Crazy/Insane Shop Accidents

a long time ago,i was working on my 631/2 427 ford galaxie,front raised,torchin exhaust,sparks dropping,laying on my back.look back,shop floor covered in gas.tank was full,running out the neck.yeah i no all the words,shut off torch,quit for a few days.couldn,t think about what could have happened.
jack

 

I went to drop my gas tank in my 67 camaro to put a new tank in and rebuild the rear suspension. I ran the car down to fumes the day before but at some point that evening my father took my car for a spin and topped the tank off without me knowing. The next day I proceeded to jack the car up and lossen the tank strap bolts. The then 35 year old bolts and straps were curiously creaking, but I payed no mind to it as I got the first one off. About half way through the second bolt it snapped and the full tank dropped on my torso. The impact was no big deal, but what sucked was 16 gallons of 93 octane emptying on my crotch. After a minute or two the pain really started, talk about GREAT BALLS OF FIRE! There was nothing I could do to ease the burn off, I went through just about a whole bottle of soap at the hose, took the shop truck home wearing a towel and stayed in the shower for a while. It took a couple of days for things to not be so tender and about a week to get back to normal. I've been through some shit in my life, but this was one of the most painful things to ever happen to me by far.

 

This thread is great.

Once I worked as a mechanic on a golf course in Myrtle Beach. Me and another guy went out on the course to try and cobble something back together. Can't remember what it was, but it needed considerable beating with the BFH. He was running the hammer and I was holding a large cold chisel by a pair of vice grips. I was looking away, only one pair of safety glasses, and I felt something hit my face. Didn't think about it and leaned over to see how the progress was going when we noticed that the liquid running off me wasn't sweat (it's hot there!). I wound up pulling a 1/2 sliver of the top of the cold chisel out of the corner of my eye socket, the area between the bridge of the nose and the eye! There are a lot of blood vessels there...

 

I remember being in the house "reading a magazine" in the bathroom and the window faced the shop about 100 feet away. Halfway into an article I hear the window vibrate and a big "whoosh" sound, like really loud. I get up and look out the window to see my brother standing in front of the shop, a little dazed with a torch in his hand still lit and the gas tank out of his Aspen daily driver on the ground in front of him, with a big rip in it and very distorted. I finished my business went to see if he was alright. His hearing was a bit compromised, his eyebrows and moustache singed. He was trying to braze a fitting in the bottom of the tank, thinking he had all the gas out of it, I guess not.

My old man was calling him every name in the book, because as it turns out his buddy killed himself welding a gas tank in a garage back in the 60's, so as much as I wanted to laugh I had to repress it, at least in front of Dad.

 

doesnt compare, but ive been known to have some mental slips. Was grinding on a bike frame last week and ill be damned if the first spark that flew out didnt land in the top compartment of one of my tool carts......where i keep 0000 steel wool and all my thinning products. lit that sucker on fire in an instant, not too bad thank god, threw the thinners off and wheeled the inferno outside and doused it. yep, im an idiot...

 

Ok so I have a bunch of stories but this comes to mind first and was my brother and his friend.
I was helping my brother 14 at the time build a 72 rs/lt camaro and we jade just scored a 12 bolt for the car with a 3.42 posi. I told him I had to work but we would install when I got home so I. Wanted him to clean it up and paint it before I got home. Well he was a little excited(so glad he or his friend didn't get hurt) and went to swap the rear end when I was gone. So jacked up the car put jack sounder under the rear end. And proceeded to remove driveshaft and e-brake and then removed the rear end.
Needless to say he was under the car along with his friend when the last bolt came loose and the whole car fell within an inch of their chests. The rear end stayed on the stand and the axle tube caught the rear frame rails. I got home a couple minutes later and saw a leg hamgin out from a fallen car and nearly had a heart attack at 17. They were fine but had no way of gettin out or were to scared to move.

Then my biggest thing repeats every time I first work on a new project- 1968 lemans,1968 gto,1966 mustang, 1940 Buick. I always seem to catch me or something around me on fire. Only happens once and has always happened the first time I put a wrench to the car. Usually involves gas down the carb and tryin to start the car after being left for dead for years.

ok I will go introduce my self now

 

Using a grinder, it slipped on the metal surface and put a nasty cut in the palm of my hand, bled like hell. From the looks of it, it needed stitches but I was too embarassed to go to the hospital. So I took the Superglue I had in the fridge...glued the wound edges together and used my other hand to pull the edges in....there I was, still bleeding, but now my good hand was glued tight to my bleeding hand...oh dear...

 

Was working at a Chevy dealer...Customer came in for a fuel filter on his Suburban. We had the twin post hoists that spread out to lift the front. The left side bar cracked and broke off. The Suburban fell on it's side on top of a brand new pick up. Thank fully no one was hurt...
Two pissed off customers though...

 

not one of mine or a workshop accident but just what happens in the heat of battle..as told by our security guard (dave) who had been back only for a a couple of monthsIraq in Helmand province.....bit of a fire fight and the mortas are called up...the drill is look down the tube to ensure there's nothing down it.hold the round at the mouth of the tube and drop in when all clear. look away and hold ears..(that bits not in the manual but it's recommened apparently).and then repeat...till told to stop or the ammo runs out...anyway adrenalin pumping in the heat of battle one guy gets it a bit wrong..holds the round, drops it in and then looks down the tube.....needless to say there was a big mess and it was just lucky the round didn't explode as it hit the guy in the face as it would have killed several more infantry men

 

An outfit I worked for in the 80's had a paving crew made up of guys who had been buddies since they were little kids, but fought and argued all day long, you'd have thought they hated each other. Two sets of brothers, one set Italian and the other Mexican, and a third little Mexican guy they called Wipey. 'Ol Wipey was about 5'2" tall and gimpy as hell, as his son had gotten drunk and ornery one night and accidently whacked him in the knee with a baseball bat. So I had cut in a road up in the hills for a new house for the local baby doctor and his family, and the Bickersons went back when the house was built to pave the road. The family was already moved in, so the wife and little 'uns were watching all the activity from the upstairs balcony. Mid-morning, Wipey got the call of nature, and chose the little gulley where I'd put in the culvert for a little seclusion out of the line of sight. It takes him about 15 minutes to gimp his way down the steep slope to get behind a clump of trees, so he's already cussing a streak. Drops his drawers, ah, relief- but then, the attack started- he had crapped on a yellowjacket nest. Instantly his butt and "accessories" were covered with pissed-off biting jackets, and he's screaming "AIIIEEEE SONOFABITCH SONOFABITCH AIIIEEEE!!!", tried to pull up his drawers, trips and rolls down the hill, still under attack. So the others work their way down to him, one pulls off his shirt and tries to beat away the jackets, quite the circus. So they carry him back up to the road, and his butt and junk are swelled up pretty good and he's in tears from the pain. So they can't pull his pants up, and he can't sit down, so they load him in the crew truck, a '64 Dodge 1 ton with 4.88 gears that's not too rapid, and off to the hospital- since he couldn't sit down, he's on his knees on the seat, hands on the seatback, swelled- up butt in the windshield, straight down Hwy 29 past all the tourists for the 10 miles to the hospital, and you can imagine the scene in the emergency room when they carried him in cussing with his pants still around his ankles- needless to say, he didn't have to wait...

 

MeanGene, here's one. Put my can of coke down on the shop bench. Took a drink....got a yellowjacket in my mouth that was in my coke can.....spit, spit, spit, he stung me on the roof of my mouth before I got him spit out. That is one weird ass feeling in your mouth with the buzzin! I now throw something on top of the can or just drink beer. Lippy

 

This has nothing to do with hot rodz, but it was a shop accident. I just started a job for the local public bus transportation company. I was the shop janitor.( got to start somewhere) One of the "lead" mechanics was showing me how to put a bus on the lift. Everything went well, or so it seemed. After we had the bus in the air we went on break. from the break room you can see the garage. I looked out the window just in time to see the bus fall off the lift. The bus was 8 feet in the air and it landed on it side. To make matters worse the we couldn't just flip the bus back on its wheels in the shop. We tried to drag it out, but that didn't work either. So they ended up cutting the roof of the building and with two cranes picked the bus up and placed it outside. Let me tell you, not a good day to be working in the shop.

In the end we got a whole new shop on a larger property with better lifts. Hopefully this wont happen again.

 

LOL beer won't help, a buddy of mine got nailed like that with a can of beer, but it got him on the tongue, it swelled up so he waaa taakiin liii disss fooaa cubble daaasss- we'd pick on him just to listen to him try to cuss us out- "ewwwe muuerrfuerrrz ainn funnneeh"

 

I remember a while back at work, we (we as in my boss and the idiot i had to work with, i was not included in all this fun, luckily) were trying to set the beads on couple tires for our iron trailer. i told them just to use some dawn soap and a little elbow grease, but nooo they had to use the ether. short story long, after i looked at the tire and the sidewall was ripped all the way up to the middle of the tread. it goes without saying that they lost their hearing for about 15 minutes.

something stupid i did was air up the tire on our torch cart. i had one of those air chucks that have the little machined lips inside of it so it will hold itself on the tire. i was airing it up and got called over to do something and i thought that the chuck came off when i walked away but i came back and it was still on there (left the torch cart for about 5-10 seconds). about a week later we thought a bomb went off in the shop, later that day i for some reason looked at the tires on the cart and the one i aired up split down the side.

 

In 1967 I was working at Northern Steel Corp. in Oswego, NY. Saw a fellow light an oxy-acetylene torch with a match instead of a flint striker. There was an acetylene leak at the torch/hose fitting. BOOM! He did survive, luckily, but was fired.

 

Not near as bad as a yellow jacket, but was over at a friends shop with a few buddies and one guy took a swig off a beer he had set down and quickly spit out a roach. We laughed about that all summer and never left a beer uncovered again.

 

ONE SMART DOG!
Couple years back I had my old '37 Harley in our shop. It was a flathead UL model but had been built as a "chopper". Aftermarket frame and Pacho style front forks about 6" over stock. It rode and handled like crap - real death trap! The neighbors spaniel dog hung out in the shop for a cool place to lay in the summer heat. So, I'm in the shop one evening working on the bike and suddenly the dog jumps up and dashes out the door! Didn't think much about it as I started to kick the engine over again checking the newly assembled clutch pack. The engine was warm and I had left it in gear! One kick and the bike roared to life, charged across the shop and rammed the large wood sliding door at the other end! Bike hit the door and fell over still running! Narrowly missed several people and a tool box or two. I've often wondered if that dog knew what was about to happen. Coincidence or did the dog know? That night the dog was smarter than me......

 

Wow That would hurt for sure. not sure about the beer thing though lippy !! Nothin worse than a Drunk and Pissed off YellowJacket !!! >>>>.

 

I've got a couple one that happened to me and two that I witnessed. last year my wife said she wanted a new burning barrel. Being a swell fella I said sure I stopped at a place that had barrels and the guy said 5 bucks for a whole barrel or for three bucks more he'd cut out top. Thats a no brainer I thought I'll just take it home and and cut out the top with my plasma cutter what could be simpler? I said this is gonna be a piece of cake fired up plasma cutter and started cutting it was so easy I didn't even need gloves. Barrel had initially held some industrial resin and the residue had settled and hardened about three inches thick on one side of drum. all was going well until I reached the part with the hardened resin instant backflash burned hell out of my hand that held plasma torch. I don't even look at my plasma cutter without putting gloves on now. Next two involve compressed air many years ago I worked at a Sunoco station we also had an old guy named jake that worked there he was retired from his regular job and just worked a few hours a week to supplement his income. Anyhow he was in back room inflating a tire that was on tire machine I had just started for office when I heard this loud explosion sounded like a twelve gauge going off. I spun around and headed for back room and there was jake his pants around his ankles he had daydreamed and overinflated tire luckily all it did was tear off his belt and blow his pants apart but man was he stunned. One saturday our race team was getting ready to load our sprinter to go to the race track we had rolled it out in front of garage and my partner was putting air in the front tires squatting down something distracted him because we never run much pressure in tires anyhow the rims were bolt together type I heard a boom and looked up to see Ralph flyihg through the air it looked like he was clutching a rim actually the outside half of the rim was against his chest and propelling him backwards through the air he had several broken ribs but it could have been much worse.

 

Just last weekend i was grinding under my bro-in-laws truck and had on a faceshield and welding gloves. I was out-of-position and a spark entered my left eye. No problem, I stopped and grabbed a pair of chemistry looking goggles and put them on under my face shield. I'll be danged, another spark goes under the face shield, under the goggles and in my right eye. Now I'm getting a little pissed (why I'm not sure, it's my own dumbass fault but that's what we do in those situations because we're men). So I look around and the last option I can find is a pair of yellow safety glasses. So on go the safety glasses, lab goggles, face shield and a hat to keep my hair from burning. I couldn't see a much and looked funny enough to elicit a good laugh from my "helpers"...all set, right?

WRONG. A spark now enters my left ear canal and sizzles through my eardrum. I can't see shi* and I'm flipping stuff off my head trying to get out from under the truck meanwhile teaching my son a few new words. Lucky I didn't knock myself out.

I took a short break then went back to work with my ear still throbbing / loss of hearing donned all of the previous gear (safety glasses, googles, face shield, hat, gloves) and this time added earmuffs. What a sight. 15 lbs of junk on my head for one lousy cut.

So the wife is ticked because we worked through lunch (she was going to grill) and she is leaving the house while I'm all geared-up and says something but with all the crap on and my eardrum toasted all I can hear is "shoes" which I interpret to mean she is pissed and going to buy shoes to pay me back. Already agitated I ranted which really pissed her. Turns out she said nothing about shoes.

At least I couldn't hear much for the rest of the evening.

 

saw this in a body shop where I worked many years ago. FNG was buffing out a paint job on a car and had the buffer coard draped over his neck to keep it from dragging on the paint as we had told him to do. he was using an ancient Milwaukie buffer that I think was about a 30 hp model. okay not 30hp but it was a real bruiser! he was doing great till he ran the pad over the free end of the cord. when he realized what was happening he tried to let off the trigger but by then the cord had trapped his finger and proceded to run right up to his neck. I heard him in the next bay making gasping sounds as the buffer strained to choke him. first I tried to pull the cord off his finger but it was too tight so I was going to pull the plug but he had tied it to keep it from unhooking while being dragged. I then yanked the cord trying to unplug it from the wall but he had also tied it to the conduit above the outlet box. so I had to run across the room and untie the cord from the conduit before I could get it to stop. he was very out of breath by the time I helped him get untangeled from that beast. needless to say he was more carefull of the cord after that and NEVER tie it to the extension cord after that.

 

I should have posted this http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=577373 here, not really crazy or insane but more of a warning to stop crazy or insane from happening

 

I was working for a guy at a hot rod shop. We did all kinds of stuff, and it was a great place, and my boss had been at it forever.

had a customer with a pro 80's fiberglass t-bucket. We went through everything on that car. Even though it was yellow with flames and had the prerequisite 8-71 and ridiculous rear tires the craftsman ship on the car was nice, but I digress...

It had an aluminum fuel tank that sat in the small bed/2x4 box. The car had taken 4 months to put back together so that thing sat with no fuel in it for some time.

The shop was 4000 square feet, and 300 feet deep. the car was at the back of the shop when I walked over to see what he was doing. He was just finishing up the last bit of wiring and was heating the heat shrink for the fuel sending unit wire with a bic lighter.

I walked back to the front of the shop realizing I had set a wrench down by him and turned arounf to get it when the back of the car blew up. Literally.

a 10-32 screw was missing from the sending unit and somehow the flame syphoned down that small hole and lit the thing off like a bomb. Knocked me on my ass and blew my boss about 5 feet in the air. Besides some bruised hands and ribs he walked away.

Crazy shit.

 

I was working at a Pontiac / Buick dealer in the mid 80s, when a FWD Sommerset Regal came off the transporter with scratches across the deck lid. No trouble, that'll buff right out! I cut it with some aggressive compound first to get to the bottom of things, cleaned the bonnet and switched to fine grade. Everything is going good until I got a little too close to the stupid rear mounted antenna! It grabbed and ripped that 15lb buffer right out of my hands, bouncing three or four times across the deck lid just missing the rear window. The head painter must have liked me, because he had it in the spray booth in less than 5 minutes, repaired and painted the deck lid by the end of the day. Bossman never knew a thing.
Sorry to disappoint the guys waiting to hear about blood and guts, but nobody got hurt or fired on that deal.

 

A 300' x 13' shop? Sounds like a marriage of a really lonnnng bowling alley, a part of a dragstrip and a one-car-wide garage.

 

I managed to weld my teeth yesterday.

Was cutting with the ol' hot wrench and somehow got a slag spark in my mouth, which promptly welded to one of my teeth.

Of course stupid me the first thing I do is flail and go "NnNgG!" and try flicking it out with my tongue, which burns the tip of my tongue before it pops off and I chew it up. Crunchy.

Now I've got a little black scorch on one of my teeth but otherwise no lasting harm.

Had goggles, shoulda had a shield.

 

True, unless it's my neighbor.

 

For those of you not familiar with 49/50 Oldsmobiles the hood hinges are connected to each other which you can sorta see in this picture.

Two people can force the hinge down on each side and it will stay down problem is it doesn't take much to get it to snap back up and being connected if one side goes up the other is very soon to follow. Several years ago I was helping my brother put his 455 in, when it was time to put the front clip back on he bumped the hinge on his side, I had my head in the wrong place trying to get my side lined up.

The impact hurt like hell but I don't remember much pain after that other than a mild headache that night. Five stitches later I think my brother was more surprised I wanted to go back and finish getting it going.

 

We had a self igniting propane torch that we used for heat shrink tubing and connectors. A co-worker, Kevin, was trying to use it but it wouldn't light. He was clicking the trigger over and over with no success. He turned the torch so he could look down the tip, clicked the trigger and it lit, singeing his eyebrows and hair. All I could think of were the cartoons when the character shoots a gun that doesn't go off, looks down the barrel and it fires leaving him with a black face and a puzzled look. I couldn't stop laughing.

 

Had a boat..every time i took it out i filled it up with gas right before i launched...I would get a wiff of gas fumes right after launching...then it went away...I get home, check for leaks, didn't find any..did that a dozen times..one day after some really rough water i smelled gas....Found the gunnels flexing, and gas cap bolted to gunnels had cracked welds on tank inlet pipe. Pulled both tanks, welded one, put it back in...a week later i was cutting the head off a bolt with ginder, the sparks landed where the leaky tank had been mounted....the entire area went up in flames...got out my fire extinguisher, emptied on the fire, it went out, 20 seconds later it relite...threw a couple gal. of water on it...didn't do much...managed to drag boat and trailer out of the garage and watched it burn down. It went from this
To this in about 10 min. While fiberglass doesn't burn, old layups that had minimal resin can become porous, storing them evil hydrocarbons for use at a later date...And resin does burn, and will burn underwater for a while...The FD about filled the boat with water....


And the bad part..almost...homeowners covered smoke damage in garage...
Told me no way on the boat..after they had told me 6 months previous that it was covered for the $7500 in parts i was into it..I fixed their boat, got me a big ole juicy estimate to have garage repaired,....got the check, same day i bought all the materials to repair garage and left for a 1000 mile trip to buy exact same boat..did the garage repairs myself and same time i took new boat at all apart for paint and motor upgrades...put together a pile of receipts for close to $10k...had the boat appraised and insured for $12K...new boat is 20 mph faster...way more redder...and finished much better...never spent a dime out of my pocket...labor is free..don't have
a job
Lessons learned..
Fiberglass doesn't burn but old gas and resin does...
New boat is all done in epoxy, has 2 on-board f-extinguishers..i dry chem.1
foam...garage has 2 large...
Insurance companies are not your friend..i had no way to tell that boat wasn't covered..they sent me a 'declarations page'..all insurance codes...

And they sent me another check for $1500 when i told them i was gona take them to small claims court ($10k limit) over telling me on the phone the boat was covered....and told them the judge owned a boat...

And so far my premiums went up $6 a month...
But stupid me...should have let it burn the house down...only a few things replaceable...House was covered for $188k..be lucky to get $110K in this economy...


Oh ya...watch those old school 6" 90* makita grinders...with on/off switches and circuit breakers...trip the breaker, set it down...a few min. later when it cools of, it restarts...good thing for steel toe sneakers...that 8" cut off wheel might have cut off a toe....