How many times have you guys been in a shop where one of your buddies picks up a drill while holding a piece of steel in his bare hand to enlarge a hole ? Be safe put it in a vice. Safety first always!
I used to work for a company pressure testing Blow Out Preventers (BOP) on drilling rigs for wells. 3000-5000psi was the normal pressure I tested to. Sometimes up to 10,000 psi. I always had safety meetings before every test no matter how many times the fellas had been there for my testing. I never had an explosion. If a leak developed between the flanges of a part I was testing and you waved anything not hardened steel in front of it, consider it cut in half immediately. I worked with a guy who blew some o-rings up one time testing a choke valve and the sister drilling rig 5 miles away called up to find out if everyone was ok. Just threw water everywhere and made an extremely loud explosion. Another time I had gone to Oxnard to do a formation test below a drilling rig, formation tests can destroy oil/gas formations if you do not know what you are doing. Well the Company man decided he would test the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) using the rig pumps ( I have no idea because I would have charged him the same amount to test the BOP also besides just the formation). Well they pressured up the BOP and then never released the pressure after they finished testing. Opened the BOP and all the pressure about 1500psi I speculate was released. The BOP blind rams came flying up through the rig floor and hit the crows nest, threw mud everywhere, but the kicker is when the company man came to me and asked what happened? I just looked and said, "About 10,000$ worth of damage." I am just glad no one got injured as everyone on the rig was standing next to the drillers stand except the guy who opened the Blind Rams. I consider pressure in objects to be highly dangerous and all safety precautions and warnings should be respected.-Weeks
Ummm.... Is this for real? If yes: Pardon my ignorance, but how in the hell would you manage to inject yourself with grease from a grease gun? If no: This is a pretty serious thread...people dying man, someone husband, son etc.
yes...its real!! needle point grease gun tips to inject boots on joints with no fittings or sealed cv boots etc....they are sharp as hell and can do damage. And just for reference...any femoral artery damage, you will have less than 15 minutes before complete bleed out!! youve probably been reading this thread longer than that...
I'm sorry about your friend, but would like to know what type of equipment he was using. I own a sandblasting business and use an Ingersoll Rand 185 John Deere diesel powered compressor. I run that through a Schmidt 300 pound sand pot. What i'm getting at, is i've shot my hand point blank by accident before while blasting for someone, and have had it reflect back and hit me doing wheels. The most damage my equipment will do in that split second is leave your skin pink and looking like a razzberry. Think 50 pin pricks in a nanosecond. For a blaster to cut through flesh and into someone's artery... well... there's something missing from the story. Could he have passed out and had that blaster just wailing on his leg?? Did he have a history of passing out? I mean when I hit myself with the blaster it's for a nano second and I get the hell outta the way. I'm just wondering if something else happened... Again, sorry about your friend. Death by equipment is always sad. -Chris
I blast inside ships; we have a tank watch who's job is to laise between the occupants of the tank and the blast machine operator. They also provide supplies to the blasters and help ensure safety. Our hazards are blasting in poor light, high up on scaffolding, and getting blasted by some one near you. We have a rule, never blast alone. Now we know why. They tell us these rules are written in blood. Yes they are. Never blast without the correct Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like the right breathing equipment; a full face mask with a hood; a supplied air setup. A blast suit, leather welding gloves, rubber boots. Tape all the joints (pants to booties and, sleeves to gloves with 3" /4 " duct tape. Wear double ear protection (muffs and plugs) and take a break when ever you feel tired.
My grandfather on mom's side died from this. He worked making grave monuments and they sand plasted the letters into the marble. This was in the late 40's. I never met him.
I did commercial sandblasting as a living for some years doing highway bridges and over passes. The industrial compressors and sandblast rigs used to do this work could cut a man in two. safety training what it was back than never addressed this fact. But the guys who worked this rig knew the dangers and no one got hurt while i was employeed (not because of me, guess just got lucky) 2 months after i got hurt (not from sandblasting minor injury, paint pump blew up from compressed air in the system put shit in my one eye) i quit to get a better job(boss was a dick about it) less travel and closer to home with better benifits. I heard that the guy that took over my possition was decapitated.
This happened in a very small town I moved from 10 years ago, the man was about the same age as my dad and he was a smart competent guy good with equipment and machines. I don't know any more details beyond my first post, but it is confirmed that he bled out from a femoral artery injury inflicted by a sandblaster. I have seen several posts on this thread that make me think that a momentary lapse in judgment is all that is needed for death or serious injury while sandblasting, and indeed, the consensus of opinion regarding this specific incident is that this is exactly what happened. I can see in my "minds eye" where shooting a hand or fingers could be a lot different than shooting a bigger piece of the body where there is no real "escape route" for the high pressure sand to "move around" an obstruction instead of overcoming it. Also, there are certainly other variables, among them is an inability to explain why one man survives a 100 MPH auto accident, and the next man is killed by a 15 MPH incident, go figure. Maybe you dodged a bullet?, or perhaps more accurately, "thousands of tiny bullets dodged you?"...
The Jalopy Journal
