Against my better judgment, I thought I might share this with you guys...... Every once in a while it's a good idea to remind ourselves that our hobby/business can be dangerous.....It can sometimes jump up and bite us in the rear with no warning Take for example my close call with a high speed grinder with the trigger lock on and the wire wheel blazing rust from the 'ol F3 frame...... Next thing I know, I'm looking at the business end of a speed demon of a wire wheel at about 8000 rpm about 6" from my face Good thing I was wearing two sweatshirts as it destroyed the outer layer in quick order! The grinder latched onto my chest like a blood sucking alien trying to rip my heart out and wrestled me to the ground...since I have a body like a "Seal team 6" member the grinder had no chance
Yes I felt like a total MORON with a grinder hanging from my chest! LOL, please help me feel less of a moron by sharing your close calls.
Thanks,
w

 

i was cutting a long cut in some sheet metal using a .045 disk on the 4 1/2" angle grinder. i was intent on getting a nice straight line. while i was doing that, the sparks set my sweatshirt on fire right around the pocket are. when i noticed it, i started patting it out with my hand. some of the sticky melted material stuck to my hand. end result, some minor burns on my hand and a 10" hole in my sweatshirt.

 

I have family members (grown kids and wife) who question the wisdom of me working on my truck due to previous accidents. In 1989 I had two different accidents. In the first one I lost my left hand and in the second one I lost my left eye. Working on a truck with one hand and and one eye does make the the work a bit more challenging and dangerous. Last summer the wire brush on my 4 1/2" grinder became attached to my t-shirt. Once I got it untangled, I tried the grinder and it didn't work. I just hand to push the reset button and it was good to go. A couple weeks later my wife wanted me to take a break and sit down for a cup of coffee. That didn't last very long because she noticed a couple wires sticking out of my neck from a wire wheel. The accident that caused me to stop for the day and step away to rethink what I was doing, was when my left sleeve, which is partly empty, got pulled into my bench grinder. Somehow I didn't get hurt, but it certainly got my attention. BE CAREFUL!

Grant

 

You want to hear my close calls while working on my vehicles? Well, grab something cold to drink and pull up a chair.

For starters, like Dick, I've set my close on fire a few times with sparks from a grinder. The other day I was welding in patch panels in my '37 Buick doing pretty good when I got a cloud of smoke in my welding helmet quickly followed by an intense heat sensation in the area of my stomach. I figured I'd better check it out. I had about a 4" fieryry ring of fire, and growing, in the front of my shirt.

My favorite was about 20 years ago. I took my F-2 to a friend's body shop to do some paint work on it. The truck was inoperative at the time so I had it on a trailer. It was late when I got home and everyone was asleep so I had to unload the truck myself. No problem I've done it before. I backed the trailer up to the garage, aiming it toward the door. I unchained the truck, the trailer had a boat crank winch up front. The truck was balanced on the trailer so it would move so I gave it a push. When it reached the pivot point where there was more weight on the back half of the trailer the truck took off. The crank on the winch started spinning like a plpropellerllor and the truck was heading for the door frame of the garage. I went up the winch and tried to time my grab of the handle and went for it. The next second I felt an intense pain and pulled my hand back. I looked at my hand and it the surrounding area between the fore finger and thumb instantly turned a very dark purple and had a gaping hole in it. The truck came off the trailer but stopped just short of hitting the the door frame. I finished putting the truck away and went into the house to bandage my wound and ice my hand. It took a few days before that hole stopped bleeding and my hand returned to normal color.

My near tragic experiences are too many that I can't even think of them all. I know I've spilled at least a gallon of blood over the years. Only lost one finger nail, although I've had many blacken nails.

 

The vast majority of my close calls have come with my tractor. A PTO shaft is my biggest nightmare. (You remember that hill I cut right before Truckstock? Nothing like missing a gear at the top and going for a ride. Wheeeee!!).

Wade, please tell me you're wearing one of these. Those wire wheels shoot little missiles out like 53 tonner pointed out. But I'll be the first to admit, I don't always remember it myself. Ross saw that first-hand one day.

 

Oh, let's see. How about a miniscule metal sliver stuck in the cornea and the butt end of a ratchett to the eye socket. Both required a trip to the doctor. It's not fun to keep my eye open forcefully while the doc extracted the metal sliver from my cornea with tweezers. Also not fun to walk around with a black eye and swollen tissue around the eye socket.

Needless to say, after those two separate incidents, I've learned to wear safety goggles or shield on top of my regular perscription glasses.

EDIT: I now wear that "riot face shield" (as I call it) that Doc posted whenever I polish, sand, drill, grind and when my face is close to my hands with tools.

 

I'm glad you guys are all right and survived your incidents. I can't say (or at least recall-I'm pre-Alzheimer) I've had such a dramatic story. The worst I can think of is when I was helping my BIL change motors in a Ford Courier, which could have made a comedy movie. When we had pulled the motor we were moving it over to my truck on the lifter when the swinging engine caused it to topple. Fortunately all fingers and toes were out of the way. Hmm, that reminds me. Last summer at a farm auction I won the bid on a two bottom plough. The auctioneers had a forklift and they lifted it onto my trailer. I unwisely got on the trailer to push it to centre when it slipped off the forks. I quickly pulled back my foot, however not quite quickly enough! It darkened my big toe and I lost the nail. So I guess my addition to the thread is beware of falling, especially heavy, objects!

 

I always wear safety glasses, not usually a full face sheild thought. Maybe it me but those things fog up on me and cause a bigger safety risk than not wearing one. Get a good set of glasses that fit you, the ones I get are pretty good. Half the time I'll wonder around looking for my glasses only to realize I have them on.

 

My brother and I were working on my truck working on the secondary transmission for the water pump. Step one was to remove the rear drive shaft. Get it all unbolted and was trying mighty hard to get it disconnected, but it wouldn't budge. Brother was getting the framing hammer and wood block when I finally realized how close to death we would have been. The driveway has a slight downhill grade. It never corssed our minds that disconnecting the rear drive shaft would diminish the braking power that was currently keeping the truck in place. Now I always chauk the vehicle before venturing underneath (I know, I should have been doing that from the start...)

 

Yes Doc i was wearing a face shield, safety glasses and a paint mask for the dust cloud I was creating. The wire wheel caught the rear spring hanger and ripped the grinder out of my incredible grip and bounced of the frame and headed straight for my heart. I luckily escaped injury (except for my pride) and of course donated a sweatshirt to the rag pile.
w

 

The closest near death experience happened to a co-worker of mine.

I worked at a truck body shop. One of the projects we were working on was a hook and ladder firetruck. We separated the cab from the trailer, the kind with the tiller steering at the back. These don't have the typical fifth wheel king pin type of hook up. It had a large collar with a clamping system. One day I walked into lunch room and one of my co-workers was sitting, white as a ghost, intently puffing on a cigarette. I asked him what was wrong. A few minutes earlier he was under the trailer cutting away some brackets. There was less than 18" of clearance under the trailer so he was almost touching the bottom of the trailer as he was working on it. He noticed a slight movement in the trailer and decided he'd better get out from under the trailer to check it out. He said just as he got out from under it the trailer came crashing down. It turned out the trailer wasn't fully blocked and the tiller wheels started to turn. The shop had to call in a heavy equipment mover to get the trailer up again. The shop forklift, which was a pretty good sized unit, couldn't budge it.

 

My favorite is soldering underneath a car that was very low (up on stands but still not a lot of clearance between my body and the pan). Sure enough a drop of solder fell down my collar, the natural reaction of course is to jerk my head up, htting the frame with my forehead, then down hitting the floor, then back up to the frame... My head was like a bouncing ball caught between two plates. (I had safety glasses on)

I won't use wire wheels at all anymore, instead I use the 3M abrasive sponge type. They still shoot off chunks but they won't penetrate skin (or eyes).

 

I managed to go 50 years with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises, but made up for it in one stupid move.

Last year I was hauling building refuse from a renovation project with an M817 military dump. (Retired Military trucks is a hobby besides the '53 Ford) They have a wing that swings around and holds the tailgate at an angle for dumping. I (stupid) had my hand in the cradle that holds the tailgate as I swung the wing around (did I mention stupid?) and the tailgate dropped into it without warning. The load had shifted against the gate.

After some reconstructive surgery and much physical therapy, my hand is back to about 70%. And that's as good as it will ever be. But at least I still have it.

 

Many years ago, when in college, I was using a big grinder with a cup wire brush cleaning some rust off of some metal to make a trailer hitch for my truck. I was wearing a sweatshirt, the grinder in my hand going and I stopped to see just how good it was looking. Somehow I had it turned so that the wire brush was aimed at my stomach. Of course it caught the sweat shirt right when I looked down and noticed it. I am fighting it pushing it away from me as it is winding up my sweat shirt in an attempt to crush me, and I can't take my hand off of the switch. I was furiously backing away and fortunately it came unplugged. Even with no power those things still take a few seconds to stop and I thought I was going to pass out since I was unable to breathe. I managed to spin it around backwards to get some air again and was lucky to get away with no real injuries.

 

Your story almost made me pass out EffieTrucker. I'm glad to hear they saved your hand. I suppose it must make playing that bass more challenging.