Crazy/Insane Shop Accidents

Back in79 was working my first welding job.Shop was rough and had a problem with electrical stuff.Could strike an arc without hooking up ground to bench???Well me being the young new guy I didnt complain.Went inside large steel unit to grind torch slag off inside of the holes we just burned.Was on my hands and knees to get the bottom first.Picked up my grinder with a new 10" wheel(old aluminum black&decker)Pressed the switch and sent the current from one hand to the other,causing me to fall forward.Rode that bitch till someone heard me screaming and pulled the plug.Managed to "grind" a hugh cut from left tit to underarm,then another on underarm around side of arm.Doc said he stopped counting after 125 stitches.I was thinking one day of having stitches tatooed on the scars.
Still makes me jump to this day to think of it and I have had a respect for cutting and grinding wheels since.Owner of shop...not so much!!! Maybe the juice shot is why Iam so screwy??? Fedcospeed

 

A long time ago (about 30 years ) I worked at a shop that installed AC in new cars.

We had 5 bays and only one charging station with hoses that were at least 30 feet long.

I had just finished putting AC into a brand new Mustang and had begun to pump the air out.

My boss always being in a hurry turned on the freon, and started the car.

One of the hoses got caught in the fan and the charging station flew across the shop at about 60 mph and destroyed the right front fender.

One of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Gary

 

Man, these are some scary stories! Thankfully, I have never been involved in something really hairy, although I did manage to cut off one of my knuckles with a utility knife... Chicks dig scars!

 

Two days ago I was helping a guy at work, he had the car on a lift (drive on type) and asked me to check a noise he was hearing from the engine.
So I stuck my head in the engine bay while the peckerwood started the engine. When he drove the car on the ramp, he didn't bother to put the Golf Diesel in neutral, so the car jumped off immediately and nearly crushed me against the wall. Fortunately there was a little steel sink on the wall that slowed the car down enough not to kill me...

My leg hurts like f@ck, but now I have another near-death story to tell ...

 

Last summer I was welding on a replacment rocker panel and had a chunk of angle iron on top of a 2x4 that was on a floor jack to keep the rocker in place while welding, let a little pressure of the jack to move the whole contraption and the angle iron fell off and right onto my thumb which was resting on the jack saddle. Turned a really cool color of purple in about 10 minutes and I could see the blood under the nail. Unfortunatly it was throbbing enough it was making it tough to weld so I got out my Makita cordless drill and an 1/8 inch bit to get a small hole in the nail...Holy Crap!!! The bit went thru my thumbnail like a hot knife thru butter..oh well, the blood washed off my shirt and pants and in 30 minutes it was all good and I was back to welding..

 

About 20 years ago after painting one of my trucks, while it was still in the booth (fabricated not a real one) a friend of mine was walking around it and for some still unknown reason he reached over and touched the steel bars that were on the window. Now keep in mind they have never been attached to the window frame because it is a small town and who would really want to break into a body shop. So anyway as he turns away I get to witness first hand the window sized chunk of steel and rebar take a perfect header out of the window and onto the top and side of the still wet right front fender. Now keep in mind that hunk-o-metal had been in that window for probably ten years and never moved an inch before...then next day they were mounted solid and I was repainting my just painted fender

 

I just ate lunch, and came upon this resurrected thread. I started reading some of the posts and my stomach started to turn...decided it was time to stop!

I've worked around cars all my life, I have allways been very careful. The most exciting thing that has ever happened to me were a few stitches on fingers along the way.

 

Not quite an accident but here goes...
Back a few years (30 or so) I used to get angry when I was working on my cars. Damn bolt won't come off, can't get the f&%^#$@ng thing lined up and on and on...

I also had a bad habit of throwing tools (noooo, say it isn't true)

Well, one day I was working in my carport/garage and I got mad and threw a screwdriver at the opposite wall. What I haven't told you yet is the walls were sheeted with plywood, and yes, you guessed it, that damn screwdriver came flying back at me and stuck in the wall inches away from my head. It was so close I could hear the vibration.
I never threw a tool after that moment.

Nowadays when something is difficult, I say to myself "smarter than the part, be smarter than the part" it seems to work much better.

Scott

 

I once drilled a hole in my thumb with a 1/8 inch bit, but not on purpose. I had to fix this metal piece that fell off one of my wife's decorations. It was just glued originally, so i decided to drill a few small holes and put it back on with some screws. Quick fix I thought, so I just hand held the metal piece and used a cordless drill. Drilled the first 3 holes fine... but #4 was taking a bit longer, so I leaned on the drill a little harder... and snapped off the bit. About 1/4 inch if it was still sticking out of the chuck. The hot jagged bit went all the way into my thumb on the hand holding the piece. #@$%&!!! Bled like a son-of-bitch. The nail turned black, fell off, and grew back sorta funny for the next year.

ALWAYS clamp down my work piece now when drilling.

 

I remember in the first week I started my apprenticeship I used a drill press: no problem, bandsaw: no problem, lathe: no problem, grinder: no problem, oxy torch: no problem, hand tools: no problem...

but I sliced my thumb down to the bone on a chair in the lunch room.

 

about 5 years ago a friend of mine asked me to help him and another buddy take a 46 ford cab off its frame... so he could set it in the weeds and let it rot... but anyway i came over to help him. he had assured me everything connecting the cab to the frame was off because he cut all the bolts with an angle grinder but he forgot the ebrake cable. so the two of them take the doors and im on the firewall stepping through the frame. we get to turn the cab off and i notice somethin tugging on my thigh... that nice rotted half inch ebrake cable.
so i yell to the kid to stop movin when i look and he drops his half of the cab.... hes tryin as hard as he could to make me into an amputee and im screamin at him to cut the cable. finally, he cuts it, but not before he thinks on how he could save the cable.
got a nice scar on my leg from that one, but i still got my leg.
as for the 46, still in the grass and he wonders why nobody wants to help him

 

I'm buffing a door out at our old used car lot some years ago using one of those heavy wool pads on a big heavy duty hi speed buffer.
The torque of this monster will kick your arms back when you turn it on.
The wool pad is hopelessly clogged with old dead paint.
I haven't got a spur so I grab a way too thin long blade screwdriver to run into the pad to clear out the gummy old dead paint.
I place the buffer on the floor, stand on the handle with my right foot, and shove the blade into the high RPM turning pad.
In my haste I cram the screwdriver in straight instead of at a slight angle and I hit the pad at the 3:00 spot instead of the 9:00 target.
CLUNK I hear from inside my head!
The screwdriver hit the pad, made an abrupt U-turn and with the blade end heading in my direction punched thru my chin passed behind my lower lip and lodged itself into my 2 front teeth.
Lucky it stayed away from my eyes!

 

Worked at shop in Mass. before getting on with GE .... Shop had old skool center post lifts that were either leaking air whilst under them or .... gaining air as you were under them ...

One night the boss parks old lady's car on lift in lowered position .... forgot to cut the air off .... when we arrived in the a.m. the boss was trying to jack the roof up out & off the top of the seats ....

You guessed it .... lift went to the top & car hit the metal beamed roof collapsing the cars roof.

PACO

 

About 20 years ago, I worked in a small rural shop where we worked on everything from cars to combines.
I had an old pickup backed in to the rear of the shop so there was still a stall open in front of me. I had the truck on stands so I could relace the starter. While I was under it, the owner pulled in a tractor with a bale hook mounted on the loader. Now, because the shop was small, to fit it inside he had to raise the loader all the way up, and point the hook down, in order to close the door(it was winter).
When I finished installing the starter, I rolled out from under the truck, and stood up. The sharpened end of the bale hook put a stop to that.
It probably only stuck into my head 1/8 of an inch, but it felt as if I were bolted to the floor. I can still hear the boss asking if I saw stars.
I can still feel the "hole" in my head.
My wife says that story explains a lot!

 

About 15 years ago, I was a young troop working in the motor pool. I was watching a mechanic air up a tire from a deuce and a half. It was a split ring rim, so he had it in a steel tire cage. The air hose got stuck on the valve, so he reached his hand in to pull it off. As soon as he got his hand on it, the split ring let go with a thunderous boom. He let out a howl that would curdle your blood. The split ring had nearly amputated his left arm - his forearm bones were pulverized, his arm was the consistency of a noodle and pouring blood. One of the motor sergeants had to thread his dangling arm back thru the cage, and another guy tied a tourniquet around his bicep and pressed the brachial artery pressure point under his armpit so he didn't bleed out. His left arm never did work right again... and that's why I give split ring rims a WIDE berth.

 

had a friend in metal shop at Long Beach State get his hair wrapped up in the work piece while cutting threads on a metal lathe. Ripped all the hair off the top of his head.

 

Okay, not me but my friend. So he is working at a career center (they teach you auto tech stuff in high school) and as he is dicking around with this muffler, atempting to remove it and all of sudden he can't feel his finger, he also can't get it loose from the far side of the muffler. Him being who he is (supper dupper saftey consious, seriously he is) he asks one of the guys to grab some oil for his hand. Well long story short, too late. A strpi of metal had already cut into his finger and when he pulled on it, he "degloved" his middle finger. Nastiest thing I have ever seen, he took the bandages off to show me and his girl friend, she passed out.

 

This one is me. So I am at the same place as my friend and I am cutting a tube of metal with a saw blade. Stupidly I am standing at the end of the tube. See as I am cutting I kinda looked off for a second and relaxed my arm, all of a sudden, BAM!!! The saw blade went through the tube, hit the table, shatered and a peice goes flying down the tube right into my stomache. Luckily the piece was not a sharp peice or I may not be here today. All that happened was a bruise that still hasn't gone away and I threw up for 2 days after the accident.

 

Oh I don't know where to begin. First of all "ChromePlaterJosh" needs to post on here as I am surprised I didn't see any posts from him. He has had worse then me in shop accidents.
My worst and probably the scariest was while working at a shop in KY. Got a frame for a dragster caught in a polishing wheel (with the guard on it!) The thing came up and busted me in the face hard and proceeded to flail around as the guard was knocked away. I was disoriented but able to turn the machine off as I saw blood pouring from my face. I walk out of the room to see a guy soldering not 20 feet from me with no concern for the massive amount of noise comeing from the other room! Damage wasn't bad. Just a small scar and a nasty black eye.
The other one I can recall that scared me was about 3 weeks before my wedding I am working on a 1968-73 rear corvette bumper. Should have switched buffing wheels but it was the end of the day and wanted to be done. I had got away with it so many times it didn't seem like a big deal. Well the wheel caught the bumper and slammed it into my right thigh barely missing my .... yeah! Once again this was 3 weeks before my wedding and honeymoon to follow! I had one nasty bruise and a small cut from where a bracket pierced into my skin. The bumper flew across the room but all in all was only slightly scuffed and was finished the next day.
Both times were simply cases of me knowing better but trying to get away with it.
A close call was when my Dad and I made some abrasives for a side grinder. We used many methods before perfecting it. Any way he steps back as I start the grinder and I barely touch the metal when the abrasive wheel explodes and comes within inches of my Dad's head! No one hurt but after that a protective barrier was installed around this area. If you look at the posts "ChromePlaterJosh" made on the 51 Kaiser you will see the wall around him polishing the bumpers. That wasn't always there.
I have set my gloves, shirts, aprons, pants, ect on fire by either welding or heavy grinding but never serious. Only a minor burn here or there.
Many others not involving me but I will let them post their own stories.

 

Shop class in high school, don't talk to the girls while using the table saw would have been the advice I would have given to my friend Joe. I always tell the story as "sawdust... sawdust... red sawdust... sawdust." I E.R. trip, careful stitching, and some healing he was able to use his thumb again.

On my 38 dodge build I was painting the rear leave, when I decided to bring them inside I thought I would show off to my dad and carry the spring with one hand. The spring promptly fell onto my middle finger skinning the entire fingerprint right off with the spring bolt. I didn't even realize that it wasn't just a bashed finger until my dads sees the blood.

 

..High school as well, first week/month working on cars outside pulling a diff from my camaro... Had the diff jacked up.. undid the spring....WHAM!! Spring slams down grazes the hair on my head (I was laying down wrenching up) and cracks the concrete. My head was ringing for what seemed like forever.

 

1st one was when i started at an acura dealership, watched an oil changer park an nsx under one of the oil change cars on the rack, and low and behold, the car on the rack fell and crushed the nsx. 2nd watched a guy just finish a brake job, hopped in, didnt pump the brakes, goes in reverse with parking pawl clicking like mad (didnt think to pull the e brake) runs into the truck behind him that a buddy was working on(he wasnt hurt, crushed both side doors and the rockers) comes to a stop. in his infinite wisdom, he throws it in drive and proceeds to go forward, smashing into a toolbox, in turn pushing said toolbox into the van behind the box. 3 cars destroyed, 1 tech out of a job

 

years ago i was a pump jockey in a little service station and in the winter, i was forever runnin in n out and leavin a bay door open. the boss would chew my ass about heatin the outdoors so i got to where i'd close it behind me EVERY time. well, the boss tried to follow me out 1 day and i knocked his grumpy ass out yankin the door down behind me. bashed him right in the forehead! at least it was warm layin on the shop floor... and in my defense, i didn't know he was behind me.

 

Geez-I feel so much more at home on the HAMB site now after reading all these posts. Every scar has a story

 

this happened to my best friends parents car may years ago. his dad was filling up at a gas station that was across the street from a trucking co. they had their own mechanics and they were working on a cabover rig in the shop with the overhead door open. just as my friends dad walked into the station to pay he heard the truck rev up and then watched as it roared driverless across the road and smashed into his car, shoving it across the station lot and up over a retaining wall. the truck mechanics had been working on the engine-running and somehow the truck jumped into gear and as it took off the cab flopped down and jammed the throttle wide open. totaled his car!!

 

I was working in a shop in N. Tonawanda many moons ago. The other tech was jump starting a car two stalls away when I heard a loud explosion. There were pieces of battery flying through the air. I got over to him to find battery acid all over the front of the car and on his back. He was lucky that he was bending over at the time of the explosion and not standing up. I pulled his shirt off and told him to go wash off with a hose while I washed off the front of the car with baking soda and Coke.
Another time the same tech was filling a tire with air.....instead of using a chuck he just stuck the quick disconnect on the valve stem. I heard him yell before the tire exploded. Good thing we had a stack of old tires sitting between the tire machine and the shop bays. The exploding tire knocked down the tire "wall". The tech could not hear for 3 days afterwards. As for me.....I have been a mechanic / technician for over 40 years....Twice I cut the tip off a finger, (all the way) both times I just slipped on a latex glove to hold the piece in place. The first time I went and got stiches...now I have little feeeling in that tip...the second time I just kept the latex glove on....I can't even tell that one was injured except for a scar. FIRE....I lost track of how many times I caught myself on fire....How about weld slag holes in hands and feet....I was burned by slag that went through my work boot and got caught under the steel toe section. Those fully laced boot were very hard to get off.....I was rotating the tires on a 225 and as I approched the front spindle I felt a pinch on the back of my hand..I had hit the edge of the stainless steel mud flat with my middle finger knuckle...it bled for 3 days.....bad spot for a cut...I saw bone....After a week it looked healed, then I banged my hand against a frame piece...popped that cut wide open...more blood....
Another time I was using a "pickle" fork on a tie rod end on a two post lift. My hand was resting on the lift head...missed with the hammer and pinched the heel of my hand (the fleshy area across from the base of the thumb) against the lift, ...sorry I was counting stiches.....five stiches to keep the muscle from popping out........many more

 

i was grinding a inner fender of 72chevelle grinder gets stuck an ended up in my richt hand, well that was a new experience and a painfull one to


cheers

 

the two worst for me were, one time i was priming a fender and i told my buddy to grab the heat lamp and bring over to the side of the car. i was bent over priming and when i stood up, i melted the t-shirt right to my back, dumbass put it right behind me turned on all the bulbs. another time i was sitting on my stool pulling a dent out of a wheel well with my big morgan knocker. i was really having at it, and don't you know i pinched my leg between the slider and the stop, on the inside of my leg about 4 inches below my sack. i swear that has to be one of the sensative spots on yer whole body. go ahead give yourself a little pinch right now and then times that by a million! man i never felt so much pain in my life. i actually saw stars. that is not a myth, i saw them thru teary eyes!!

 

Not shop related but truck related. I worked at a lumber yard in college. I was really surprised that this hardware store leased a late model F-700 flat bed. The driver told me they used to have a real piece of shit truck. He wa making a delivery and the hood came up while he was driving. He stops the truck, in traffic, runs out and jumps up on the bumper to slam it shut. It shut on and latched on his manhood. He had to reach in and undo the latch. He said when he got home and showed his girlfriend, she just said "Oh.........oh baby, you poor thing" . Pretty bad when a chick sympathizes with a dick injury. He got the new lease truck after threatening to go to the D.O.T. I took his word and didn't ask to see the scar.

 

Stripping a 51 Olds the other day and snagged my melon on a jagged rusty edge.....