A painful lesson on using guards.

[Cranky]

Using pressure washer wanted to do a small piece I had in my hand. Couldn't control the kick when I blasted the part. Took 3/4" piece of skin between thumb and fore finger so it oozed blood. Want to torture somebody that's a tool.

Guy at work decided he needed to drill a small part and didn't feel like messing with a vice. Btw, there were work stations all over our shop and every single station had at least one vise on it. So, he held the part in his hand and went to work and ended up with a drill bit through his palm and out the other side. He simply reversed the drill motor (pneumatic), backed out the bit, doctored and wrapped up the wound and didn't say anything until several days later after it was infected with a chip of metal inside. That's when he went into the office during lunch and got out the first aid kit and went to work on it. Funny for him the boss didn't leave for lunch that day and walked in on his little operation after going after a snack from the vending machine. He caught hell on that one for having an unreported recordable injury. The company almost gave him 3 days off without pay for that. We started calling him Gus the Neanderthal because he kinda looked like and acted like one lol.

 

[BigCountryMopar]

I see there are many 2 timers plus. Guy I work did table saw twice cut same thumb. Beer was involved

I try to never say never, but I don’t intend for this to happen again.

 

[Johnpat]

Ooch! That's a tough lesson

 

[1967coronet]

Skill saw blade chucked onto the end of a router with a piece of all thread and a couple nuts and flat washers.
I was there. At the routers. Max rpm **** went wrong, prob near 10,000 rpm. I assume a balance prob raised its ugly head

I had already moved away from the kill zone
That freaking skill saw blade floated around the shop like a frisbee, bouncing off the wall ect. No body in there got a scratch.
It's been 20 years and is still fresh in my mind.

 

[Kern Dog]

Safety...PFfft!
I wear safety glasses, ear plugs and sometimes gloves but The guards are often a pisser to work with.
I've used Skilsaws with the guard pinned or removed for years....I'm talking almost all of my 34 years in construction. I have never cut myself once. The grinders I use have no guard.
I never defeat the safety trigger on the nail guns though. It is too easy to bump the nozzle and accidently shoot the gun.
Oh, and no offense but if you had shown that "injury" to a few guys, I doubt that they would have sent you to a doctor.

 

[dla4567]

For t

Here's a pic I've used in safety training discussing the possibility this critter chewed down many a tree until...one time...his last...
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By the looks of this photo, I suspect foul play.

 

[Budnicks]

Ouch

glad it wasn't worse

 

[moparedtn]

Somebody posted a picture of a guy with a triangular piece of a cutoff wheel in the guys lip. Don't remember if it was him or someone else, wasn't pretty. Must admit I don't always use a shield but safety glasses are a must.

Yep, but I tell you what - seeing my co-workers' innards, being held in bravely by himself while still
maintaining consciousness while awaiting the med chopper, is something that tends to stick with a fella....

 

[Ron H]

One time I was pipe tapping on a Bridgeport when I bottomed it out...recall two pieces of the tap hearing the whizzing by my head and out through a shop window shattering it. My next job was boarding up the window and then onto the next hole to tap..

 

[Thrashingcows]

Oh, and no offense but if you had shown that "injury" to a few guys, I doubt that they would have sent you to a doctor.

I looked at that and thought the same thing....;)

I have had more stitches and severed tendons due to exacto knives then I can recall, and recently did it again to my thumb. I looked at the wound and decided it "could" use some stitches but with the Covid issues I did not want to put any of the health care workers, or patience at the hospital at risk...not that I have or had covod but just less of a chance of transmission if I don't go.

Anyway due to my past injuries I keep butterfly and 3M Steri-strips in the house, so I cleaned the wound and taped it shut and a few days later all was good.

 

[moparedtn]

I saved a young fella's *** one day on the Ridgid 300 pipe threader.
Typical sprinkler deal where the machine's safety measures had been defeated/removed...
No foot switch and once you switched it on, it ran until you reached back under there and switched it back off.
Young fella was tubby and was wearing a flannel shirt loosely over a tee shirt.
I had just gotten done telling him to tuck that **** in....and went down the hall to do something else when I heard a commotion.
The Ridgid had gotten ahold of his shirt tail and was removing it from him relentlessly and he panicked...
By the time I had run back down there and switched the thing back off, it had his arm and was trying to thread it, twisting it around like a pretzel.
Unreal....

Yes, I've often used tools with guards and guides and stuff removed in order to expedite the work.
I've also had a healthy respect for what each of them is capable of doing to a man, too.
Been there, seen that, got lucky a time or two myself.
Hell, you can die with a pipe wrench in your hand if you do it "right"...

Besides, we all know it's gonna be "forgetting" the jack stands that one day does me in, right?

 

[Hey-O]

For 32 years as a furniture maker, I never had a serious injury, a nail through the finger or a splinter that went through a finger, in one side out the other. After retiring I was doing a walnut hardwood floor for a customer and was using a table saw to cut a u shape out of a piece to go around a heat register opening. The board was about 14 inches long and as I was laying it down on the blade to bring the blade through it, it bound up on the blade and sucked my hand in. One finger gone just in front of the middle joint and the skin on the ring finger was peeled or rolled down and over the finger nail. Picked it up and my brother drove me to the hospital where they said they would try to reattach it. They did and I'm lucky! The sad thing is, I know what I can and should not do with equipment and many have walked away when I would be doing these things because it scared them to watch. For the first time in my life, I knew when I was doing it, that it was going to come out bad and I still went ahead anyway. STUPID!!! The finger works like new and I have all the feeling in it as if it never happened. It does curve about two degrees to the left and when I asked the doctor why he didn't trim the bone back 2 degrees to off set the cut at the joint so it would have been straight, he just stared at me with that look. X-rays of the finger they reattached.

 

[padam]

I've spent 40 years working in machine shops and factories, and this is one of the closet calls I've had.

It's hard to tell by the photo, But that is a hand held belt sander. I was sanding a wood floor on my hands and knees.
I stood up and released the trigger, the sander caught and literally ate my shorts.

I am thankful I didn't have the trigger lock on because it stopped right at the end of my junk.

It took me about 5 minutes just to cut myself loose fronm the sander.

 

[Ron H]

My apologies BigCountryMopar for 'expanding' on your post, evident this has a lot of common ground among us! I have to say the WORST safety hazards I would come across as a contracted safety inspector for various insurers, was high school shops! Pretty incredible thinking our kids were working on these machines as 15-16 year old's (and some of my work was investigating a kid getting severely injured on one machine or another). Here are a few examples: That ancient drill press in an Arts & Crafts classroom - no pully guards while gals with their long hair would be using it, that 50's vintage lathe - take note of where the on/off switches were - over and behind the chuck! And the machine was full of machine chips...buried among them some cutting bits. And look at the stand grinder? Geez, have a million photos in my files of crazy ****!

 

[BigCountryMopar]

My apologies BigCountryMopar for 'expanding' on your post, evident this has a lot of common ground among us! I have to say the WORST safety hazards I would come across as a contracted safety inspector for various insurers, was high school shops! Pretty incredible thinking our kids were working on these machines as 15-16 year old's (and some of my work was investigating a kid getting severely injured on one machine or another). Here are a few examples: That ancient drill press in an Arts & Crafts classroom - no pully guards while gals with their long hair would be using it, that 50's vintage lathe - take note of where the on/off switches were - over and behind the chuck! And the machine was full of machine chips...buried among them some cutting bits. And look at the stand grinder? Geez, have a million photos in my files of crazy ****!
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No need to apologize. I welcome the expansion’. i know it’s nothing major, but serves as a good reminder to be safe regardless of engineering controls. I enjoy the stories.