty much all of my scars on my left hand if i had done that 

[Glenn]

When folks want to learn hammer control I tell them to put their off hand into their pants pocket up to the break of the wrist. Now pick up the hammer and aim for the target. At some point they ask if there is any certain technique involved. I simply say it keeps your off hand out of the way, and keeps it from being hit by the hammer.

 

I have not tried it when using blades. (grin)

[the iron dwarf]

got a very painful burn from a box of matches in the pocket of my jeans, I was using a pedestal grinder and the sparks must have got into my pocket where the box was open just a little, showing the red heads of the matches, the opening was facing my thigh.

can you guess how hard it is to put something like that out or remove jeans quickly

[turbo7]

Never run near a horse. I ran in-between two horses one day, 12 yr old, knew better, wore both barrells fair on the belly button

[notownkid]

I love all these posts.  60 yrs. ago my father told me to listen and learn from other peoples mistakes and errors as I wouldn't live long enough to make all them myself.

Lord knows I've tried over the years. 

Safety glasses were not a big item when I was growing up so never thought to use them when working (that has changed)

My first eye doctors who spent many hours fixing my errors in judgment retired.  A few days before he was done he called me and told me he had given my file to Dr. So and So and had warned him about me.  I asked if he was good and he said "he is as good of one as I could get to take you as a patient after the others read your file".  When So & So died I got my own new Doctor without the files and he Just shakes his head after an exam. 

 

After nearly 30 yrs as an emergency responder to fires, accidents and stupid stunts it is amazing to see what people manage to do to themselves by being foolish. 

[RGraff]

My latest stemmed from a history of lazy safety practices.  

 

I've been welding since I was old enough to see over the top of the workbench.  I'm no fan of auto-darkening hoods and most times, when spot welding, just turned my face or closed my eyes rather than momentarily tip my hood down.  Just a couple months back my doc found a spot of melanoma on my nose.  We attributed it to the welding rather than sun exposure as I'm not much of a sun worshipper and have lived most of my life in northern Oregon.

 

Anyway, after some of the most traumatic surgery I've ever experienced, I'm on the road to recovery.  Needless to say, it's copious amounts of sunscreen from here on out and never, ever, ever welding with my hood up again.  Ever.

[macbruce]

I've go an AD hood but I still and always have done 'blind tacks' when felt like it......All of a sudden I'm less inclined to continue that practice. Thanks for the post and get well soon!


30 or so years ago I did so much blind tacking in one day I burnt my eyelids, that was an eye opener......Also around the same time I laid down allot metal with a wire feed one day wearing a tank top.....Burnt my armpits real good, I don't recommend it.......

Knew a fellow back in the 70's who was a structural welder. He welded all day long in the hot sun on the top floors of buildings and didn't even wear a shirt, just hood,jeans and boots.......He had a very dark leathery tan on his upper body, bet he's dead from skin cancer now.

[Dan C]

I haven't done blind tacks but as a teenager my first experience arc welding I got a very bad sunburn on my arm as I didn't know better. At age 40 I discovered a spot of melanoma in that same area. Maybe just a coincidence but I always cover up when welding.

[zero_sum]

Thought I'd add a small story. A lucky escape one.

 

I'm relatively new to blacksmithing and metal work. I was forging a small knife for my sister as a first real project.

 

I was using a channel lock for tongs emulating videos I had seen on youtube. I was having difficulty holding it at a good angle as you'd imagine and it was pivoting a good bit too sometimes while gripped. What's more I had my anvil on a big round of a tree that was just two low so it had me bending a good bit.

I should have just stopped using the 'tongs' and the anvil set up but I was excited I suppose. I had invested in some PPE so I had some glasses for looking into the forge. It was a hot day and I was taking them on and off to wipe my forehead. Ended up leaving them off for a couple heats and forgot about them.

 

Next thing I know I get too comfortable and the piece of yellow hot steel bounces weird and comes straight up in the air at my bare face! I could feel the heat it got so close. The steel fell on the ground and sizzled in some wet leaves nearby. I just looked at it shrivelling and igniting leaves almost instantly, thinking 'that's me, that's my face if I let myself act the fool again'.

 

It was a very good lesson. The right tools (more important than PPE in some ways if you ask me) and PPE. The girlfriend didn't like hearing about it, I'll tell you that much! 

 

 

Besides that I had some boots torn up by a wire wheel on an angel grinder, got away from me (wire wheels are the only tool that actually makes me a bit uneasy, feel unpredictable). Also

[Steve Shimanek]

While building my house I had been trying to impress the importance of PPE on the guys working with me. Unfortunately while working on his uncle's u joints, banging away with a hammer minus the safety glasses i had provided to him, the bearing cap shattered and a small shard penetrated into the vitreous humor( the jelly stuff in the eye.) Paid to send him to Hawaii for eval but they weren't able to remove the piece and get his sight back. Now he is blind in that eye and he has a hard time with everything.

[Frosty]

I hate hearing stories like that but if a guy isn't going to pay attention, what can you do outside your own operations. Yesterday a young man who I'm teaching the craft showed up but had completely forgotten his PPE, I had to send him home with his Grandfather. His Grandfather and I agree, Grand dad is just going to drop him off and if he didn't bring his PPE he has to walk home.

 

That may seem harsh but nothing compared to losing an eye, THAT'S an expensive lesson. Not on MY watch.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[greg]

The worst oops gotcha I have done to myself involved a mig welder a set of railings that I was tacking together no glove and a wedding ring ....Any one that tells ya'll that gold is not a great conductor of heat and electricity is full of it. I have the second degree burns and the scar on my ring finger to prove otherwise lesson well learned.

[ianinsa]

Greg, old computers are "full" old gold just because it's such a good conductor!

 

That said working with a ring on????? An oft forgotten thing with workshop safety is remove your jewelry girls and yes that includes the rings!

[zero_sum]

Greg, old computers are "full" old gold just because it's such a good conductor!

 

That said working with a ring on????? An oft forgotten thing with workshop safety is remove your jewelry girls and yes that includes the rings!

 

I had a woodworking teacher years ago that had a speech and a half ready for us as young 12/13 year olds getting ready to use power tools.

 

Long hair (this just blew his mind, couldn't deal with it haha he had a nasty story about a partial scalping too), rings, ear rings, anything you can think off (most of which was banned anyway in my school).

 

Everything he said was right of course, comical as the delivery was to us. He had one eye though, with a bad prosthetic, so it reinforced some of what he said.

[teenylittlemetalguy]

Here is one where I was dumb, but didn't get hurt, you may get a chuckle. 

One night I couldn't sleep so I got up at 3 am to go arc weld a project I had going on. 

Weld went fine, dinked around for a while cleaning the shop and as I headed in for breakfast I glanced at the welding table and saw... an open string of firecrackers, just itching for a spark.  I can only wonder how I would have reacted. 

[seldom (dick renker)]

would have been a major pucker event. lots of laughs later.