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Report your accident

tiggi

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Sep 12, 2014
Messages
253
Location
USA
I apologize if there is such a thread already but I didn't see one. Accidents can be funny but also can teach others what not to do. So I though we start a thread and hopefully we all learn from other's mistakes. I know I will be posting here almost on daily basis. With that said here is the one from this evening, rather embarrassing if nothing else.

So, I was using angle grinder with cutoff wheel to cut some angle iron. These were for a bench that I am building so I was doing it on the floor of my garage. I had my left knee on the angle iron, holding it so it doesn't move as I cut it. Sparks are flying toward me, kind of going under my crotch. After short time I feel things are warming up, so I stop the grinder and look down.
:flamethro Lesson 1: Do not slap the area!!!! Lesson 2: Do not tell your wife your crotch is on fire, she will say she is tired tonight.
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bczygan

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Nov 4, 2009
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DETROIT! Arsenal of Scrappers
I said "almost" :rolleyes:

Oh, so you'll be with us for a couple of days then......:lol_hitti

My latest "almost":

Standing on a ladder leaned up against a tree I was cutting down with a chainsaw.

The piece I had just cut down had shaken the tree, almost causing me to lose my balance. Luckily I had shut the saw off quickly and swung it away from myself. The 8' long piece demolished an aluminum table and 3 plastic bins that I forgot to move out of the way.

Now comes the really dangerous part.

Still standing on the ladder, I begin the next cut, which is horizontal, and right in front of my face.

As I begin, I ask myself where the saw will go if it kicks back. My face or neck seem the prime candidates.

Not wishing to behead myself, I set up an independent ladder and cut most of the way through and use a pole saw for the final portion of the cut.

Bill
 
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CNGsaves

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Sep 26, 2012
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13,233
Location
KS and OK
We've all had our Darwin moments !! :D

Couple years ago was painting house and using very skimpy 6 ft aluminum ladder. AND you can guess . . . leaning out to paint too far away from ladder and ladder started to tip and ladder-leg just collapsed sending me to the ground. Luckily I was over grass and not on driveway concrete couple feet away. However, the ladder ended up in aluminum re-cycle bin ! :sad:
 

Fyrme

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Nov 28, 2012
Messages
2,231
Location
Green country, Oklahoma
1/2" round stock chucked in a drill press came loose. Forgot to change rpm on the drill. I think it was set at like 5500 or something ridiculous like that. Had internal pains for almost 3 weeks. ImageUploadedByTapatalk1416402782.044966.jpg
I won't be doing that anymore.
 

ripperd

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Jul 2, 2014
Messages
2,041
Location
Twin Cities, MN
I was working a fishtape up through the basement ceiling into the upstairs bathroom wall cavity to put in a new outlet. My wife was in the bathroom with her hand in the wall opening ready to grab the tape when I got it to her. I got it just about where i needed it and lost my balance. I was on the lower step of a small stepstool. Literally only 6" off the ground. Unfortunately I had turned around on the stepstool so as I was tipping backwards I couldn't step back to catch my balance because my foot just hit the next step. TIMBER! Over I went backwards. Some cardboard boxes that we behind me broke most of my fall. Apparently it was loud. My wife called down "are you ok?". After a second of taking inventory I said "yeah, I'm fine!". Well, fine enough to say fine anyway, you never tell the wife how much it hurts lol. I managed to hyperextend my index finger pretty good. I'm not quite sure if my finger hit a cardboard box, or it was bent funny when I hit the ground. Either way it hurt like crazy right away. But it looked straight and i could still move it fine. Icing it for 15 minutes made it feel better. It was a little swollen a day later but now 3 days later its pretty much back to normal. After the finger pain went away the calf pain started. I had a pretty good welt from where my calf was wedged against the top rail of the stepstool as I went over.

Moral of the story - don't stand on a stepstool backwards! My wife also worries more about me doing ladder projects lol.
 

38Chevy454

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Dec 26, 2006
Messages
4,036
Location
Cincinnati, OH
I don't have a picture of it, happened about 15 years ago, still have the scar. Not wearing any gloves, I was holding a small piece of sheetmetal for a patch in my left hand, and operating the 4.5 inch grinder with right hand that had a wire brush attached. Just giving the sheetmetal piece some final edge clean-up before welding the patch in. Well, the wire brush caught the sheetmetal piece and shot it right into my palm. About 1 inch long cut approx 1/4 inch deep between the tendons and fortunately no other damage. Go to urgent care and 7 stitches later my hand is back together.

It is pretty hard to try and keep your hand dry and not use it for 2 weeks while the stitches were in. Still have the scar very visible line, maybe I should get a palm reader and really screw them up :lol:

So lesson learned, now use the bench mounted wire brush on grinder, and hold piece so it does not get flung anywhere into my body if it gets caught.
 

over40pirate

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Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
160
Angle iron (bed frame) welding project on milk crate in yard.
Sitting on another milk crate arc welding on it. 125 amps.
Now and then rod sticks. Good wiggle gets it loose.
One tine it stuck and wiggle didn't free it. Wiggled harder.

Next thing I was head over heals, getting the **** shocked out of me!
Getting up, it felt like all my teeth were going to fall out! No loose teeth, but that's the feeling I got.

I had a burn on the upper sleeve of my shirt.
I also had a burn 1" from my right eye !!!!!!!!

Seems like when I wiggled it hard it held, then let go, and momentum made me fall over backwards off the milk crate.
As I fell, my helmet came off, as the rod swung around and made contact with my face, 1" from eye. Shocked from there thru body to ground.
I was dancing!

1" and I would be wearing a patch.
 

Mattlt

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Nov 30, 2005
Messages
1,382
Location
MN
This photo was staged after I did it, but you get the idea... Tape slid down the wall and landed on a plug that wasn't quite plugged in all the way.

Breaker tripped. Tape is junk. Replaced the outlet as the scorch marks would not rub off. Could have been much worse.

Guess it makes a case for mounting outlets with the ground pin facing up!
 

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jmarkwolf

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Jan 15, 2013
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Southeast Michigan
Fun with chain saws.

A buddy of mine and myself fancied ourselves "tree cutters" when we were just out of high school. We borrowed our dad's chain saws and ladders and got a few jobs.

One day my buddy was high up on the ladder, with a strap around himself and the trunk, cutting off a large limb on the far side of the trunk, that he had neglected to undercut. He had reached around the trunk cutting the top of the branch. As he cut though the branch it did not fall away from the trunk, but started "peeling" down the trunk.

Due to the strap he had around himself, it slammed him against the tree with the full weight of the branch, and knocked the wind out of him. He couldn't inhale due to the weight of the branch. I was on the far side of the house and didn't know this was happening.

As he tells the story, he didn't know what to do, but eventually dropped the running saw and was able to unhook the strap as he was starting to black out from lack of oxygen.

Soon afterwords, the same buddy was standing about 5ft up a ladder cutting a branch over his head with a chain saw. He was dancing around on the middle of the rung of the old wooden ladder, which promptly broke, and he slid down between the slats of the ladder with his arms over his head! He had the where-with-all to drop the saw to side as he slid down the between the slats of the ladder! The only injury were scratches from the ragged ends of the broken rung.

We gave up "tree work" soon afterwards.

The same buddy very nearly killed me twice due to his "driving skills".
 

Screwtape

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Jun 9, 2014
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Michigan
Next thing I was head over heals, getting the **** shocked out of me!
Getting up, it felt like all my teeth were going to fall out! No loose teeth, but that's the feeling I got.

A cable tech. working for my old employer of mine got electrocuted by a faulty service drop, blew most of his teeth straight out of his head. You're lucky.
 

Toymeister

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Nov 30, 2011
Messages
595
Location
North Florida
1952 John Deere Model B 2 Cylinder tractor, Cylinders size of lard cans

It always had a spark problem.

Pulled plugs to check for spark when it died, it had spark as well as a stuck float flooding the cylinders.

Burned face to waist 22% full and partial thicknes burns and 1 month in the burn unit.

Use a spark checker, but everyone reading this is smarter that me, right?

PS: as a bonus loss of fine motor skills in hand and PTSD.
 
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yeldogt

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Joined
Jan 2, 2012
Messages
18,184
I was trying to start my tractor ... when the battery died I used the car to give it a charge/ boost.

Something I have done before -- did not work out this time. Tractor burst into flames .. 30 min later .. three cars gone and the house.

That's me praying to the car gods that car #3 is totaled. Settled with the insurance company a couple months ago .. two years!

Hope to start rebuilding soon.
 

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Verdugo

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Mar 31, 2014
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Doing some fab and welding in the driveway a few years ago and did something that I had done many times before and gotten away with until that day. I was operating a 4 1/2" grinder with one hand while holding the piece of metal I was grinding in the other hand...barehanded, of course. I slipped and ended up laying the edge of the grinding wheel into the thumb of the hand holding the piece I was grinding and peeled back a number of layers of skin with a significant quantity of blood to boot. I stopped the bleeding, bandaged it up (ironically, I'm also an EMT), and it healed just fine (though it hurt or a few weeks!). I've worn gloves when grinding ever since.
 

Cypherian

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Oct 11, 2014
Messages
1,197
Location
Delaware
I subbed for later now to decide on a recent oops or one that left a scar on my face and damn it all I had all the ******* safety equipment in place and was following the rules. Stay tuned :} By the way anyone here who says they have never injured themselves doing something in a shop / garage / around home yeah well umm either does nothing or is a liar !! LOL :}

Cypher
 

Mpower5266

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Dec 23, 2013
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2,756
Location
Newnan, GA
My most recent one. I was restoring the vise in my avatar, using a pretty powerful electric drill with a wire wheel. So holding the part in one hand and using the other hand to kinda clamp the drill down on the bench I started cleaning off the rust. Once the drill got up to full song, the wire wheel caught my glove, and rode up the glove until it found my wrist, where it dug in.

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I was very lucky that it didnt do more than surface damage, it could have turned ugly.
 

fred d

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Dec 31, 2008
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916
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Metro Houston Area
When using your table saw
Keep a good light source on over the table
Keep the blade low. Just high enough to come thru the top of the board
And keeping the guard in place is a good idea also
 

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CJM8515

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Mar 8, 2014
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NJ
I wont wear latex type gloves when using a grinder or drill for that reason. Gloves catch and becoem an issue.

Ive ground my hand before, I was using a wire cup brush in an angle grinder and cleaning a small spacer for my atv. Wheel caught just right and flung it out of my hands and across the room. My thumb had a pretty nice grinding mark on it and was bleeding slightly.

I think the worst I ever did was sooo stupid. I was working on a fullsize cargo van and we were trying to push the floor back up because it had been dented in. Using a bottle jack and a pipe Im going along with my buddy and were taking turns. Well I jack this E350 up and the floor is going along, well you betcha that floor can support an empty E350!!! I jacked the truck up partially, everything slipped and the trailer hitch NAILED my left hand enough I could see the white meat in there.. Bandaged it up and that was that.

About 3 years ago I was layed off so I went to work for a landscaping friend I didnt injure myself really seriously except once. We were at a house, and cutting down some trees. Mostly leafy type trees with alot of branches. My friend doesnt own a chipper so MO is to cut everything up and trim branches off. Well we always used a machete to trim branches off, so we could put it all on a trailer to take to the dump. I ALWAYS reminded myself to remove the suede gloves I wore when doing this. That day however I did take off my gloves.

Im happily chopping everything up and I slip. The machete glances off my left shin and I realize I musta cut myself. It doesnt seem to hurt really, its not like the machete was all that sharp I thought. I figured I have a small cut and it glanced off me, cut in the jeans was rather small. I go back to the truck to get the pitiful first aid kit (bandaids and neosporin) and take a look. I have a cut about an inch and a half long that is rather deep. Not to the muscle but its close enough! Bandaid..it just laughed at me and fell off. I tell my buddy who tells me to **** it up Im a euphemism for a cat andget back to work. I wrapped it all up in electrical tape and went to work. It didnt hurt really.

4 hours later were at a friends doing woodsplitting for extra cash when it starts to throb. I finally peel back the tape and we take a look. Its red and not happy and my buddy is scream obscenities as he didnt believe it was that bad. I take the truck and go to the local foodstore and buy peroxide, bandages, etc. Clean it all off and we pack up and I go home.

For what felt like a good month I spent every day cleaning that sucker out 2x a day with peroxide and neosporin and putting butterfly bandages on it. Amazing I didnt get an infection and it healed up very well. Butterfly bandages work well.
 

Throbbin Rods

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Dec 17, 2013
Messages
801
Location
Lebanon, NH
Not in the garage, but 35 years ago the house I was in had a drainage problem and I was waiting for the back hoe guy to show up on the weekend to dig a trench to route the water out of the new foundation drain. I have bad allergies and had a large wood stove in the basement. Usual routine was to get out of bed naked, throw on a pair of LaCrosse boots, run down the stairs and get the stove cranking. I had the stove humming, was just getting wood to stoke it up for the day and damp it down when I sneezed. I sneeze violently, no idea why. At any rate, with my back to the stove, I sneezed. I involuntarily backed up and pressed the cheek of my **** against the stove:willy_nil. I danced around for a minute, closed the stove up and headed up to the bedroom. Turned the lights on, backed up to the mirror and saw the damage. Blisters and red flesh. I took my shower, cleaned it out as hard as I could, and bandaged it. Then I headed to work, for my first day of a promotion to an office job!! I did the one cheek sneak for 3-4 days until it felt better.

Another burn story, working on heavy trucks, cutting out the bolts to install new walking beam bushings. I wound myself around through the axles under the trailer to make the cut. When the outer piece finally cut through it fell onto my wrist. I was effectively trapped, trying in vain to get the damned thing off me. Finally got it off my wrist, extracted myself from the trailer and headed to the sink. Washed it a little, decided it looked OK for now and wrapped it up with a clean shop rag and duct tape. Finished my shift at 2AM, headed to the ER. The nurse was a little old lady who was a friend of my folks. She unwrapped, looked it over, then said, "Why didn't you come right in?" "I had to finish the job I was working on." She proceeded to debride it with a nylon bristle brush. Hurt worse than the burn!
 

Screwtape

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Jun 9, 2014
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80
Location
Michigan
An old friend of mine (a bit of a spiritual, flower power, type) used to believe that individuals were more drawn to certain types of injury by nature. I don't put much credit in that stuff but I know of people who constantly get burnt, or a dude who always smashed parts of his body, I know for one that my left hand has more scars than I care to add up. But I'm a total cults sooo...
 

Cypherian

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Oct 11, 2014
Messages
1,197
Location
Delaware
Well I said I would be back so here you go :}

I have injured myself on more than one occasion sometimes my fault IE failure to pay attention other times equipment failure. Since I was old enough to know what a Phillips Screwdriver was and read socket / O.E B.E wrench sizes ( Not that I knew what they meant at the time) lol I have worked helping or doing all kinds of jobs around home, cars, regular employment etc .

The funniest one of me not paying attention was sitting in the ice pan of a Roach Coach ( I Worked Building Them From Frame Up water,12v,propane) Mainly metal work any how sitting in the pan drilling in the mounting holes for lights I was not paying attention to how close I was to the vertical raw edge of the upper part of the pan. I grabbed my air hose to pull some more to me without looking to my surprise my hand stopped coming forward. Well I turned and looked tada I had pulled the hose and while moving my hand forward drove the middle finger knuckle of the left hand right in to the raw knife sharp edge of the upper pan. Cut about half way into it needless to say much blood and had to go get 20 stitches. Some inside for a cut in the tendon dissolvable and some outside. It was lots of fun when I came back and my foreman was like well how is the finger…. Yep you guessed it I showed it to him in the normal manner :}

Now the best one not my fault well at least in my opinion was while working on my table saw. I had the blade guard in place the miter gauge with backer board and hold down on. I was cutting 45’s on the wide side of a bunch of 2” x 4”’s . I had run through and cut them to length so it was just nip off the 45. I had gone through about 15 of them so far so everything was working well…. I put another on the saw clamped it and pushed through the cut off piece got caught between the blade guard and anti kick back pawl hooks. Just as I reached over to shut the saw down it caught kicked out flew back toward the miter gauge hit the backer board which popped it up into my mouth split the lip and down the chin about an inch or so through and through. With much cussing and grabbing a rag I drove myself to the Base ER the TSgt in there looked at it said nah don’t need a plastic surgeon it will give you a character scar. Mind you I played ice hockey in school and had a lot of fun as a child do you honestly think I needed more scars lol Anyhow , he grabbed a needle to numb it up says this will pinch a little ********!!! It ******* hurt he shoots it up in about 6 places. He gets done he is like “ Well I bet that hurt less than the 2x4 , I was said nope Sgt the 2x4 only hit me ONCE!!” And yes I can get my GF to take a picture of the scar if you like LOL.

The scariest one just recently happened a few months ago “I THINK it was equipment failure IE Carbide Tipped Saw Blade”. Cross cutting some red oak strips I had purchased new to make some bed supports for my RV. I did not check them with a magnet or magnetometer for metal as the material was new from Lowes. I trimmed one down to size the second one as I pushed into the blade a very loud bang along with some smaller pings quick hammered the shut off, my left index finger was bleeding pretty good from several places grabbed a rag staunched it and tried to figure out what happened. There was nothing on the table to hit the blade, the guard was still in place and tight I flipped it up and was shocked to see the blade somewhat bent and missing numerous teeth along with gouges in my kerf plate. I checked the finger a bit holey but not cut like it had contacted the blade. I looked at the wood nothing metal in it nor even an indication in the wood that there had been. The wood had some gouges and small chunks missing from it but that was it. Fast forward after checking the motor , spindle for run out and such everything looked fine put a burnt up plywood blade on no kerf plate. Worked fine no weird vibe or wobble evident. Cleaned up the kerf plate and installed it and rechecked without power and with power no wobble or vibe etc. Clamped a piece of soft dry pine to the miter and tried it saw cut normally ( Well Albeit The Burnt Blade Made it slow) . My best guess looking at the blade and how far it would have had to travel to contact the right side of the kerf plate is a carbide tooth weld let go and walked the blade over to it. Oh and as far as the pings heard yeah when cleaning up after checking the saw out I found several carbide tips 12 feet from the front of the saw the pings were them hitting the metal cabinets there.

NCM_0003a.jpg
Hmm What is Missing from this picture

NCM_0004.jpg
After the strike

NCM_0034.jpg
Some of the Teeth Never Found them All

NCM_0035.jpg
Cleaned Up Kerf Plate

There you go I have had many others but most were just opps me not paying attention or using a hand tool in an incorrect manner ……. LOL
Cypher
 

Fyrme

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Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Messages
2,231
Location
Green country, Oklahoma
1952 John Deere Model B 2 Cylinder tractor, Cylinders size of lard cans

It always had a spark problem.

Pulled plugs to check for spark when it died, it had spark as well as a stuck float flooding the cylinders.

Burned face to waist 22% full and partial thicknes burns and 1 month in the burn unit.

Use a spark checker, but everyone reading this is smarter that me, right?

PS: as a bonus loss of fine motor skills in hand and PTSD.

1st Place winner

I was trying to start my tractor ... when the battery died I used the car to give it a charge/ boost.

Something I have done before -- did not work out this time. Tractor burst into flames .. 30 min later .. three cars gone and the house.

That's me praying to the car gods that car #3 is totaled. Settled with the insurance company a couple months ago .. two years!

Hope to start rebuilding soon.

And Runner up.

:shocking:
[/thread]
 

sean Buick 76

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Joined
May 7, 2013
Messages
3,221
Location
Edmonton Alberta
Got some trans fluid on my boots while swapping the engine out in my truck.... had the truck 4 feet up on a 4 point lift and I was standing on the side of the lift trying to do something under the hood... Slipped and fell 4 feet to the concrete.. Broke my wrist and knee cap! Off work for two months!!!! Walked in pain for about 1 year! Now I cringe seeing pics of guys working at heights without good scaffolding!!!
 

srmofo

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Joined
Oct 15, 2009
Messages
6,161
Location
SW ohio
I apologize if there is such a thread already but I didn't see one. Accidents can be funny but also can teach others what not to do. So I though we start a thread and hopefully we all learn from other's mistakes. I know I will be posting here almost on daily basis. With that said here is the one from this evening, rather embarrassing if nothing else.

So, I was using angle grinder with cutoff wheel to cut some angle iron. These were for a bench that I am building so I was doing it on the floor of my garage. I had my left knee on the angle iron, holding it so it doesn't move as I cut it. Sparks are flying toward me, kind of going under my crotch. After short time I feel things are warming up, so I stop the grinder and look down.
:flamethro Lesson 1: Do not slap the area!!!! Lesson 2: Do not tell your wife your crotch is on fire, she will say she is tired tonight.
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I've set my crotch on fire with an angle grinder as well. I also slapped myself
 

kaffine

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Joined
Dec 13, 2009
Messages
3,610
Location
Henderson, NV
First really scary incident was when I was around 14 or 15. I had plenty of injuries before that but none scared me like this one. I had a engine I was cleaning up to see about rebuilding. I was using a can of brake cleaner with a straw and wasn't thinking and put it in a bolt hole and ended up with brake clean in my eye. That really stings. I was flushing my eye for a while after that thinking I was going to loose use of that eye. Thankfully not lasting damage.

Another time I was working on a Dodge diesel pickup I can't remember what I was doing but the engine was running and I needed to kneel on the front bumper to check something. Not really paying attention I went to grab the radiator support and instead I grabbed the fan shroud and my fingers made contact with the fan. It took me 5 minutes before I manage to find the courage to look at my hand. Thankfully no damage not even a broken nail.

I was working on one side of a semi truck while another mechanic was welding on the other side of the same truck. I figured I had a truck between me and him so I was safe. Well polished concrete reflects a lot. The next day my eyes felt like they had sand in them.

Last one for now. I was trying to pull a driveshaft from a concrete truck. Well the u-joint didn't want to come out. The on truck u-joint press the shop had was broken and the boss said to just use a jack and lift the truck up to press the u-joint out. That didn't work so I decided to just use a torch. I couldn't reach from the side of the truck and had to be under the truck. I had on safety glasses and a safety shield and still manage to have a piece of hot metal bounce off me face off the inside of my safety glasses and into my eye. Flushed my eye out and it seemed to be fine a few hours later I was in pain and went to the ER. It had gotten infected the ER put numbing drops in and I had to use antibiotic eye drops for a few weeks. Again thankfully no lasting damage.
 

ZRX61

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Joined
Aug 15, 2006
Messages
28,716
Location
Solar Blight Valley, SoCal
I hate those damn paddle switches on angle grinders. 2 or 3 times now I have picked up on of my Dewalts & accidently switched it on as I did so.. & not being ready for the instant torque hit I have buzzed my other arm with the blade...
Luckily they just had flap wheels attached & didn't do much damage.
 
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