near misses

[plugwash]

any of you ever done something that made you think "omg that could have been so nasty" afterwards.

my personal one was stripping the sheath of part of the cable in a ring to insert a jb for a spur with a metal bodied stanly knife and forgetting to isolate the cuircuit first.

 

[Hacman]

Yeah, a few months ago working in a council house. Tenant had tried to swap all switches for brass ones, messed it up in a major way and they ended up taking all face plates off an leaving it with protuded wires.

My job being a coucil spark was to sort it out, went their and first thing I did was to shove my hand in one of the sockets to spread wires so I could sort out how it was wired. Only thing i'd not switched off the juice to the circuit. I got a right belt and was a little shaken up after.

The worrying thing is i'm qualified, don't know why I didn't isolate as I normally check for juice, isolate then check again.

Must have been a blonde moment!

 

[69er]

Was extending a ringmain. Disconnected the lives and grabbed both to seperate them - zap - my heart missed a few beats! I had just turned off the juice and unknown to me the client had gone to the cellar behind me and saw the mcb down and thought oh I will put it back up! Not happy. Another time I cut through a live cable = big bang= big fright. Thought i had turned the mcb down & went to look - turned off the cooker one instead . I now check as I am about to work on it & I also put tape across the mcb and if need be a notice saying leave the f789 alone!

 

[Thermo]

that was the beauty of the old cartidge fuses, you could take them out and carry them with you to stop someone putting the electric back on

 

[Hacman]

Yeah agree with the last post, bs 3036's have their uses!

Iv'e started to open the board and disconnect the live from the mcb tape end then close panel, just in case someone does turn back on, half the dip dops houses we have to work in can't read or can't be bothered to read if you leave a note saying don't switch back on anyway.

 

[Durgo]

I fed a peice of wood into a serious table saw the wrong way. it just missed the boss as he was walking over and i though "oh my god....

 

[Durgo]

Theyre all coming back to me now. was moving an exstended ladder(steel)along but unbalanced it and could not stop it falling down across the street. No cars or pedestrians, luckily.

 

[69er]

Durgo - that would have been your raise out the window! Along with the bosses head!

My mates weree ****ed up one night and decided to cut a "small" tree down that was overgrowing on the verge. As it was a little country road and dark they set to it with drunken vigour. After missing the tree altogether the first few swipes the managed to find their mark - then hit the tree with the handle of the axe and broke it - 60 mins later a "small" tree is lying across the road!Took 8 people to drag it into the garden. Next morning everyone woke up wondering where the tree had come from...

 

[tilebender]

I almost got married once, but that wouldn't be a near miss, it would be a close call. wewww

 

[Gary_M]

I fed a peice of wood into a serious table saw the wrong way. it just missed the boss as he was walking over....

Better luck next time

 

[AdamW]

The tree story reminded me of a near miss involving my dad.

A large developer had built some posh flats near my parents place, in a town called Chertsey. As a big household-name developer they had a big flagpole at the front with the name of the company.

One day my dad was driving up the road, saw a couple of workmen fiddling with the bottom of the pole. 10 minutes later he was driving back the other way and saw them still fiddling. Then, he was suddenly very much aware of a big white pole landing across the road in front of him.

He hit it just as it hit the ground! A Mondeo ST220's stiff suspension and low-profile tyres are not the best thing to have when driving over a 4" section of pole at 30mph!!!

If he had been a fraction of a second earlier or later (the pole bounced up behind him) the pole would have taken everything above bonnet level off the car

The car was miraculously OK, he had it checked at a Ford garage a couple of days later (at the developer's expense) to ensure the suspension/wheels/tyres/bearings/driveshafts/etc weren't knackered.

 

[andyboyo]

I used to work in a secondary school teaching kids the basic fundamentals of carpentry , metal and plastic work.

Ive SAW it all.......chucks left in pillar drills then switched on, kickbacks off circular saws (teachers). ends of fingers and knuckles sanded down, the old hammer thumb! solder burns, etc etc etc. all terrible accidents, but the one that I can never get my head around was one day I took a group around the workshop demonstrating all the different types of machines when i came to the old mortice machine....a drill which spins in a square sleeve to cut square rebates in wood! I wanted to show them a demo so i left to fetch a soft piece of wood.......as i was returning to the room one of the buggers had switched the machine on , and I had to watch from 30 paces(whilst screaming) as this kid touched the bottom of the sleeve with his finger. the dill inside just ripped out the end of hs digit and blood splattered all over the nearest window . they started screaming appart from the kid who was in a state of shock and just kept saying .........I didnt know that was in there sir!

 

[stric]

I've known a few but a couple that stick in my mind are, When I was an apprentice Carpenter we had a fencing job to do, the guy I was working with was showing me how to dig holes for the posts, he was explaining it like it was rocket science, only he didn't notice the main electricity cable sitting at the bottom of the hole and proceeded to put his steel bar straight through it, unbelievably he was unhurt but he did take out the whole estates supply.
Another was when my Dad fell off the top of a 7 storey block of flats onto a pile of sand, got up dusted himself down, went back to the top and carried on with his work, while 9 other blokes were in a complete state of shock.

 

[andy]

only he didn't notice the main electricity cable sitting at the bottom of the hole and proceeded to put his steel bar straight through it, unbelievably he was unhurt but he did take out the whole estates supply.

good thing the metal spike had a good earth path thru the armour before hittin the phases

 

[markie]

So close to getting married,