Stupid accident

[Spectric]

Just after I left school, I did a course in engineering, and during that course we were given a lecture by the health and safety executive. During it they put up full colour slides showing horrifically damaged limbs, hands,fingers that had become caught in machinery due to operator lack of concentration, clothing becoming entangled.

That was the way it was taught, a few pictures just replaced long boring lectures talking about the subject, being graphic hammered the message home. The other great learning tool is pain, that also gets the message home and makes you safer because you tend to remember the experience. The trouble today is that showing such images would probably be thought of as inhumane or might cause mental health issues to the delicate little snowflakes.

An image I still remember from many years ago in a site introduction talk, these days probably called a safety briefing was of a site worker, initially nothing looked amiss and it looked like he was just standing there, but when a closer shot was shown he was actually dead with a scaffold pole through his shoulder and pining him to the ground, someone had dropped the pole from many floors above.

 

[Bingy man]

That was the way it was taught, a few pictures just replaced long boring lectures talking about the subject, being graphic hammered the message home. The other great learning tool is pain, that also gets the message home and makes you safer because you tend to remember the experience. The trouble today is that showing such images would probably be thought of as inhumane or might cause mental health issues to the delicate little snowflakes.

An image I still remember from many years ago in a site introduction talk, these days probably called a safety briefing was of a site worker, initially nothing looked amiss and it looked like he was just standing there, but when a closer shot was shown he was actually dead with a scaffold pole through his shoulder and pining him to the ground, someone had dropped the pole from many floors above.

Yes agreed words alone are soon forgotten but accompanied by a graphic image or video and the message stays with you forever- safety planning dynamic risk assessment and a generous helping of good old common sense will ensure you work safely be it machines, power tools or hand tools.

 

[Trextr7monkey]

I ran school workshops for nearly 20 years with no serious accidents - lots of minor abrasions/ splinters/ soldering iron burns but nothing else. I consider this to be a good record but it was due to a heavy emphasis on PPE and a positive expectation that everyone was thinking about working safely and looking out for others as well as close supervision when kids were turning/ milling/ brazing etc
The prescence of retired engineers working as technicians was also a large factor and if encouraged would certainly permit more adventurous activities to take place than currently happen in many schools where traditional Mach are replaced rather than augmented by lasers, cnc routers and 3D printers

 

[Craig22]

As mentioned above, I learnt early how to safely use machine tools. This was back in the day of a decent metal and woodwork rooms at school, staffed by teachers who knew what they were teaching. That has followed through to my (amateur) woodwork shop with machines such as a Wadkin radial arm saw that would cheerfully amputate a limb if not used correctly.

On a non-woodwork topic, before we were let loose on high power lasers we had to do a safety course. On this was a film of a Vietnam war veteran, who said that nothing in his active service prepared him for the horror of looking at the world through his blood filled eyeball because he was not using safety goggles.

After several hours of this sort of detail, I religiously wore laser safety googles for the next four years in the lab. Mind you the calculation of the beast I was working on was that a single 50ns pulse, if divided up without loss, was enough to cause eye damage to the population of London. You can see why goggles were essential wear!

 

[Keith 66]

I also worked in education as a D&T technician, 15 years of it, H&S was drummed into us & we were pretty strict, result no serious accidents apart from minor cuts etc.
Healing up well now & a refresher course in H&S for me.
Best accident i heard of was a technician who managed to put his finger into a bandsaw while it was running, a year later on a H&S course he demonstrated to the trainer & his fellows how he did it & promptly repeated it again!

 

[isaac3d]

I also worked in education as a D&T technician, 15 years of it, H&S was drummed into us & we were pretty strict, result no serious accidents apart from minor cuts etc.
Healing up well now & a refresher course in H&S for me.
Best accident i heard of was a technician who managed to put his finger into a bandsaw while it was running, a year later on a H&S course he demonstrated to the trainer & his fellows how he did it & promptly repeated it again!

OMG... the very definition of a stupid accident. It makes me wonder how some people survive childhood. Just lucky, I guess.
Long live the Darwin Award!

 

[carpenteire2009]

Many years ago when I had just finished college and struggled to find a job I opted to take up a short state-run training course to fill the time and maybe improve my skills, it was a course in signwriting. As part of the course we needed to get some MDF cut up into rough rectangles and I volunteered to assist the school caretaker in cutting up the 8x4 sheets on the old Wadkin table saw in the schools woodwork room. As we were processing the material I noticed the man was mising a finger on one hand. When we were finished using the machine I asked him about it- he told me how he had lost it on this very machine years previously! Only then did I realise how foolish we were to be using the machine at all- it had no crown guard and no fence! It was only by the grace of God that the sheets weren't kicked back as he steadily passed them through freehand! This was around the very early 90s and H & S was only in it's infancy.

 

[benitod]

Last December I was planning to make three mortises to place the same number of hinges in a new PVC hollow-core door that I was doing.
I had a Chinese palm router that I used to make raised panel doors for my cabinets. I put it aside because its carcass becomes very hot and it was impossible to handle.
I decided to give it a chance since it already had an up-cut quarter-inch bit installed. I just set the bit to remove less than 2mm of PVC.
I made a disposable jig for this purpose.
I was ready to start the activity when my wife brought a cup of coffee. I asked her for some help to support the door meanwhile I was making the first mortise. Almost to the end, the trimmer blew out in my hand causing some noise and damaging the door´s stile. Several pieces flew across the garage but, thanks to the Lord, fortunately, they didn´t touch either of us.
My right hand was cramped for a while until I could drink my coffee. To continue the work I looked for my PC trimmer to finish the job.
I always had a bad feeling about this Chinese router.

 

[Oakay]

Last December I was planning to make three mortises to place the same number of hinges in a new PVC hollow-core door that I was doing.
I had a Chinese palm router that I used to make raised panel doors for my cabinets. I put it aside because its carcass becomes very hot and it was impossible to handle.
I decided to give it a chance since it already had an up-cut quarter-inch bit installed. I just set the bit to remove less than 2mm of PVC.
I made a disposable jig for this purpose.
I was ready to start the activity when my wife brought a cup of coffee. I asked her for some help to support the door meanwhile I was making the first mortise. Almost to the end, the trimmer blew out in my hand causing some noise and damaging the door´s stile. Several pieces flew across the garage but, thanks to the Lord, fortunately, they didn´t touch either of us.
My right hand was cramped for a while until I could drink my coffee. To continue the work I looked for my PC trimmer to finish the job.
I always had a bad feeling about this Chinese router.

If it was getting too hot to handle, I am surprised you continued with it. Something was clearly wrong with it and heat causes expansion.... Lucky escape!

 

[Homeless Squirrel]

What a mess that powder stuff inside a tube makes!

Yeah Mercury an accumulative toxic heavy metal.(like lead you gain and don't pass through)
Reason why those low energy/tubes are no longer the in thing as after .Gov was giving out as a Happy meal treat they then found no where to dispose of them!

 

[Homeless Squirrel]

On a slightly different slope/tack has anyone seen the video of the guy's on a train platform i think India way?
One guy has a bluetooth ear piece think gets a call? (as you can only see from CCTV)
All of a sudden you can see a flash line as overhead power line for train arcs across to the ear piece instant death as brain fried!.
I'l try to see if can upload? But sure makes you more aware of what hidden dangers out there!

 

[user 35906]

Similar to the OP. Late 1970s I was tidying up in my garage kneeling on the floor when I lifted up a piece of copper pipe vertical and caught something with the end, so I instinctively looked up as the broken fluorescent tube broke off at the end and speared me between the eyes on my forehead with the sharp end. There was blood everywhere but very luckily it missed my eyes completely.

 

[Ozi]

Not going to try to top some of the incidents above, but thought I'd pass this on as a warning, it wasn't something I'd thought of. We have reclining chairs in our living room. New years eve, lots of fireworks and one of my cats runs in with her tail fluffed like a flue brush and hides under my wife's chair. Ends up with tail wound into the mechanism. Took well over an hour to cut the chair away from the cat. Arrived at out of hours vet on the stroke of midnight, carried cat and chair mechanism across car park accompanied by a fair impression of an artillery barrage. Cat at out of hours vet 24 hours cost £1340, had tail amputated at our usual vet Tuesday £600 would have been £1600 at the first place - time to think about insurance...... Currently making guards to fit the surviving chairs

 

[SammyQ]

I worked as a science teacher for nearly 40 years. Accidents are not "stupid" as referred to above. They are "caused"!!!! The person causing them does not have to be 'stupid'; they merely have to be tired, distracted, or not having thought through their actions thoroughly enough.

Careful demonstration of 'accidents' - alluding to cause and with graphic effects - can bring about coherence to safety P.D.Q.!! I used to shoot 2ml flash-boiled Benedict's Reagent at a cardboard outline of a person - the sight of even such a little bubbling, steaming, orange liquid running down the 'victim's' face brought instant safety compliance from even the likeliest of lads!!

Experience is, as they say, a hard mistress, as she gives the lesson after the consequence.

 

[John Brown]

On a slightly different slope/tack has anyone seen the video of the guy's on a train platform i think India way?
One guy has a bluetooth ear piece think gets a call? (as you can only see from CCTV)
All of a sudden you can see a flash line as overhead power line for train arcs across to the ear piece instant death as brain fried!.
I'l try to see if can upload? But sure makes you more aware of what hidden dangers out there!

I find it difficult to understand why electricity, be it lightning or overhead power, would choose a route to ground via a Bluetooth ear piece. Any ideas about the physics of this?

 

[Homeless Squirrel]

I find it difficult to understand why electricity, be it lightning or overhead power, would choose a route to ground via a Bluetooth ear piece. Any ideas about the physics of this?

Few thoughts myself on it but am sure someone will have ideas also?
Radio waves along with static have some odd habits!

 

[Johnwa]

Daftest thing I ever saw was one of our oiler and greaser fitters shove his finger into a rotating lathes gearbox filler hole to see how much oil was in. You can imagine the result and no I didn't just stand there and watch, he was just to quick for me to shout no after I realised what he was going to do!

 

[imageel]

Last December I was planning to make three mortises to place the same number of hinges in a new PVC hollow-core door that I was doing.
I had a Chinese palm router that I used to make raised panel doors for my cabinets. I put it aside because its carcass becomes very hot and it was impossible to handle.
I decided to give it a chance since it already had an up-cut quarter-inch bit installed. I just set the bit to remove less than 2mm of PVC.
I made a disposable jig for this purpose.
I was ready to start the activity when my wife brought a cup of coffee. I asked her for some help to support the door meanwhile I was making the first mortise. Almost to the end, the trimmer blew out in my hand causing some noise and damaging the door´s stile. Several pieces flew across the garage but, thanks to the Lord, fortunately, they didn´t touch either of us.
My right hand was cramped for a while until I could drink my coffee. To continue the work I looked for my PC trimmer to finish the job.
I always had a bad feeling about this Chinese router.

That looks more like a 5mm depth of cut and not 2mm - no wonder the bit was getting warm....

 

[imageel]

I find it difficult to understand why electricity, be it lightning or overhead power, would choose a route to ground via a Bluetooth ear piece. Any ideas about the physics of this?

I've not seen the video, however electricity will travel along the shortest route to ground, however the actual path when arcs are involved is way more complex because the magnetic effects they induce can cause the path to curve or fragment as I'm sure we've all seen with fork lightning.
A quick google shows that India like the majority of the world use 25Kv AC on their railway catenaries which very approximately could jump 2.5cm in air at 1 atmosphere, however there are a lot of variables at play - temp/humidity and quite likely contaminants containing ferrous dust from the trains braking systems that would easily double or triple the potential arc length.
Also am guessing that given the choice between relatively good insulating hair that a flimsily enclosed PCB making good electrical contact with the soft and likely moist tissues in the ear canal would present a lower resistance path for the arc to follow...

 

[John Brown]

I've not seen the video, however electricity will travel along the shortest route to ground, however the actual path when arcs are involved is way more complex because the magnetic effects they induce can cause the path to curve or fragment as I'm sure we've all seen with fork lightning.
A quick google shows that India like the majority of the world use 25Kv AC on their railway catenaries which very approximately could jump 2.5cm in air at 1 atmosphere, however there are a lot of variables at play - temp/humidity and quite likely contaminants containing ferrous dust from the trains braking systems that would easily double or triple the potential arc length.
Also am guessing that given the choice between relatively good insulating hair that a flimsily enclosed PCB making good electrical contact with the soft and likely moist tissues in the ear canal would present a lower resistance path for the arc to follow...

Fair enough.
I'm guessing it's either BS or coincidence, but if it is true, it hardly qualifies as stupid, in my opinion. I feel that prospective railway travellers should be able to wear BT ear pieces without fear of electrocution.