Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Pub Talk). This thread is read-only.
I noticed when I posted a thread about cutting my fingertip off, a lot of you had your own stories bout really shitty injuries, and after not searching, I didn’t find one. Post them here, and make them as gory as hell!
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Personal injuries? My worst personal injury was probably when I had a pallet with probably 1000lbs of rock on it fall on my foot. It was my fault and due to being in a rush.
Worst that I have been around to see? Had a guy fall off a 4 or 5 story roof and onto a pipe and another guy sandwiched between two conex boxes. The first guy, they are not sure if it was an accident or suicide it was never determined. The second was during a storm when a crane was pushed by heavy winds slamming two of the conex boxes together.
Luckiest person I know fell into a dry dock that’s at least 5 stories deep. The only reason she is still alive is because she hit temporary service lines on the way down and landed on a pile of hoses. Truly a gift from God that she is still here to tell the story.
By the way, where I work is extraordinarily safe. Working in a shipyard is a lot like fishing on the Bering Sea, you can do everything possible to be safe and still not prevent death and injuries.
Worst I’ve seen on a job was a huge section of duct (I mean really big, I could walk through this one, maybe 8ft tall by 12 ft wide) fell on a HVAC tech when I was renovating Oviedo High School near Orlando, he tried to block the impact with his arm, which probably saved his life as it may have cut his head clean off. Sliced him to the bone at the middle of his forearm almost to his elbow. I would have taken pictures but I was too busy holding his arm together while we got a tourniquet on him.
I heard he got quite a settlement out of it considering he nearly lost his arm, and I’m sure most of the function of his hand since I’m sure it severed all his ligaments.
Aside from that not too much horribly graphic stuff. One guy cut his nut sack open ripping 2×4 into concrete form stakes…that changed the way I did that from that day forward.
Worst thing that ever happened to me at work was when I was working for “Johnson and Johnson” running a machine making paper products (don’t ask) and I saw a little piece of cloth on a feed belt, As it went around I grabbed at it as it was going around and it started to suck my hand into it. I yanked it back out and said to myself, “that was close” but when I looked down my thumb nail was just barely hanging on by a little corner. Just pulled the whole nail right off instantly. Didn’t hurt right away but by the time I got to the doctor it hurt like hell. Took about 9 months to grow back. I was lucky that was all the happened.
Thank goodness it wasn’t worse, glad to hear that. I used to work in the printing industry and some your hands getting caught in a roller is no joke.
aside from a 2800lb chip bin auger falling on my left foot and crushing the steel toe along with my foot….17 reconstructive operations later I lost my big toe, I have pins in my foot that tells the weather and is 1.5 sizes smaller than the other foot. But the worst is watching a chain break while one guy on a fork truck moving a piece of steel…..the steel fell and landed on a 2×4 that sprung up into the other guy and killed him….. pretty much stabbed him to death.
Man my busting my face with dull wire strippers doesn’t sound so bad after reading these stories!!
comp56 wrote:
aside from a 2800lb chip bin auger falling on my left foot and crushing the steel toe along with my foot….17 reconstructive operations later I lost my big toe, I have pins in my foot that tells the weather and is 1.5 sizes smaller than the other foot. But the worst is watching a chain break while one guy on a fork truck moving a piece of steel…..the steel fell and landed on a 2×4 that sprung up into the other guy and killed him….. pretty much stabbed him to death.
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I think the one of the worst I’ve seen is a chasing breaking while working on the frame rack at the shop I didn’t actually see it but I sure damn heard it. It snapped while one of our workers was doing a frame pull on a Ford F-350 ur usually supposed to hang another chain on the chain pulling so that if it rips the weight would help take it down but he didn’t and the chain whacked him and knocked out almost all the front of his teeth busted his lip that dude was so freakin lucky that didn’t killem.
Oh, the teeth thing reminds me of one more. A mexican guy I worked with was chaining down a front end loader using lever action binders with a cheater pipe. He got it all the way down but the pipe had a bend so it was stuck, he gave it a tug and it whipped open catching him in the mouth and edge of his chin, a few guys that were there said the impact lifted him off his feet. He spent a few days in the hospital, dislocated jaw, whiplash, and knocked out his front teeth.
I hate lever action chain binders, avoid them like the plague!
We had a guy that put a grinding stone on a 9″ grinder. Well the stone isn’t rated nowhere near the RPM’s that the 9″ grinder runs. Well of course it exploded on him, about cut off the family jewels. They had the crane the guy out of the dry dock.
Speaking of workplace safety, this guy is on top of it!
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Holy shit, I didn’t know these kind of things actually happened that often, really sorry to hear about all of that!
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I was standing next to one of my bridge inspectors when she was run over by a 12 ton asphalt roller. She was killed instantly. There was a malfunction in the drive mechanism and when the operator turned around to go back it went the opposite way and lurched forward and hit her. I think it about it a lot and really there is no reason that it should not have got.me either. If any of you have ever heard the sound a steel drum roller makes on concrete you know what I am talking about. To this day that sound freaks me out. I also saw a guy get his foot smashed with the outrigger on a large auger truck. It looked like a ducks foot but believe it or not he only broke a couple of bones. Moral of the story guys, be careful out there!
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yup you can never be too safe, as for safety glasses we used to say 20 minutes of aggravation (while wearing them) is better than a life time of aggravation……not being able to see…..
kruton wrote:
I was standing next to one of my bridge inspectors when she was run over by a 12 ton asphalt roller. She was killed instantly. There was a malfunction in the drive mechanism and when the operator turned around to go back it went the opposite way and lurched forward and hit her. I think it about it a lot and really there is no reason that it should not have got.me either. If any of you have ever heard the sound a steel drum roller makes on concrete you know what I am talking about. To this day that sound freaks me out. I also saw a guy get his foot smashed with the outrigger on a large auger truck. It looked like a ducks foot but believe it or not he only broke a couple of bones. Moral of the story guys, be careful out there!
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Well you win with that story, can’t top that. Was it toe to head or did he stop the machine before it was over? When I was about 10 my best friend and neighbor at the time was run over by a car on a gravel road we lived on and drug about 30 yards as I stood 2 ft from him and watched (crazy ass story all on it’s own as to how that happened), clearly not as gruesome as that, he lived with broken bones and lots of cuts…but the mental image is similar. Not sure what was worse, listening to him scream for a half hour until the paramedics arrived, or watching the paramedics air bag the car and drag him out to a gurney and pick 57 stone out of his head as he was in and out of consciousness is something I’d rather forget. I thought for sure he was going to die.
As a kid that probably scared the hell out of you man. It was feet to head. It actually didn’t hit her head though. It was everything from the neck down though.Hugh Jass wrote:
Well you win with that story, can’t top that. Was it toe to head or did he stop the machine before it was over? When I was about 10 my best friend and neighbor at the time was run over by a car on a gravel road we lived on and drug about 30 yards as I stood 2 ft from him and watched (crazy ass story all on it’s own as to how that happened), clearly not as gruesome as that, he lived with broken bones and lots of cuts…but the mental image is similar. Not sure what was worse, listening to him scream for a half hour until the paramedics arrived, or watching the paramedics air bag the car and drag him out to a gurney and pick 57 stone out of his head as he was in and out of consciousness is something I’d rather forget. I thought for sure he was going to die.
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Yea…and the woman driving the car? His mother.
Oh damn man! She had to feel awful.Hugh Jass wrote:
Yea…and the woman driving the car? His mother.
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kruton wrote:
Oh damn man! She had to feel awful.
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She was a German batshit crazy lunatic, but yea she was freaking out in the worst way, but it was totally her fault. She loved to pay this “you can’t get in the car” game, where she’d pull off every time he’d try the door, which over a few months escalated into full battle, forwards, backwards..peeling out. One day he had enough, he says take my stuff…a trombone and a backpack, and he makes a run for the car. I got sick of waiting so I started walking up the road, she see’s me with his stuff walking behind her, she throws the car in reverse as TJ was running around the other side of the car. I watched him jump up and try to grab the spare tire (Geo Tracker), he holds on for a second and then under he goes. As the car gets to me she realizes that I’m not TJ and probably from the look of horror on my face figured out she ran him over, dragging him under the car.
My ankle
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…behind the pile of tapcons?
. OUCH!!regopit wrote:
My ankle
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I my younger days as a carpenter I cut my self with a mitersaw in between my forefinger and middle finger.. So do not work with gloves when you work with mitersaw..!!
I hope you found out what kind of driver the doctor used.regopit wrote:
My ankle
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My first job as a teen was on a landscape crew in FL. I was walking beside a skid steer holding a tree on the forks. The tire caught my foot and bent it in half toes to heel. Broke all five tibia.
Second job was on a framing crew. Just out of high school. Framing in winter in Ohio. I was standing on a header nailing the long stud on the side. Nailer foot hit some ice on the 2x and slid off onto my foot with my finger still on the trigger. Shot spike through my big toe and second toe and then out the other side of my boot.
Last injury I had was climbing down a TV antennae tower and my hand missed a rung and I fell 12′ onto my back on frozen ground. Fractured a couple vertabrae and had to wear a brace for a bit.
Thankfully nothing major for a long while now!!
overanalyze wrote:
My first job as a teen was on a landscape crew in FL. I was walking beside a skid steer holding a tree on the forks. The tire caught my foot and bent it in half toes to heel. Broke all five tibia.
Second job was on a framing crew. Just out of high school. Framing in winter in Ohio. I was standing on a header nailing the long stud on the side. Nailer foot hit some ice on the 2x and slid off onto my foot with my finger still on the trigger. Shot spike through my big toe and second toe and then out the other side of my boot.
Last injury I had was climbing down a TV antennae tower and my hand missed a rung and I fell 12′ onto my back on frozen ground. Fractured a couple vertabrae and had to wear a brace for a bit.
Thankfully nothing major for a long while now!!
You need a desk job.
I think the worst I’ve done to myself was running an Oxy Acetylene cutting torch over my hand. I was bending and cutting steel brackets aboard a ship. The ship rolled and my right hand holding the torch moved across my left. It just felt dry at first then about 15 minutes later it was agony. Got a half day off duty for it though so not all bad. Also broke my foot in a storm off California once. We ran into San Diego a week later and I had the opportunity to go to docs but it was halloween and the gas light district was jumping so went to the pub with the lads instead.
The worst I saw happening was whilst working on supply ships offshore India. Ourselves and another ship were under the rig back loading well casing pipe for the beach when on the other ship the deckhand on the cargo deck got himself between the pipe and the crash rail when the ship took a roll. He was squished from the stomach up. Their whole crew got flown out on leave as they were all pretty traumatised.
Talking about shipyards above. I didn’t witness it but a guy in Rosyth Royal Dockyard, whilst I was on the tugs there, was setting up a big mag drill on a plate with his mate as was a two man job. He was holding the bit with gloves when his mate hit the magnetise button. But his mate hit the wrong button and the drill switched on, grabbed his glove and ripped his middle finger right out. A good friend of mine was there and said when they picked the glove up the finger was inside and a tendon about a metre long was trailing out if it. Moral of that story is don’t wear gloves when working with rotating machinery!!
Yea I don’t like when I see people use bench grinders with gloves!!