Crazy/Insane Shop Accidents

Was welding down in the garage one very warm summer morning a few years ago.
I wasn't very good at it and I didn't dress safely either , a real newbie.
I've got a cheap pair of polyester dress pants on, loafers, no socks and a light flimsy T-shirt. Oh, and leather winter gloves.
I must have looked like one pathetic poster child.
Yeah, you can see this one coming.
The hot slag rolls off the gun's tip and onto the poly disco pants. Takes less than a nanosecond to burn thru to my crotch ( OWWW) and about a microsecond latter lands inside the spiffy loafer attached to my right foot. (Double Ouch).

After pouring my morning hot coffee on the wounds (WTF, will I ever learn?) I decided lessons were in order.

 

Damn,I barely remember starting this thread 6 yrs ago!
Been sitting here laughing all over again.
I still see a guy that I used to work with from time to time,so here's one not involving me....thank God.
This guy we shall call Mack,was VERY accident prone.

We had a toyota P/U in the shop for a clutch.It was on a side post Mohawk lift.
I was having a little trouble stabbing the trans by myself,so I yelled at the shop kid for help.So both of us are under there when Mack walks over to see whats up.I told him to move the trans jack out of our way.Well,Mack,procedes to ram his balding head into the front left arm of the Mohawk lift,,me & the kid heard(& felt) the THUD.
"Godammit Mack says & goes to the sink.Rinses his fresh wound while me & the kid are holding this tranny,laughing,,,,,a little.
Less than 2 min later,Mack turns around from sink to help us again and once more,THUD & this time it was "G O D DAMMMIT",back to the sink for a head rinse ,,me & the kid just left the tranny hanging there halfway in & just could not stop laughing(uncontrollably).
I havn't reminded "Mack" about this latley,but I will next time I see him!

 

I thought I was the only guy this happened to in the world thats why I didnt say any thing intill now!! That thing kicked my Ass!

 

This one happened in my shop about 4 years ago. A customer brought in a chevy pickup with a 350 SBC in it that he had just bought and he and his brother had been unsuccessfully trying to start . No Big deal right? I put Franco that had only started to work for me a week before on the job. Make it run. In addition to starting the engine I had also sold the customer a pertronix Electronic ignition conversion. I told Franco to pull the distributor first and i would set Up the pertronix in it while he pulled and replaced the plugs. For some unknown reason he was dragging his feet on pulling the distributor. He finally started to take it out after I told him for the third time. In his unneeded haste he had left the ignition switch on and had falied to disconnect the hot wire from the coil to the distributor. As he pulled the distributor out it rotated and sparked. An arc jumped from the distributor housing to the block (Ground) and ignited the fumes that were in the crankcase. The crankcase fumes were from an unknown quantity of brake cleaner, ether starting fluid and gasoline that had all washed passed the rings. When it ignited/explodes it blew off both valve covers, blew the distributor out of Franco's hand. It bounced off the underside of the hood leaving a large dent and landed outside the shop. The oil pan was significantly bulged as was the front cover. When we removed the waterpump later the rear cover plate and screws left a deep impression on the timing cover. The explosion could be head for three block or more and filled the whole shhop with black smoke. Scared the hell out of all of us. Franco quit right after that.

 

There was a local guy that worked for my gramps for years, driving lime spreader trucks and working on the farms, and gramps used to try and keep the "regular" guys busy during the NY winter working on the trucks 'n tractors in the shop. 'Ol Ken wasn't the swooftest guy ever born, and ran out of stuff to do one day and decided to clean up the shop- this was back in the days when nobody thought anything about cleaning parts in an open bucket of gas with a brush. So he spends a couple hours cleaning wrenches and such, and decides to wash the outside of the big vertical coal stove in the corner- while it was burning Crispied him pretty good up to the elbows, luckily the bucket was almost empty and only made a little extra fire on the concrete floor when he dropped it.
A few years later, he went to work as a welder for a local outfit that built potato and onion harvesters and worked there a couple years. One morning he headed into the crapper, and after a while the other guys noticed he didn't come back, so they went looking for him, had to break down the door- he'd had a heart attack and died on the toilet

On a little lighter note, when i was about 5, my uncle was out in the same shop, installing a pintle hitch on the rear frame of a '53 REO truck. He was by himself, and getting a little frustrated as the hitch assembly was pretty heavy, and he had had a chronically bad back since his teens, and had to wear a heavy corset-type brace for years- including that day. So he's crouched down welding it up, and a dingleberry burned through his shirt and went down inside the tightly-strapped brace, causing him to vigorously hop around and turn the air blue, "that fu*&in' fri@@in' thing is never gonna be on there!!!" So I'm 5, right, don't know any better, and I go boppin' into my grammas' office at the back of the house, and she asked "Howz things going out there, Geno?" "Ah, the fu*&in' fri@@in' thing is never gonna be on there". "WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT???" "Umm, that's what Uncle Del said..." out the door she went, my poor uncle is nursing the new hole in his belly, and insult to injury, his mom chewed his a$$ until he had to crap in a washtub

 

Welding on a snow plow bracket. I was wearing a helmet with a pair of safety glasses underneath and a little cherry pops off, over the helmet, bounces off the top of my forehead and behind the glasses. Still hot it hits the contact lens in my left eye and melts it to my eye!. I flip out, throw everything off and plunge my finger into my eye pulling out the contact and scratching my eye. Hurt like hell. Luckily, no permanent damage.

 

I was welding the inside of a quarter panel and had taken all the precautions, welding paper on the glass, welding blankets surrounding everything, carpet and interior removed the works. After a cpouple of welds i started to smell fire so i quickly pulled my helmet off to try and find thesource and nothing. I continued welding and the same thing, again searched but nothing found again. Went at it again when i had some weld slag drop on my glove velco wriststrap( not smart I know ) that made me jump up pretty quick and when i turned around I had ten foot tall flames about three feet away along the shop wall. Turns out that when i was grinding, the porter had put a brand new caravan seat next to the wall along with a whole pile of cardboard scrap. Needless to say the van needed a new seat and the prick owner wanted to charge it to me.

 

I worked in quary as a kid. Another kid and i worked on the trucks and were the gofers for the company. On a Saturday morning we went out and started all the vehicles to let them warm up while all the drivers got there work for the day. One of the trucks did not start for the guy that worked with me so he went to the owner and told him. The owner handed him a can of starting fluid and told him to spray it into the aircleaner and then try to start it. He did as told ... He sprayed the entire can into the engine and then climbed into the cab and hit the key. The explosion dented the hood and did a number on the engine, but no one was hurt.

 

x-2!!!!! had this happen when i worked at a body shop. squatting beside a car mig welding and weld spatter lands on the crotch of my uniform pants. burned right through to my boy!!! hard to explain the burn on your privates to your girlfriend.

 

Back in the days when most people used straight weight oils, some people wouldn't get their oil changed before winter and still had 30 weight in when the temperature dropped to 25 below. The starter would grunt and that's about all. We towed them in, heated the oil pan with a torch then drained the oil and replaced it with 10 weight.

Bill was in a hurry and didn't heat the oil long enough. He started to drain the oil and a little ran out before a cold glob plugged the hole. He didn't put the plug back in before he started heating it with the torch again. Of course the owner had pumped the thing full of gas trying to start it. The gas ignited and blew both valve covers off the 389 Pontiac and bulged the oil pan.

Danny was doing a PM on a Mack truck with a flat rack and went to check the water level in the batteries which were tucked under the flat rack. He couldn't see so to get some more light, he flicked his Bic lighter. Two of the 4 batteries blew up in his face. He slammed his head up into the bottom of the rack and cut it wide open in addition to the plastic shards and acid in his face and eyes.

Another time we were trying to remove some 3" diameter bolts from a machine. We had an 1 1/2" ratchet with a 10 foot pipe on the handle. I was standing on the pipe holding on to a forklift and Danny and Frank were on the ground pulling down. We kept warning Danny not to get under the pipe in case the ratchet broke. On the 4th bolt, the ratchet broke and Danny was under it without his hard hat. He went down like a pole axed steer with a big gash in his head.

 

One of the instructors I used to work with was covering batteries one day.All his students brought their cars in to tinker with batteries,,load tests,hydrometer tests,charging systems,cable cleaning etc.
There were about 10 cars in the shop,& I was at the far end of building.
I heard a huge KABOOM & went running over there.Turns out one of the students layed his metal,spiral bound notebook across a battery,it glowed like a lite bulb filament & grenaded in his face.
Acid burns but he survived.The instructor got reamed because none of his students had glasses on.

 

Bounced a Mopar A833 cast iron 4 speed off my chest once. Lucky I didn't bust any ribs but it gave me one hell of a bruise.

 

i got a couple good ones, one no one was hurt, but funny as shit and could have been hurt, driving off coronado island over the bridge, its kinda steep going that way, i see my friend shop super visor in what would be the fast lane standing by the fron tof his jeep, with a cop behind him, traffic backed up for a ways, what happened was he lost rear wheel drive in his jeep, so, he rolls to a stop and figures he`kk just lock in his hubs and drive the rest of the way across the bridge in front wheel drive, well as he jumps out the jeep starts rolling backwards, well, it rolled onto his foot, so, hes got one foot under ther drivers front tire and the other on the brake pedal to keep it from completely running him over, and he`s stuck, can`t push, stuck...funniest shit ever.....

another one the guy was injured, i used to frequent the same junkyard alot and the guy i usually deal with was missing for a month or so, he gets back, i ask him, where ya been how ya been, starts telling me the story, keep in mind this is a pretty big dude, bout 6'5 350 plus, well, he using a little die grinder on something, it gets into his shirt, chest, up his chin, breaks his jaw and cut him to shreds, he spent close to 2 weeks in the hospital, itty bittty die grinder whooped his ass.......

 

Awesome post! I've had many of the same scenarios or injuries too.
The worst mishap I saw first hand was in high school, when a classmate (into BMX trick riding) decided to polish the frame on his bike. After successfully wire wheeling the factory paint off the aluminum frame by an electric hand drill, it was time to step it up for a chrome appearance. Setting up the stand up drill press for max spindle speed and a 10" cotton buffing pad with compound, he starts on the easy long tubes and is having awesome results. Everyone is impressed - he's a hero! But a bicycle frame is complex, with it's round tubing and tight angled joints, he's working really hard to get the tight spots shiny. Because the large drill press is stationary, he's constantly moving the frame and changing his grip. At the point of incident he had his arm looped through the rear down tubes to apply pressure to the gusset at the neck. The frame is looking great and a group of us are watching as the cotton pad grabs the gusset and pulls the frame into the machine, which grabs his shirt and pulls him in too. It didn't end well, and after someone ran up and shut off the drill, his arm was broken in seven places and was never the same. It happened so fast, but he was very lucky he had an audience that day - he probably would have lost his arm.

 

My personal mishaps are fairly minor in nature - I've had the metal in my eye a few times, complete with the rust ring (don't blink while we scrape your eyeball with an exacto knife!), various slag burns (through the shoe, through the sock and bouncing around between the toes).
The one that scared me the most was doing the rear leafs on my Ranchero. I lifted the car by the axle, slid jackstands under it and let the car down on the stands. I got the impact gun out and undid the u-bolts. Working upside down with the heavy gun, I applied pressure to the back of the gun with one hand and pulled the trigger with the other as I backed each nut off. When I got to the last one, the spring let go and pinned the back of my hand to the floor. Evidently, I didn't release the floor jack far enough off the center of the axle. The part that made it so scary was not being able to move and nobody around to help(the shop is 300' ft from the house and I had the tunes rockin pretty loud). I tried to lift the car with the jack using my leg to pump it, but since the leaf was disconnected, it wasn't taking any weight off the car itself -just raising the axle. If I go high enough the axle will hit the snubber and give some slack to pull my hand out right? No. Not enough range on the jack. Dammit, my hand is going numb! If I had nice smooth floors it would have been less painfull, but I did manage too grind the back of my hand along the coarse concrete to free it, but skinned the last three knuckles showing all the grissely white cartilage. My hand was black and blue on both sides and tingled for a little over a week, But at least I didn't have to chew it off to get free!
Springs hold energy!!! - Extra care when working with springs is manditory!!!

 

I was working at a collision repair shop, on the frame rack with a four door dually ford pick up.workin on pullin the frame,layin on my side on the frame rack, swingin a 8 lb sledge hammer, on my side towards me, missed the frame and pow, right in the forhead! Another time i was workin on our forklift, tryin to break loose a huge bolt with big blue point cresent wrench, pullin up towards me, the only way i could do it. Cus the boss had limited tools, and the neck of the wrench broke, and pow punched myself in the face, when it broke, and knocked my self out! To much brain damage now, thats why my sentences are so looong!! Haha

 

My first year in High School Auto Shop(72) we had a Straight 8 Buick engine as one of the projects.
It was a greaser,but it was all there & fully rebuildable.
Another kid & myself were in charge of hot-tanking parts(when we had good stuff in the tanks).
We put the crankshaft with the flywheel bolted to it in the tank,and planned on taking it out the next morning and steaming it off.
So my friend & I are using the hand crank to lift this monstrosity out the next day,& it was coming up,out of the tank at an angle,and it was HOT.
He's cranking the thing & Im noticing the stranded cable aint looking so good,so I said 'stop'!
I went in the shop to get the instructor,tools or something and that's when I heard THE noise.
Cable snapped,& the edge of the flywheel hit the concrete first just missing this kids feet,& the rest of the crank fell over against the corrugated metal wall caving it in bigtime.We(he) got lucky.
By the end of the school year the Straight 8 was purring on an engine stand.

 

a month or two ago there was 2 tow truck operators trying to get a car off a flatbed. one was supposed to unhook it, etc when it slid off the deck and the other guy was working the controls up front. after the car slid off, the guy started using the controls to move the deck forward and put it back down. little did he know, his friend had bent over the frame under the deck to grab something/fix something and his buddy at the controls never saw him and crushed him to death....

 

Years ago while working for a local Ford Dealer I was trying to show the new guy how I remove the piston from the caliper. Just as I apply air to the fluid port he reachs down to try and catch the piston. I could not stop the air in time and his finger knuckle was crushed between the piston and work bench. They had to pin the knuckle.

 

Not serious, but it just recently happened and it was dumb.

I opened the hood of my truck while talking on my cell phone. I tried to set the prop rod one-handed and missed. I dropped the hood on the bridge of my nose. Took 8 stitches and it's gonna leave a nice scar.

Never again will I work with that damned phone in my hand.

 

Just spent 2 hours and several beers reading this thread.

Emotions have ranged from hilarity to horror.

Have hurt myself a few times, nothing to the extent of most of these stories.

A lack of knowledge and inexperience is a dangerous combination.

I think luck has been a big factor in my experiences as I have done some stupid shit too.

Be careful people, life is short.

 

A lot of your guys have related dome truly gory and horrific tales. This one is just dumb funny.

Was banging out an Iron Man costume for my son out of an old Honda hood. My anvil is set atop a large stump. The stump is big enough that I had room to store two solid pieces of billet steel 3"x4" by a foot long that I use on the press.

So I am banging away. Wearing moccasins.

The top piece of billet jumps off and catches me square across the big toe on my left foot. I yell "mother.....fu(6er" just in time for this Wile E. Coyote moment to fully kick in. As the first piece crushed my toe and slid to the side, but before I moved my foot, down comes the second one.

Damn, the second one hurt a lot more than the first.

The toe filled up with blood and I had to drill a hole in the nail to let out the pressure. I lost the nail on the big toe, then the new nail came in fugly and it fell off, and a year and a half later the third (good) one is half way in.

 

Air tools,,Like when you put a socket on a impact or an air ratchet,,give it a couple blips of the trigger before going to work.
Well,I did this with a small air hammer.The kind of air hammer that's more vibratory than hard blows.
I had a driver it in that was flat & rounded for doing general whatever.
Put the tool in, unthinkingly put the tool against the palm of my left hand & zapped the trigger.
I swear to God I thought every bone in my hand was shattered.
The guy in the stall next to me was laughing his ass off "Ive done that!"..
It took prob 20 minutes for the pain to subside,,nothing broken or cracked & it didnt even hurt the next day.

 

I've had welding bb's go through shoes sending me dancing around trying to get my shoe off. I had one go down my shirt one time and of coarse it was tucked in. I untucked it and all that did was let it go down my pants, and that was pure horror!!!!

 

had a 1/4 drill bit deflect into my forearm about an 1 1/2 ,just between the two big veins.I saved the bit with the meat curled on it for a suviener.

 

I know guy who starts fires all the time. He can start asbestos on fire. One day he was wearing some old bib overalls and torching. I smelled cloth burning, turned to look and the leg of his pants is on fire. He just noticed it and starts raising the leg, slapping at the fire and stomping his foot to put it out. It reminded me of Grandpa Jones on the old Hee Haw show. I was laughing when I should have been trying to help him put it out.

 

Another High School adventure. Our body shop class was pretty good at delegating work to the appropriate grade level, but this job was a Quickie job for a teacher. The Grade nines and tens were only allowed to do masking(which we almost always had to redo) and some sanding. Well, they had first crack at the car, so by the time we got it, it was masked, sanded and almost ready for paint. Except there were a couple of little rust areas at the bottom of the quarters. I was already stirring up the paint 'cause the teacher was hot to get this thing in the booth, so the pressure was on to knock out that rust! Oh-oh! went through- gotta make a couple of quick patches and weld them in. Keep in mind, this car is totally masked. Well, long story short, undercoating or Crown rustproofing caught fire during the welding process, but with the windows masked, you couldn't tell until the car was so full of smoke that it pressurized and squeezed it's way out of any gap it could find. I don't think there were any flames until someone opened the door. we used every extinguisher in our shop and a few from the mechanic's side to put it out. I didn't paint it for a few weeks, while they swapped in a whole new interior.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm the king of setting myself on fire. Maybe even a record for most different tools

4" Grinder:
Hair (twice) shirt and nylon pants (also twice)

Cutting Torch:
Left leg and 2 welding jackets

Welder:
Both arms (Welding jacket) and both legs at least once

Plasma Cutter:
Left foot. leg and assorted stuff around the shop.

Surprisingly I have never set anything on fire with a propane torch, but we watched a guy at the shop try to lught a BBQ after he turned on the gas and put the lid down. We didn't get there fast enough. The flash took off his eyebrows

Non Automotive - In the military we used these great large heaters called a Herman Nelson. They were fuel powered and every so often these would flash back on the poor guy trying to light one. Saw I guy on my course get burned. Took the tip of his nose off along with his mustache, eye brows and eye lashes and he had 1st and 2nd degree burns on his hands arms and face. He tried to continue on with the course but finally dropped out 2 days later partly due to the pain but mostly because the flash took out his glasses and he couldn't see.

One more bone headed stunt I pulled:
I was using aplasma cutter to cut a hole in a 14" collector to add a crankcase evac system. I was afraid to cut through the opposite side of the collector so I put a 2x2 inside of the tubing. As I started cutting I realised my mistake. The 2x2 redirected the flame and heat out of the tubing like a rocket engine. Luckily I was wearing a welding jacket otherwise I would have blown a hole through my left forearm.

 

I was building a trailer hitch for a new Falcon . The car was up on a drive on rack similar to what an alinement shop uses but a little higher. I was squatted down tacking some pieces together with an arc welder when I lost balance somehow and tipped over backwards. AS THIS HAPPENED, THE ROD STRUCK AN ARC. Laying there I flipped the shield up to see a small stream of burning gasoline going between the bottom of the Falcons fuel tank and a burning puddle on the floor. After bailing out I hid behind a large I beam post outside the shop door for a bit . Nothing had happened so I peeked out and everything was still the same.. the gas seemed to be burning at the same rate it was coming out of the hole. A large CO2 extinguisher took care of it OK. Young and lucky I guess.

 

I was changing out a set of u-joints on a '79 Celica. The car was up on stands, and all was well. I'm working on that last bolt on the rear yoke to get the u-joint loose and off, and my wrench slipped. I left a sizeable chunk off my ring finger skin on the bottom of the car, so now I'm bleeding all over the floor. I slide out from under the car, and lift my head too soon, smacking it on the rear bumper. Now I have a bleeding finger and blood running down the side of my face. Once I stood up and started to walk towards my bench (and the first aid kit), I tripped over the floor jack, and zoomed straight into the edge of the bench, bruising my lower ribcage.

So, now I'm bleeding, dizzy, sore, and having difficulty breathing. All because of a friggin' u-joint repair.

It's the little shit that'll getcha!