Best accident with powertool (or any tool)

[Abitrary]

A friend who is equally as useless as me about diy (I just had to look up angle-grinder, and I'm still not sure) had a classic moment with a saw...
Yes he (honest, not me) wanted to saw a branch off a tree... leant his ladder against the branch he was sawing off and when enough of the brach was sawn through it fell off, and the ladder (and he) fell down! Would make great vid clip... sadly nobody witnessed it, but he was honest enough to tell us about it!

It's like a hand held circular saw that cuts anything and possibly the most dangerous of all power tools. I almost bought one once to cut some pipes, but I didn't trust myself enough to own one.

It still doesn't stop me popping into b&q to get that hot frisson of dangerous excitement just looking at them.

 

[TVC]

Last year I shot a work mate with a pneumatic nail gun.

I was helping crate up a big three phase transformer (the kind you see by railway lines) and was nailing the top shut. As I lined the gun up to drive in the first nail bozo workmate decided to help by holding the lid down, as he reached accross me he knocked my arm and received a 3 inch steel pin right into the side of his hand.

He went white, I called him a stupid daffodil, and everyone else laughed.

 

[got-to-get-fit]

When I was a kid I saw a chap on a building site take his thumb off with a circular saw.

I haven't had any accidents of any note. Something I keep telling the kids I teach health and safety to at college. Interestingly I always show them I have all my fingers. My manager is missing one.

NightTrain........i just finished my NEBOSH Diploma course and am now revising for exams .....any tips?

 

[asterix]

Docks are dangerous places. When I worked at Felixstowe there were 2 deaths from being crushed by containers and one from a gangway falling on them. At Harwich one guy lost part of his leg when he got stuck in some points as a locomotive approached.

I'm just glad I've finished all the openings in the stone walls of my barn conversion (4 windows, 2 doorways) without getting a rock on my head! But I'll remember this thread next week when I'm using power tools on the timberwork - barn door frame next.

 

[gbb]

A friend who is equally as useless as me about diy (I just had to look up angle-grinder, and I'm still not sure) had a classic moment with a saw...
Yes he (honest, not me) wanted to saw a branch off a tree... leant his ladder against the branch he was sawing off and when enough of the brach was sawn through it fell off, and the ladder (and he) fell down! Would make great vid clip... sadly nobody witnessed it, but he was honest enough to tell us about it!

Here you go Fnarr, here's one in action


http://www.rossrevenge.co.uk/summer2006/img_2887s.jpg

 

[Dayvo]

Here you go Fnarr, here's one in action


http://www.rossrevenge.co.uk/summer2006/img_2887s.jpg

If he's the angle grinder, what's the thing he's holding called?

 

[fuzzymum1]

Friend was once sawing a wall in half with a huge angle-grinder, and he hit a metal pipe, lost control, the grinder flew up in the air and sliced his thigh open on the way down.

A now ex-colleague of Mr Fuzzy (mr fuzzy changed jobs it wasn't that bad!) did the same while angle grinding steel during the construction of a narrowboat. To clean up the wound the docs at A&E gave a generous amount of local anaesthetic then scrubbed the wound out with something like dettol and a wire brush


A friend's dad once took off three fingers and his thumb in a circular saw. He had them reattached and has pretty good use of them now.

 

[Abitrary]

A now ex-colleague of Mr Fuzzy (mr fuzzy changed jobs it wasn't that bad!) did the same while angle grinding steel during the construction of a narrowboat. To clean up the wound the docs at A&E gave a generous amount of local anaesthetic then scrubbed the wound out with something like dettol and a wire brush

My friend had a few hundred external *and* internal stitches and couldn't walk for a couple of months.

After that I wouldn't even trust a small angle grinder in case it jumped out my hand and took my nose off.

 

[Piemaster]

I was (arc) welding in the garage. heard a 'whoomph'. Look out from behind the mask, can't see anything, carry on welding.
Smell somthing burning, look again. That smell will be that bottle of meths over there on fire then.
That rapidly melting plastic bottle of meths on fire.
That rapidly melting plastic bottle of meths between me and the door.
That rapidly melting plastic bottle of meths between me and the door of the garage which is built into the house.
Best put it out then.
Cue stamping/flapping/blowing.

I now own a fire extinguisher.
And a metal cupboard which contains my meths. Have you seen the price of gin?

 

[tdr1nka]

Dug out these pics of my angle grinder wound!

The grinder had been laid blade down on a concrete floor, it was unplugged but the switch was on. I plugged the grinder in and it flew up from the floor and hit my leg. I was so busy trying to stop the grinder I didn't see
the wound gushing claret at first!

I also got the saline and wire brush treatment before they sewed me up.

Apart from some stitching in the muscle I got off very, very lightly all things considered. Not something I ever want to repeat tho.

 

[longers]

Good effort, although I think the first pic might have been photoshopped .

That could have gone anywhere

You get extra points for photo's with stitches in em.

 

[tdr1nka]

Good effort, although I think the first pic might have been photoshopped .

Strangely, I was too busy bleeding like a stuck pig to get a proper photo at the time of the accident, the first picture is photoshopped as more of a serving suggestion.

That could have gone anywhere

Don't remind me. That night after I got back from A&E, I couldn't sleep 'cos every time I closed my eyes I would hear the grinder start up again.

As I say I was very, very, very lucky not to have lost my knee, or even hit a main artery. It really doesn't bear thinking about.

 

[Night Train]

I have no trouble at all with angle grinders or welders.

Having said that...
I did once put a wire brush cup in an angle grinder without checking the speed. I figured it fitted the spindle thread so should have been compatible. On starting up it was all fine but then I felt a sharp sting in my thigh. I thought nothing of it and carried on de rusting. Then there was another sting, and another.
The wires in the brush cup were being flung out at some speed and were imbedding themselves into my thighs though my overalls.

 

[barq]

I've always had stupid injuries, like the time I slashed my hand to the bone on a sharp edge of a server case. I've also crushed a finger in a disc brake rotor. Very mild by this thread's standards, but it really hurt!

Also rather weird... a friend of mine who does martial arts cut his arm open resheathing his katana. Proper samurai swords are so sharp that he didn't know what he'd done until everyone else went into panic mode. On the bright side, the surgeons said that they only managed to keep his arm because the cut was so clean.

 

[sheddy]

Trumped ! from http://www.darwinawards.com

The ambulance responded to a frantic call concerning a neighbor's trip through an industrial tree shredder. It seems the individual had decided to prune his own trees, rather than hire a professional. Why not? After all, the local shop rented shredders that could make quick work of yard debris, including tree limbs up to 8 inches in diameter.
To save time (those fateful words) the neighbor had placed the shredder at the base of a great oak tree, where he could drop branches directly into the hopper. He intended to cut off the top third of the oak, since it had been killed by lightning.

With the shredder running wide open, the neighbor climbed his ladder to the first tree branch, stepped off the ladder, slipped, and fell. The paramedics found him very dead, half in and half out of the shredder's hopper, one leg shredded to the hip.

Not married, no kids, removed self from the gene pool.