Missing fingers incident.

[JonD]

As an apprentice i saw a few dodgy things happen that shouldn't

Firstly someone start a large metalworking lathe with the chuck key in it which flew through the roof and then re entered the far end of the machine shop.

Another idiot who continued to use fast traverse on a milling machine and wound the job into the cutting tool at full speed, teeth and bits of cutting tool everywhere.

The worst one was a guy who refused to wear a hat and net due to his long hair having his hair sucked into a pillar drill and getting scalped.

I nearly lost a finger a few years ago when some stupid cow tapped me on the shoulder whilst i was cutting quatty tiles with an angle grinder and i nearly lost a finger.

Jon.

 

[Pete enthusiastic amateur]

Even simple things, like going into a poorly lit garage, reaching down to pick up wood that was stacked in a dark corner, forgetting that a pane of glass was also there and running the back of my finger down the cut edge of the glass, opening up a large cut on the index finger of my right hand which required a few stitches. New lights now fitted.

 

[wreckedit]

Bubs, a mate of mine I worked with in a crane building business was checking for hydraulic leaks and put his thumb on one. Because the oil jet was 2000psi and thin as a needly it blew his thumb up into bubbles. I often wondered where he got his nick name from before I found out.

 

[Dellsmp]

Not diy, but I did my apprenticeship at an ICI chemical plant and we had several incidents of note while I was there! the worst I personally saw was
when a roadway collapsed under the back end of a huge crane while its boom was extended out between three vessels containg millions of gallons of nitric acid! the crane was teetering on the edge of this crater and most of us workers were tending to move in the other direction!!!!
The collapse was bridged using scaffolding laid on the floor and a very nervous driver saved the situation.
Dont suppose being meggered while an apprentice and the hosts of other incidents carried out on apprentices count as disasters, but they didnt half hurt

 

[AdamW]

three vessels containg millions of gallons of nitric acid!

The physics department at my old uni extends 3 floors below street level... one day, a gas cylinder in a lab on the lowest basement leaked rather rapidly... I think it was argon. It displaced the air, and rendered the lower floors uninhabitable for a few days whilst the extractor fans did their thing and oxygen levels returned.

 

[plugwash]

did they manage to evacuate in time or did people get knocked out/killed?

any heavy gas in use below ground level carries that risk. Argon will do it, CO2 will do it, propane will do it (and also carries a nice explosion risk).

 

[Dellsmp]

Not in your league, but my college class manage to 'pop' the top off a U tube manometer filled with mercury, the college lab was closed for the rest of our year while they dug up the floor and replaced most of the contents of the lab.
There was a fault in the regulator supplied to carry out the experiment, honest !

 

[stevethespark]

hi guys, great stories, heres one, a mate of mine was working in a factory, when a bloke chopped his finger off, my mate was a first aider so ran off to the canteen to get a bag of peas, panicked a bit and just put the finger straight in with the peas, when they got him and the finger to the hospital the peas had frozen solid into the end of the finger and the doctor dropped it straight in the bin.

 

[whambam007]

a lot more people with missing fingers around than i thought lol

 

[whambam007]

and that first aider should be sacked as firat aid appointee!!!!

 

[Softus]

twisted testicle

 

[Tarquin-F-Smythe-QJM]

I was interested to read about the mercury incident. When i was at school........several...well alrightover 30 years ago, chemistr teacher was passing a jam jar sized glass...well ..a jar or mercury about the class so we could all marvel at how heavy it was. It was very heavy, so much so that when i passed it to my mate..and warned him of its unexpected weight, he dropped it! it smashed and the teacher spent the rest of the day chasing millions of little balls about the floor with a piece of paper as a scoop.

Are we saying he should have done more. was the room contaminated in some way...just how nasty is this mercury?

i still have all my fingers but buggered one up with a quarter inch chisel, cutting a nerve and a tendon...i'm in the club.

 

[cambers]

A mate of mine was once welding in side a leg of a oil rig, the part he was in was at 45 degrees, he was using a large grinder on an old weld when the disc flew off at spiralled its way up the leg. After a few moments he grapped his torch and shone it up the leg, just in time to see it spiralling back down towards him, it hit him just below his eye, down his face and round his throat. He shouted to his mate that his head had come off. He was taken to A&E in a stupor and recieved 74 stitches and two days stay. I may add he was ugly before the accident.

 

[jeepmadmike]

still got all mine, drilled a hole in a finger years ago, young and silly at the time, lost my temper and slipped while drilling a 3mm hole bit snapped after it went through my finger and nail. i had to twist it out in the reverse direction.... and sit down for a few minutes. didn't go to A+E and it healed up in no time.
Cut my leg big stile with a sanley knife, deep long cut didn't hurt a bit not at all!! had loads of stiches for that

Not cut myself seriously for years now u do learn!

 

[SimonWray]

A mate of mine was once welding in side a leg of a oil rig, the part he was in was at 45 degrees, he was using a large grinder on an old weld when the disc flew off at spiralled its way up the leg. After a few moments he grapped his torch and shone it up the leg, just in time to see it spiralling back down towards him, it hit him just below his eye, down his face and round his throat. He shouted to his mate that his head had come off. He was taken to A&E in a stupor and recieved 74 stitches and two days stay. I may add he was ugly before the accident.

That wins it for sure!!!

I worked at an aircraft-parts manufacturing shop where one lad/junior/apprentice/know-it-all switched off the laser-safety around the drop-presses then had it come down on his shoulder as he lent on it chatting - his dad was the operator and the son got away with only a dislocation of the shoulder and some sort of fracture in his arm.

My mum stiched her fingers together when operating a sewing machine at Clarks a number of years ago - thinking about cutting the threads and having to pull them out still gives her shivers!