Let's hear about your shop accidents

I don't have any really serious stories. Some of you guys are making me feel ill!

One this I've noticed is that exacto/razor/utility knives have it out for me. I consider every day I survive without stabbing myself or cutting my fingers open a good day. The most damage I've done is when I worked at Line-X bedliners a few years ago. I was tearing all the masking paper off of a little trailer with another employee. We were in a mad rush as the owner had come back early and we wanted to get it out ASAP. I had the razor knife in my hand with 2 sections of blade sticking out, holding the masking paper in my left hand. I went to cut down the sheet (makes unmasking easier/faster) like I always do. For whatever reason it is that things don't go as they should, the knife followed a 'run' of the spray-on product and before I could say "oh f*ck" I'd run the blade across my left thumb.

I heard it cut through, felt it hit something hard, and without even looking at it I dropped the knife and grabbed my thumb. It made a sick enough sound the other kid working with me heard it and looked like he was going to vomit. I walked into the other bay and found my 'foreman'. "Hey Dave, your wife is a nurse right? Wanna take a look at this and tell me what you think?" I take my hand off my thumb (thus releaving pressure) and in a most cartoon-like way the blood squirts up at least 3 feet into the air, a couple squirts as my heart pumps. Dave damn near fainted right there, lot of help he was!

I walk up into the office, being careful not to drip blood on the nice floor as I go. I find my boss and tell hime I may have cut my hand a bit. He just rolls his eyes, takes me into the bathroom and tells me to stick it under water. Well I tell you, I cut my thumb down to the damn bone. I could see it! It's the whitest thing I have ever seen in my life. I must have looked a little pale, cause he tells me to 'suck it up and quit being a pussy!" as he douses it in that clotting-agent stuff your supposed to put on monor wounds. He wraps it up, tapes it up and tells me to get back to work haha.

I never went to a doctor but I probably shoud have. It got pretty infected and for awhile there I had a zombit thumb. I think I must have damaged the muscles/tendons in my thumb as it didn't work right for months afterwords. The worst part was the vein I'd hit...when I moved my thumb I could feel it tugging in my neck haha. If I extended my arm and gave the thumbs-up it hurt like a bitch, but I only made the extended-arm 'gun' hand once. That put me on my knees and I thought I'd ripped it back open.

Good times, good times.

 

I was about 15 when I did this my dads shop has a pit about 6ft deep he tellls me to hop in his 70 Impala convt. I do he jokingly tells me to pull it out but get on it a little. Well my dumbass dumps the clutch at 3500 rpms car kicks sideway throwing most of the pit boards out before dumping the car in. But dad was cool about it called me a jackass. Im 34 now and he still wont even let me sit in the drivers side

 

Jeeeeez you guys, I was gonna say my biggest accident was getting too small a garage.
I bought a 69 eldo for an unpassable price. It was on a hill out in the hills.
I'm in front with the floor jack under the car and Looking for the hood latch.
Girlfriend's idiot kid gets in and starts playing with stuff. The car lurches, the jack turns sideways and the handle hits the ground 90 degrees to the car and the body of the jack tangles up in the frame stopping the car. I was crab walking backwards about 6 feet faster than I've ever gone. I woulda been unrecognizable if it went over me.
They left before I was done yellin and gone before I got home.
My guardian Angel is a worn out alcaholic with a nervous tick.

 

I stole the bit about the guardian angel

 

i was on on top of a 80' silo and just happened to be looking over the side watching a guy on a brand new $80,000 10,000lb capacity hyster lift attempting to lower a green bundle of 20' long 2x5" lumber. as he slide it off the stack from about 10' over head he's backing up hits a pothole with the over weight bundle causing it to lift the ass end up throwing him face first into the windshield! after regaining his senses and breaking the windshield with his face he gets out and wonders how in the hell he is going to get this unstuck. after making sure nobody saw this fuckup he gets back in and starts to backup and then it unsticks out of the dropped load comes down violently on the steer wheels and blows the rear tires completley off the rims! what a site. other than watch the lift drive around for the next couple weeks with bent rims until the new one arrived was the fact that the operator thought nobody had witnessed anything since we were on a plant maint. shutdown. everyone really enjoyed listening to the story how that huge knot got on his forehead because we knew the truth and finally told him 5 years later at a christmas party.

 

Had a friend drop a car with bags on his foot, it didnt have a compressor hooked uo to it yet, took him a few mins to get a shop air hose

 

I used to build elevators for a living

a guy waiting for the temporary outside elevator to come up to the 10th floor leaned against the gate to look down to see where it was and the gate opened. another guy behind him tried to grab him and they both went down 10 floors.

a truck driver hauling giant windows on his truck was removing his tie downs when the load shifted knocking him off the bed and crushing him like a bug.

an elevator guy fell from a 6 foot ladder and landed on a part of the pit ladder that sticks up above the top rungs. it stuck him in the gut, guys who were there say he was talking and barely bleeding waiting for emergency people to arrive. he bled out internally and died.

another guy contacted 480 volts and the side of his neck became the ground. it blew a hole in the side of his neck. he would have died had he not been working on an elevator in a hospital.

when an elevator build is started we build a platform from an aluminum frame and a plywood floor and use that to set the rails. so we are at the bottom floor and stop to go to the lunch wagon for break. when we come back there is a 10 foot long 2x4 stuck clear through the 3/4" plywood floor right where a guy was working 15 minutes before.

2 guys building 2 elevators side by side. during construction the elevator has temporary up-down switches on long electrical cords. guy grabbed the wrong set of controls and lowered the other elevator with a guy underneath. his head got caught between the floor and the elevator and only broke his jaw. could have easily popped his head like a zit.

 

About 18 years ago working as a Diesel Fleet Mechanic I had a Diesel truck in for service for the day. Driver took the spare wich was a gas truck.

Well guess what he did as he did every morning, filled her up with Diesel. That didnt work too good and he made it around the corner.

No problem took some gas primed up the carb and got her back to the pumps. Filled the other tank with gas, grabbed a glass jar filled it with gas and poured it down the carb. She backfired and lit off.

I ended up in the hospital for a week with second degree burns on my arm and fingers. Today I just have a small scar on my bicep.

never again will I pour gas into a running motor.
Lesson learned

 

i have plenty of bonehead accidents in the shop like wirebrushing myself, welding slag just stuff like that. The ones that stick in my head are when i worked for a big distubution company (think rolling back prices and the smiley face). I worked for the D.C. and drove a forklift. I went to put a pallet of house paint up and got a little close to the sprinkler system ok well i got very close. Didnt realize it was right in front of the pallet started pushing pallet foward and rip down 40ft of steel water line. They sure do dump water very quickly about 3000 gallons hit the floor before they got it turned off and ruined thousands of dollars in merchadise. I got a little mark on my record and a drud test ok no problem. Go back to work the next day start to put up a pallet of coleman lighter fluid and the pallet decides to give way about 50ft in the air and it all came tumbling down on me and hit me in the head, that shit hurt. Since it was a faulty pallet they only gave me a half a mark and a drug test. Man im glad i left there. If i hadnt i wouldnt be doing what i love.

 

ouch

 

I am knocking on wood right now.

 

Quick get a straw....Boris.

 

Years ago I was working on our daughter's shitty Chevette.It's a manual tranny and I asked my wife got in the car to bump over the engine with the starter.OK,my wife has driven a stick all her life,no problem,WRONG! I tell her to hit the starter quickly...the car is in gear,no clutch pedal interlock switch.......She does it,doesn't put it in neutral or step on the clutch,the car jumps foward ,the front tire stops right on top of my foot!!! I'm screaming get this fucking car off my foot!!!! Wife freaks out,usually she is very cool in an emergency,our daughter takes over,knocks the car out of gear and pushes it back.No real damage to the foot other than it's sore for a day.

 

My brother was replacing the front wheel bearings in his late 70's impala wagon, his friend was fascinated with how worn the old bearings were, he dipped them in kerosene and was using the air gun to blow them out...he then realized that he could spin the bearing on his hand using the air gun...(yes lots of beer was involved)

he ignored several suggestions that it might not be the best thing to spin the bearing since it was pretty shot

it was spinning really fast and started to shake, then it sounded like someone fired an automatic weapon

everybody dove for cover, when they looked out from their hiding places there were rollers lodged in the walls, ceiling and wokbench

his buddy was doubled over on the floor bleeding profusely from is chest and....you guessed it the end of his pecker...it must have sucked to be the intern that had to stitch him up....

the same guy also lost the end of a finger trying to line up a trailer ball and hitch, had his finger between the two when someone jumped into the bed of the truck.

 

I was welding under the dash of a 68 ford pu sitting on the floor of the cab with my feet out the trans opening. I wasnt even mig welding i was TIG welding, I got down to the stub of my welding rod and dropped it to the floor and went for another, then continued to weld, well my leg started to get a little warm I take my helmet off and spread my knees thinking my coworker was hitting me with the heat lamp or something.
As soon as my legs spread a flame shot up, I guess the hot rod stuck in the cuff at the end of my dickies and festered till they caught fire

Side note, Dickies burn

 

oh and when i was in high school an electrical firm in oakland hired me as a warehouse boy/driver my first day out in this big F350 dually (biggest thing i ever drove at the time)

well my first delivery I was inside a building getting ready to leave, I backed up and put a 2ft crease in the side of the bed, came back to the shop in fear of losing my job and nobody noticed... i guess the dirt hid it pretty good well a month or two go by and my boss notices it but blames the motor shop guys (nobody specific) I acted like I didn't know... I still feel bad.

 

I was cutting the end off a caulk tube with my favorite pocket knife and the end of the tube get's stuck on my knife , from the caulk, so I give it a quick "whip" to throw off the caulk tip and then notice my knife isn't in my hand! So I stand there looking around on the floor for my knife and can't see it anywhere, so I go to walk to another part of the garage to look for it and my leg won't move. I look down and see my knife stuck into my leg below my knee about 1 1/2 inchs deep. Pulled it out and the feeling came back in my leg and so did the blood. Had to go get stiches and convince the nurses not to call the cop's thinking I was in a knife fight.........

 

I was in an auto shop class in high school where someone managed to knock some chitbox Nova off a jackstand and into another kid's dad's Ferrari Dino, which was in the building for some inexplicable reason.

 

It's been about four weeks since my accident. I decided it would be real bright to drop a running grinder on my foot! Cut the tendion that controls the big toe. I'm glad that's all it was, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Foot surgery sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Just got back from the eye doctor today at 11:30 am.I was cutting sheetmetal with a cutoff wheel for a repair on my 50 Chevy pu yesterday and despite proper safety glasses got a piece of metal in my eye.No damage to the eye but man was that fucking annoying..Done the dirt or metal in the eyes several times over the years.Time for a full face shield...

 

My nephew decides to replace u-joints in his pickup, he's in my sis's driveway and its pretty steep. Yep he prys it out of the yoke and the truck rolls over his leg and across the street ends up in the neighbors flower bed. Only thing broken was his pride.

 

Just out of high school I go to work in an automotive machine shop with my uncle. After a few months I am getting pretty good at certain jobs. We had a big resurfacing grinder that had a large grinding wheel in the center of a table that fed up from the bottom. I had been resurfacing heads and flwheels on it with no problem. My uncle goes on vacation and a guy brings in an aluminum flywheel, I don't know any better so I begin to resurface it and the grinding wheel loads up grabs the flywheel and luky for me throws it through the wall instead of through me, it took almost a whole roll of toilet paper to clean up the mess!!

 

The latest...

I was working in the Texas heat and panting like a dog...

So I went into the shop to bring out a 4x8 sheat of siding...
I picked it up over the '31 project and hear a crack...
I thought "Oh shit! Looked up just as the broken flourescent light came down on my head.

Thank God I had a hat on... The bill deflected most of the shards heading towards the upper part of my face...

The upshot is, I ended up with my open, panting mouth full of broken Flourescent light-bulb...

Luckily, no stitches and no swallowed pieces... Just a bunch of shards in my lip and gums that I was able to get out... And a fat lip...

So as a warning, make sure you buy the flourescent fixtures with some sort of gaurd on them for the shop, and buy good fixtures... It turned out I didn't break either of the tubes with the wood, the fixture itself broke and dropped both tubes on my head...

That happened a few months ago and pissed me off so much I haven't been back in the shop to even clean up the mess...

 

anyone see the youtube video of the SRT-10 Ram that a guy was doing a burnout on a country road and rolled it into the ditch? just search SRT-10 Ram and it comes up as one of the first. Red Truck.

 

Showing a guy a car in my shop. Lean over in the driver door to pop the truck. Foot bumps a piece of sheet meal against the wall (flip flops on of course, wasn't working in shop just went to show him). Got this nice little gash. Could see the tendons moving when I wiggled my toes. ER gives me a tetanus shot but no antibiotics. Did you know the shot keeps you from getting lock jaw but you can still get tetanus. Ran a 102-103 fever for about 3 days while it tried to kill me. Not sure if it was tetanus or something else but it sure did suck.

 

My first chop!
One inch off my middle finger!
Yup, right into the alternator.
Happened about 3 years ago.

 

HAHAHAHAHHA.... That's great!

 

Working in a 20 bay shop , the tech in bay 19 got a car with gas contamination. He pumped it out into the gas-boy and rinsed the tank out with water,carried it outside and dumped it over the bank (this was over 30 years ago EPA). He rinsed it a second time, but too lazy for another trip he dumped it in the floor drain that ran down the center of the shop. All was ok until that "water with gas in it" hit bay 1 where the tech was welding a cracked boom on the boss's back hoe. Can you just imagine an 8' high wall of flame the whole length of a 75' shop ? No damage but we learned the importance of regular fire extinguisher inspections- only one of 12 worked. Luckily it went out quickly on it's own.

 

A friend of mine crushed both of the tips of his thumbs in a brake....lost them at the knuckle

 

Working in a machine shop at a large Air Force base some of the machinery was old and well used. One of the guys was running a big internal grinder and the feed wheel would back off slightly if you didn't keep pressure on it. He gets smart and puts a wire hook on the handle end of a big lead mallet, he hangs it on the feed wheel to keep pressure on it. This works real good until he forgets to remove the mallet, he finishes the grind and reaches down and spins the feedwheel backwards and the mallet comes around and cracks him right in the jaw he goes down like he just got punched by norton. He was out for several minutes and got to go home after a trip to the medical facility, how it didn't break his jaw is beyond me.