As a matter of fact Terry, big g did cause me to have a work related injury this past week...I got my hand caught under a 1000lb underground mining implement. I wasn't worried about it until I pulled my hand out and blood started gushing all over. Ended up with one stitch, and a swollen left paw...so you have went from the spelling nazi to the safety nazi?
Well I'm glad your hand survived mate, when I was 15 I got a job working at a woollen mill in my home town. I had no desire to become a textile mechanic, but I had less desire to go back to school. (I went to a Catholic boarding school and was one of the few who
weren't molested, so I've always had issues with my own self worth......)
But I digress. My job was to assist the TM, a nice bloke called Tim, operate a 75 year old "Carding Machine" that converted wool straight off the sheeps back, into knitting yarn. It was a horribly dangerous old machine, with exposed shafts, 6 inch wide flat belts running up to the roof, lots of sharp things to tear the wool apart, and finally, two huge steel rollers with a couple of mm clearance, that probably weighed a couple of tons each.
Quite often, the woollen thread would break before it went thru the rollers, so Tim would "flick" the thread into the rollers, while I would wait at the end of the machine to wrap the thread around the bobbins. We were doing this one day (around this time of year, from memory) when he suddenly yelled for me to turn the machine off. I ran around to the kill switch and hit the red button.
I ran over to Tim, who was staring at his left hand. I couldn't help but stare as well, as his left hand was now flat, and for some reason, reminded me of a disposable paper plate. It was really white, and quite wide, and maybe 2 or 3 mm thick? It seemed like an age that we both just stood there, transfixed, until the blood, which had been pushed back up Tim's arm I presume, suddenly started pumping out of his ruined fingers and thumb. "Gushed out", is a more apt description.
Luckily for both of us, a girl who was sitting nearby operating a knitting machine, tore the sweater she was knitting off the machine, ran over and tightly bound Tim's hand. Kay was a volunteer ambulance officer, and she bundled Tim into her old Humber Super Snipe (a huge English car from the 1960's, which according to the cop who chased her, was capable of speeds approaching 100 MPH between the woollen mill and the hospital)
Tim's hand was saved, although he had one finger amputated years later, as he was unable to bend it. It cost me my job though, the owner of the mill was advised by Tim that he would be off work for a minimum of 3 months to recuperate, so within a week I was fired, due to my "poor attitude and work performance". I was a bit unhapppy with that, if the owner had just said that he couldn't afford to keep me on and he'd had to let me go I wouldn't have minded, but he took the high handed approach, and showed me the door.
As something of an epitaph, I joined the army a couple of years later and shortly after I finished my basic training, I was approached by an insurance investigator. He wanted to have a chat about the incident, so we set up a meeting. He assured me that regardless of what I told him, Tim's compensation wouldn't be affected, then he asked me, in my opinion, did I think that the incident was unavoidable? I opined that, considering that the owner had all the guards for that dangerous old machine stacked against the wall in the store room, obviously, he had abrogated his duty of care, and it was an accident waiting to happen.
He was one happy insurance investigator, and later, I heard that the owner had to sell the woollen mill to pay for Tim's compensation. I bumped into Tim many years later, and he was doing well with his own business relocating old houses.
I suppose that if you've read all the way thru this, you probably think that I am indeed a safety nazi, but I'm not really. I do work in a heavily policed industry (military logistics) and while I would rather err on the side of safety, I've had many arguments with "Occupational Health and Safety" (OH&S) "Experts" who's only claim to expertise is having passed a couple of courses.
Oh, and the reason I came here was to say my youngest son, Tim, bought me a bottle of Auchentoshan Scotch Whisky, which at 162 proof, is not a bad drop.......... Cheers, Terry.
