Let's hear about your shop accidents

I'll add to the list. My biggest bonehead move was about 20 years ago, while I was taking shop classes at the local JC, trying to get my foot in the door wrenching.

I had been wrenching on my own old cars for a number of years already, in addition to having had 4 years auto shop in high school. I took the classes and did well, and the instructors more or less left me to my own in the shop.

My parents had a 1980 VW Rabbit that needed new struts. Good project in a suspension class. Brought it in, got it racked, pulled the 3 little nuts on the top, then switched sockets and got that BIG one! OOOPS!!!! The spring went flying by my head within an inch, all the way to the other end of the building, probably 30 yards away. Didn't get hurt, but I've been a LOT more careful with struts since.

Devin

 

Another embarrassing moment.....I just started working in a tranny shop. The stations I worked in used them a lot, they knew me.... I hated and still do hate automatics, all I really knew was to pull'em out, change to a stick. The shop needed an installer.... I needed a job, so off I went. First job was late model for the time, maybe a 72-73 Caddy with a th-400. Did an R&R tranny and converter, asked the boss how much atf it took... I think I remember him saying 8 qts. So I filled it up with 8 qts of atf, got in the car, started it up while on the lift, waiting while it warms up, next thing I see the whole right side of the front of the car was in flames....... The tranny spit out most of the atf I installed and it caught fire. I caught hell, got an explaination on what happened and still had a job. Scared the hell out of me, thought I'd be buying a Caddy

 

I caught the same car on fire TWICE, in the same night. Burned up the headliner real bad, caught some seam sealer in the trunk on fire. The garage I was working in had no charged fireextinguishers. Seems someone had been playing with them...

 

I crushed both hands in a rolling mill in 1994. They were crushed to an 8th inch. Took many years and many surgeries to be able to whip my ass and work on cars again. I fell into it while it was running. No one knew I was fighting for my life til the blood got to the saw room. You cant win against a 50 ton rolling mill. Now I set off metal detectors.

 

I used to have a super lowered SCCA '71 Triumph TR6 I liked to street race. The car was GORGEOUS... anyway the damn thing was so low that to jack it up from the side i'd have to take the little cup off my low jack, grab the rear wheel well opening and rock it up and down as I slid the jack under it.

Well needless to say, one day I didn't get the jack in the sweet spot and it slid out from under the car crushing the driver's rocker panel.

I literally got sick to my stomach and had to go inside. To this day I don't think i've ever been so disgusted with myself. It was a perfect, rust free/dent free car.

eh.... i'm sick just thinking about it.... poor car...

-Chris

 

No one was injured in this episode , just neede to change my shorts. Removed the gas tank from my 37 ford coupe and peeked into the sender unit hole prior to filling it with fuel tank sealer sloshing fluid. Yup decided it needed cleaning out first, so out came the trusty shed vaccum cleaner, put the hose in the drained tank to remove dirt and KABOOOOM blew the vaccum cleaner apart. Crap forgot about the potential hazzard of sparks from the motor. Check my vitals and all OK just soiled shorts. Dopey ass.

 

Just last weekend - thought I might adjust the automatic garage door. I was SURE I could make it work smoother. Those doors have pretty big springs on either side. Pulled the bolts out of all but the adjustable bolt holes (one) on the left hand side hinnge and was tetsing it after getting it centered. In a flash, no warning, like getting shot, the hinge plate and arm pulled the solo bolt out of the wall and the spring/arm/plate hit me on the hip. It was a side swipe rather than a direct hit but sweet jesus 6 inches to the right and I would have been in trouble. As it is I have bad bruising and grazes/haematoma. Carefull out there dudes. Id only had 3 beers too!

 

I work for Dana Corp. building driveshafts. We had an idiot one day, running a balancer. When the shaft was on the down spin he puts is hand on it. Needless to say he got wrapped up in his work, only broke his arm. Wire wheeling paint of a tractor for paint and shot a few wires in my peebobs, yeeeoucchhh. Exploding grinding wheels, a bad accident with a tater gun. Removed both eyebrows, eyelashes some hair on top of my head. Knew one gut at work at Dana replaced U-Joints didn't chalk tires, you know what happened. To this day they call him "Wheel Chalk" To many more to recall right now.

 

Holy chains!

 

well how about when one of our two post lifts pulled the bolts out of the concrete floor with a full size Blazer on it and the post fell against the drivers side of the truck. It never fell to the floor but it took us a while to get it down without doing more damage to it. The pucker factor was high on that one

 

Many years ago I backed my 70 el camino into my very crowded shop to unload an engine out of the back of it. It was so crowded that I had to slide out the right side. I picked up the engine with the jib crane and slid in the passenger side just far enough to reach the steering wheel and work the pedals with my left foot. I cranked it up, put it in reverse by mistake, got screwed up on the pedals and hit the gas instead of the brake. Crashed into the workbench with the open tailgate and the swinging engine crashed into the front of the bed breaking out the rear window in the process. Took a while to eliminate the evidence of that one.

 

when you cut off a rusted bolt with the angle grinder,make sure the red hot bolt isn't in your hat before slapping it back on. Took a long time for this one to go away. Also does almost being hit by lightning six times count?

 

After retiring I relocated to Arkansas and bought a cabin that sticks out from the side of a hill with the front of it on stilts so that there is enough area to park four cars underneath on the concrete pad. (I have since enclosed it into a garage). I jacked up the rear of my 54 Chevy hardtop to work on the rear suspension. I failed to remember that there was an eight inch slope, front to back, to the concrete floor. Car and jack started rolling back toward me. All I could do was stand quickly and sling myself onto the hood of my daily driver parked behind it before being pinned between them. The driver side exhaust of the 54 speared the headlight of the other car and brought it to a halt. Since I live alone and there isn't much traffic on the top of this hill I would have been stuck until somebody noticed the smell.

 

I kinda know the feeling. I was installing a tape deck into a '78 chevy truck and useing a 4 7/8" buck knife to trim the plastic face plate. I had tossed the knife on the seat as I was tightening up the nuts and found that the deck was crooked by about 1/32" so I slid under the steering wheel on my back to reach under the dash to loosen a backing nut. When I slid back out, I realized that the knife was laying on the seat pointing forward with the butt of the handle against the back of the seat. The knife went it's full length into my back. Problem was, how to get out from under the steering wheel. I slid forward and THOUGHT I felt the knife come out but I still had to get out from under the wheel without stabbing myself again. I was able to pull myself up off the seat enough with the wheel to slide out. Whe we got to the hospital for stitches, the nurses wouldn't take my wifes word for it that I had stabbed MYSELF in the back, they had to confirm it with me.
A friend of mine was under a swather header cutting out a siezed bearing with a torch. It was summer and he was just wearing coveralls over his shorts. A redhot ball fell out of the bearing and went right down his coveralls right down to the crotch. He grabbed the ball through his coveralls and pulled it away from his jewells and had to hold it there 'till it cooled. It burned a hole on his coveralls and burned quite deeply into the palm of his had but he wasn't about to let it go. It also made chicken track all the way down his chest where it bounced on the way down.

 

I was working at a Chevy dealer in 1979 as a service writer-in-training and gofer dude. A customer had arrived to pick up his '71 Stingray form the body shop, which had finished laying down a wicked pearl white paint job on this honey! The car belonged to a very close friend of the store owner, whom he'd known for maybe 40 years at the time...So, I was tasked to get the car from the paint shop detailers and drive it around to the front of the store. No sweat. I pull this big-block baby around to the opposite entrance to the body shop, which was maybe 100 feet from where I needed to go. I was waiting for another car to back out when "CRACK!" - now there is a five-inch piece of metal pipe protruding through the passenger door of the 'Vette, where another body shop employee had backed a pickup with a load of pipe in the bed up, without looking or having a spotter to help him! The dealership owner and the car owner witnessed this little stunt, and both nearly stroked out right there! If I had not ducked out the driver's door, that pipe would've decapitated me!

The guy backing the truck was fired on the spot. I wheeled the car back in the shop, where they fixed the car in record time! The customer had his car within 24 hours! The parts guys found a door locally, the paint guys matched it perfectly to the rest of the car, and the upholstery shop down the street fixed the interior panel.

 

When I was working in auto parts, I worked with a guy that was not dumb, but also not that bright. On the weekends one of us would be the 'shop guy'. Meaning we would do flywheels, drums, rotors and bearings.This particular day he was the 'shop guy'. Customer comes in with a rear axle and needs the bearing R&R. customer gets told to come back in the afternoon. He takes the axle intop the shop area and shortly after I hear a loud BANG, followed by shrapnel bouncing of the other machinery. Most of you know that when you press a bearing off there is usually a 'pop' as it separates from the axle. I ran to the shop to find 1/2 of the outer race buried in the ceiling, ball bearings all over the place. He is standing there with an unbelievable look on his face.

One thing about this shop, there is all of the right equipment to do all of this work SAFELY. He thought he could just use a couple of plates that happened to slide under the bearing. That does work if needed, but he was in a hurry, didn't want to take the time to use the proper bearing collars and sleeve.

The thing I have never understood is that he didn't have a scratch on him at all.
Needless to say he was never the 'shop guy' again.

 

Mine is minor compared to some. I was working on a giant paper cutter and was leaning in to straighten out the stock I was cutting when my foot hit the pedal for the clamp. The clamp cam shooting down onto my left hand popping the bones out of the back of my fingernails. So, surgery for a couple hours and pins in the fingers.....A few weeks therapy when the pins came out and I am fine. Thankfully it did not cut my fingers off because I am a guitar player.

 

How about im working in a machine shop as a cnc programmer and im walking by a table that has endmills sticking up for storage. Someone calls my name and I turn around and slice the top of my hand all the way thru the muscle and didnt know it till someone told me look at your hand and I was like thats going to need stitchs. it cut it so clean and deep it never hurt once.

Now my girlfriends dad is an accident prone son of a gun. I try to not stay to close to him when hes doing things. He was trimming the hedges in front of his house and cut 3 fingers off, and just put them back like they were taped them up and finished then went to get them fixed. He also feel off of a lift when he was running conduit 25 feet up in the air, broke his back and hip and tried to walk it off till he realized he could walk at the time. Ive seen him grinding something with the grinder sheild off and it catch and cut the middle of his finger to the bone, looked like a burnt split hotdog.There is many more stories but will take for ever to tell

Sometimes I dont feel safe around him for some reason. LOL

 

I worked at a pallet construction / repair shop during college. Another co worker and I were repairing returns one afternoon when I heard him call out for help. He got a little careless with the nail gun and nailed the fly of his jeans to the pallet. The nail never touched skin, but he was as white as a ghost!!!

 

If you're using a hub puller to get a tapered axle off the back of a Chrysler and don't have the castle nut on far enough to stop the drum when it goes "bang!", don't have the wife's mini-van parked next to it in the garage.

Not unless you like doing body work on a Nissan of all things...

 

This is a good one.....I lecerated my eye corner to corner and distroyed my cornea. Yup...I had stitches in my eye for 3 weeks. ya wanna talk about hurt. I did all of this taking a stripped nut off with a pipe wrench. When I applied force to the wrench.... the jaws exploded, and I caught most of it with my left eye....O yea, I had to have an eye cancer surgeon take another part of the jaw out of the back of my eye near my retna. all told I had 4 operations over 4 years.

I did get the nut free before I went to the hospital though.

 

When people tell you that you shouldn't spin a wheel bearing with compressed air while you are holding it in your hand, Believe them.

 

Was not personally on the brake for this one...

did an hook drop from the hawse pipe...guy on the brake freaked and spun it the wrong, way by the time he got that thing turned the right way the shot was sceaming out and could not be stopped. The mate tells everyone to get the hell out of there ASAP. 12 shots go tearing by and that last link leaves a big dent...

 

This is the honest truth. Some homeless dude came into our campus shop in college and cut his hand off with a chop saw. He said he did it because of the pain killers he knew he would get at the hospital.

 

at age three i stuck my hand into the rollers of my mom's wringer washer, i still have the scar, i guess that was my first accident with a piece of equipment .

 

Damn.....Thats bad.

I had some heavy tig wire hanging in my paint booth. I would cut the wire and bend the ends like a hook, you know, to hang parts on while painting.

The heavy wire could hold allot of weight..... anyway, I was cleaning my booth and not noticing the hanging wire, then POP.

As I was walking through the booth, the hanging wire caught my ear, and went through it. I had to get one of the guys to help me get it out.

 

I was using a grinder with a cut-off wheel to cut off a piece of sheetmetal on the rocker repair work I was doing on the 36, I was kneeling down next to what I was cutting, got distracted and turned for just a second and BAM, cut off wheel caught an edge of the metal lost grip of the grinder and and sliced into my leg. Grinder fell on the ground and the cord wrapped around the broken off cutt off wheel.

12 stitched later, I was more upset than anything, 15 years and 5 grinders throughout and nothing like this ever happened and I use the cut off wheel alot.

 

not caused by me,but years ago when I worked for Target, the maintenance guy also drove the powered pallet jack,one of those ones that would go up two stories, well he also liked to drink a little , he was more then a little drunk getting a pallet of cokes off of the upper shelf, about 14 feet up, hooked it on one of those heavy steel shelves, and the entire pallet slid off the forks while everyone ran for it, I don't think a can survived without exploding, I'm sure there are still corners in there with sticky brown mess in them. It sounded like the forth of July for a while there.

 

Jacking up my big '69 Lincoln with a floor jack under the diff center. Things started moving so I stepped back (I wasn't under the car). Big crash. Jack slipped backwards but stayed up. One mangled gas tank as a result. Just what I needed when prepping the car for sale!

 

Hears a tale to make you always wear your safety glasses. I was working setting up a mobile kitchen for a forest fire crew. The steps and handrails for the kitchen trailer were underneath the trailer, I bent over and pulled on the steps hard (they were heavy). Someone had laid the handrails on top without me knowing. The 1" tubing handrails shot out and nailed me right in the safety glasses over my left eye embedding it in the glasses. I walked away with a good cut to my nose and a black eye, that could have been a VERY bad day indeed.

ALWAYS WEAR YOUR DAMN SAFETY GLASSES!

Oh yeah, if you block up an electric flatbed cart to work on it, be sure to disconnect the battery before laying down in front of it and absentmindedly grabbing the slide that connects the throttle pedal to the motor and driving over yourself, pinning your neck with the bumper and trapping you for hours until someone finally comes along to see where you are...not that I would know about that