Guys, I have been working on cars for more than 50 years and have the usual gouges, s****es, and minor cuts to prove it, but none of them ever needed s***ches. Well today working on my daily driver pick up and attempting to cut out Fords idea of F350 body bushings I had a cut off wheel get away from me and and it kicked out and caught me right in the forehead. Now this is all my fault and I admit that up front, but wanted to share this as a lesson that it can and will happen to ANYONE of us. I had the guard off, wasn't wearing a full face shield, was laying on my back, yada yada... point is I am a lucky boy as the only things that suffered were my forehead, my ego, and my good looks! Well ok, my forehead and ego! My poor wife on the other hand probably lost a couple years off her life! I guess the sight of a loved one walking in from the garage holding his head in his hands covered in blood saying "we need to go to the hospital right now!!" will do that to you! The whole point I am getting at is please, please, be cautious. We do this stuff so much we don't really think of all the things that can possibly go wrong when we work on our projects and a lot of time we take safety for granted. I promise I will be doing things a bit differently going forward.
Yep that ****s...Glad your'e Ok. Head wounds bleed like a *******, Had 12 staples in my scalp a few years back. The good news is you don't need a Halloween outfit
Bones heal, chicks dig scars, and the United States of America has the best doctor-to-daredevil ratio in the world.
Glad you're OK. That's bad enough, but it could have been much worse. Had one get away from me awhile back and the back of one of my fingers looked a lot like your forehead. Took less than a split second too...and done. Battle scars are cool though, aren't they?
Ouch, my head is hurting just looking at it. On the bright side. You can go as Gorbachev this Halloween, da?
Be careful with grinders! My good friend had the wheel come apart and run up his chin, across his lips, and into his nose. Horrible. Did not heal that well. Wear proper protection, this is a reminder to myself as well. On another note, I was trying to get one of my dogs out from under a rogue Mexican Palm that sprouted in our yard and laid my head open like yours. Once I heal that @#@ tree is gone!
Had one grab and kick back a few years ago and travel up the center of my thumb nail and alongside the bone. Was dirty and ugly. Had just snowed so I packed it in snow, called the wife and told her to meet me at the back door so she could drive me to the ER. In my haste I forgot to tell her why we were going to the ER. She's a nurse and after seeing I wasn't going to die from it, she kind of made me wish it was an option at the time. Still have fibers work out of it from time to time. SPark
Wear a cup also... My neighbor/friend was using a chop saw when the blade exploded... Piece flew towards him and cut half his weenie off... Mom had to tell the kids that she had to take dad to hospital and they wanted to know why, Embarr***ment ! ! ! True story. Glad the OP is ok though !
Another safety note.. Don't put the sawz all on a chair with the cord in such a way that your foot garbs it and pulls it off the chair and down the side of your leg..
Years ago I was using a powerful angle grinder on a piece of stock in the vise and of course there was no guard over that hard disk. Wearing jeans and T shirt and it kicked back into my belly where it left swirl marks that lasted 2-3 years before they faded out. Now if I'm working in the shop I wear bib overalls for at least a little protection. Another grinder issue is when people leave the grinder on the floor or the bench with the hard disk down. Mighty easy to crack the disc and have it come apart on startup when it's cracked when you leave it with disc down.
I always wear eye protection, but am now going to wear a full face shield. Because of the thinner wheels, I have always been more cautious with the smaller grinders as opposed to the 10 inch grinders, but the smaller grinders are so damn handy. I did catch and break a 10 inch cutoff wheel, but other than the wheel needing to be trashed, no other damage was done. My only other experience with a problem like this, is that I had a high quality, brand new Souix valve grinding stone explode on me. Luckily, I was wearing protection and wasn't injured, but it did scare the **** outta me. It exploded like a grenade, and there were pieces of grinding stone everywhere. the largest remaining piece, was a piece about 3/8ths of an inch cubed. I am very cautious around all grinding stones now. Bob
It's a good thing that you have a thick skull. You got very lucky. A friend of mine wears a beard now because of such an accident. I had an accident with a cut-off wheel a faulty extension cord and my leg, I was lucky it was my leg and not my 3 piece set.
It's gonna leave a cool scar...One day I was working on the inner quarter panel on the rear of my trusty old 70 elcamino. Had the back tire off and I was sitting on the ground in the wheel well running a 7 inch grinder with a cone-wire brush on it. Had it over my head with a protective stocking cap on when it caught. Naturally I had the switch locked "on"so when it caught and leaped out of my hands, it fell down on my head, wire brushing my noggin. I was ***holes and elbows trying to get it off me while trying to squirm out of that hole!!! That thing beat the be-Jesus out of me before I could get out and pull the cord out of the wall! Now wonder I have so little hair.
The Jalopy Journal
