Topic: Almost got mauled my 5hp mega-buffer today

[Terry in Australia]

Terry,

Did it look anything like this one?

Not that much mate, that one looks way older with all those wooden rollers etc, the one Tim was injured in had a lot more iron and steel components, although it did have a big flat belt like that one, going to a huge electric motor which powered it. Cheers, Terry.

[Terry in Australia]

Damn!  Terry, if I had witnessed that, I think I'd be having nightmares the rest of my life!  Jesus!

Thanks Steve, I've never had a nightmare about it, but I've never forgotten it, either. Cheers, Terry.

[RAFster122s]

My old man always warned me to stay away from the front end of the hay baler machine.
He'd pull me close and point into the machine where the "knives" were.  Then he'd say "those things don't care about you and won't stop for nothin."

Looking back, I'm almost certain he was referring to more than just the hay baler.

Hopefully machines are safer now but lots of ways for farmers to get injured. Not rare to see old farmer guys killed flipping or falling off antique or older tractors and that machinery does look lethal. Wouldn't be fun to be kicker by a cow either !! right Moomer.

The newer machines are still a force to be reckoned with.  Many are still the same design, now with added safety features!  But you know the old saying "make something idiot proof".

Getting kicked by a big dumb critter does hurt.

Dairy cows will kick you if you are too rough with their udders hooking them up to the milking machine or if they are just in an ornery mood. They have to be milked or the udders get so full the cow will be in pretty bad pain skipping a few milkings.  My uncles were dairy farmers for class C milk, milking machines were in the same room as the storage tanks, as a result the milk was used for ice cream and similar products, not for drinking.  Whole milk straight from the cows, after being refrigerated tastes very different than whole milk from the store.  (Still has the creams and heavy fats in it...)

So, I've witnessed cows kicking and had them kick at me.  My uncles had been kicked a few times. Once my uncle Dean was kicked so hard it broke a couple ribs.  Normally, if they got you it would just make you sore.

Imagine the scalp removal hurts pretty intense once the pain receptors start firing and the signal reaches the brain and your expression changes from shock to intense pain to agony.

The American Indians would scalp enemies or those they would kill. Sometimes people would survive the scalping...wasn't pretty.

That poor girl, attempting to be clever never dreamed of the risks and downsides. Probably scarred for life, even in today's age of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery.

David
David

[Bailgang]

I work for a structural steel fabrication company so we have a lot of tonnage moving around and in the 15 years I've been there we've had at least 3 people get seriously injured, one almost had his leg torn off then nearly bled to death before an ambulance arrived, another had a scrap hopper fall on him and paralyze him from the waist down and another got himself pinched between two I-beams suffering internal injuries. I myself had an incident where I was rolling a beam and hit the wrong button on the overhead crane making the beam swing out knocking me clean off my feet, I was flat on my back looking up at a 2+ton beam bouncing above me secured with what we call "grabs" that normally work just fine ....... but don't like it when a beam is jerked around and can let loose. I knew I couldn't outrun the beam if the grabs failed so I quickly tucked myself up next to another I-beam on the floor next to me with the idea that if the beam bouncing over my head let go it would land on the beam I was tucked against rather than me. Once I was sure that the beam over my head was secure and the grabs holding it weren't going to let go THEN I high tailed my a** out from underneath. It wasn't until I was out of harms way and adrenaline still pumping that I realized just how close I came to possibly being cut in half and that thought had me rattled for the rest of the day.

[chewbacca5000]

How long did you work there after that Bailgang?

[Bailgang]

How long did you work there after that Bailgang?

Well I did take the day off the next day due to bumps and bruises from the fall I took but other than that I'm still there, I guess you could say I faced my fear and dealt with it. All the incidents including my own had to do with the person injured not paying attention, getting in a hurry and not properly securing the load, doing something they shouldn't have been doing and in my case pushing the "north" button instead of the "south" button on the crane.

[BomberMann650]

My old man always warned me to stay away from the front end of the hay baler machine.
He'd pull me close and point into the machine where the "knives" were.  Then he'd say "those things don't care about you and won't stop for nothin."

Looking back, I'm almost certain he was referring to more than just the hay baler.

Hopefully machines are safer now but lots of ways for farmers to get injured. Not rare to see old farmer guys killed flipping or falling off antique or older tractors and that machinery does look lethal. Wouldn't be fun to be kicker by a cow either !! right Moomer.

The newer machines are still a force to be reckoned with.  Many are still the same design, now with added safety features!  But you know the old saying "make something idiot proof".

Getting kicked by a big dumb critter does hurt.

Dairy cows will kick you if you are too rough with their udders hooking them up to the milking machine or if they are just in an ornery mood. They have to be milked or the udders get so full the cow will be in pretty bad pain skipping a few milkings.  My uncles were dairy farmers for class C milk, milking machines were in the same room as the storage tanks, as a result the milk was used for ice cream and similar products, not for drinking.  Whole milk straight from the cows, after being refrigerated tastes very different than whole milk from the store.  (Still has the creams and heavy fats in it...)

So, I've witnessed cows kicking and had them kick at me.  My uncles had been kicked a few times. Once my uncle Dean was kicked so hard it broke a couple ribs.  Normally, if they got you it would just make you sore.

Imagine the scalp removal hurts pretty intense once the pain receptors start firing and the signal reaches the brain and your expression changes from shock to intense pain to agony.

The American Indians would scalp enemies or those they would kill. Sometimes people would survive the scalping...wasn't pretty.

That poor girl, attempting to be clever never dreamed of the risks and downsides. Probably scarred for life, even in today's age of plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery.

David
David

The young bulls get pretty fiesty when you're trying to castrate them too.

Hair pull gal might recover most of that bald patch.  Looked like the drill did a pretty clean job plucking em out. 
If she shaved her head into some weird industrial heavy metal fashion statement, she could still make friends around olympia. 

[mrbreeze]

One time I watched a co-worker get a wire wheel hooked up to a Makita angle grinder mangled into his over-alls. He was so glad it didn't catch him on the nut sack!!

I have to laugh at this because something really similar happened to me in high school metal shop, with slight differences.  I was like a "student leader" in my senior year, and the underclassmen were doing their thing and the shop teacher gave me a small animal spring trap to clean up and get the rust off.  I took it and looked at the pedestal grinder (a L A R G E pedestal grinder) with an 8" wire wheel mounted to it.  This trap had a small length of chain mounted to it and a few other rings and such.  I started up the wheel and commenced to removing the rust.  Then all of a sudden, the chain got tangled up in the wheel and snatched it out of my hands and started whirling around at about 1400 RPM!!!!!!  Before I could step back (or fall back actually) it had torn open the front of my button-down jeans and torn the bottom of my shirt.....This was back in the early '70's and there was no guards or other such nonsense required on machinery.
The teacher managed to come running over and get the machine stopped quickly, and instantly I became the center of attention to the entire class and the usual cheers, whistles and clapping ensued    .  The teacher took me into the classroom and asked that I check myself for "injuries", and thankfully, everything was still there and unharmed.  I was excused from class to go home and change.  Ah yes, the good ol' days.   

Then there was the time at Diesel school where this guy was using an air tool on this gigantic ceiling mounted hose reel when the quick connect let go and the flailing hose slapped him good in the nut sack. While he was hopping around holding himself in fit of pain I was jumping on the bench bobbing and weaving to catch the hose and pinch it off to hold back the escaping air all the while another student was hunting down the supply valve. It was quite the sight and I'll tell you these things happen quickly!

[Bailgang]

I was setting on top of an I-beam once cutting it to length with a torch but didn't make sure my oxy/acetylene line was clear of the piece that was going to drop so when that piece dropped and hit the floor it cut my line and I had me a fireball at my feet. I scrambled off the beam and pinched the oxy/acetylene line like a garden hose to put the flame out while another co-worker shut the valves off. Once all was under control I noticed my nearby co-workers with this awestruck look on their faces and it wasn't because of the big fireball, they were awestruck because they couldn't believe my 50+ year old body could move that fast.

[Steve F]

I'll bet you were sore the next day!!! LOL.  Ask me how I know 

[Don R]

 We had to install and adjust two drain pipe hangers on a bridge over a railroad switch yard. We were going to use a lift and go over a main line next to the switchyard. We checked with all the authorities and they assigned a flagman to us for the day, they said we were good to go so we began.  There was one hanger I couldn't reach and I thought about having my pipefitter hang on to my belt and reaching out over the edge to adjust it. It took 45 minutes to drive the lift to the crossing and back but I decided to be safe and drive to the other side. As soon as we drove off the tracks a train came from the opposite direction on the track we were parked against. The engineer couldn't see us in time to stop due to a curve in the tracks and the flagman was sitting in his truck reading a playboy mag listening to a white sox game. There was constant train noise so we wouldn't have noticed until it was close and the bridge was between us and the train.
   I had to pull my fitter off the side of the flagmans truck, he was going through the window to drag him out. The railroad brass all acted like it was no big deal and under control. No report was filed.

[Don R]

 Then there were the two times a crane fell over and the boom/load landed where I had just been working. Or the time I was in a bucket truck welding a gas main with 5P (sparky rod) 15' up and a guy yelled at me to stop. He had hidden a 5 gallon can of gas behind the oak pallet leaned against the wall under my weld. Or the time a pipe fell off of a scrap truck ahead of me on the highway and I could hear the wind whistle in it as it went past my side window. The guy that gassed up a panic saw to cut rebar and was throwing the sparks on the gas can a few feet from me, Or the time the lady overfilled my propane torch and right after I turned it off the relief valve blew liquid propane at my face. Then there was the time I was working at a house and the wife (painted on jeans) of the big laborers union business agent asked me if I had the time. nope, no watch, but I bet it's time to go.  I could have died any one of those times.

[mrbreeze]

Ya know what's funny Don....we could live to be 200 and we still wouldn't have seen it all!

[Don R]

 I'd guess anyone that worked with tools for a career has similar stories. Fork trucks rolling the trailer away from the dock and falling off the back, semi trailers losing their back wheels when the slider didn't lock. A cast iron bathtub dropped and then balanced on one corner with your pinkie toe under it. 9" grinding wheel exploding and the air grinder shaking so hard you thought you were being shocked, An air handler being lifted with a chain fall and a pipe between two beams falling and the pipe shooting between you and your apprentice. Grand opening of a factory and when they throw the power on the lever blows back open because the bus bar is dead shorted. trying to weld to a broken bolt under an 86 monte carlo, someone trips on the welder cable and the rod in your hand drags across the bottom of the gas tank. You can hear the gas gurgle in the tank. Watching a guy driving a fast golf cart in a factory while wearing a safety harness and the lanyard is dragging just ahead of the back tire.  A millwright chipping the grout off the bottom of a 5 ton air compressor while it hangs from a cable. An ironworker standing under a load of sheet steel landing it on a roof and on the next lift the strap breaks, before it gets to him. A helicopter lifting an old compressor that's stuck to the mount and when it comes loose it shoots out of the roof hatch like a rocket.
 I haven't seen it all but I saw a lot.  And a 5 hp buffer will make for a bad day. Be careful out there!

[jgger]

Ya know what's funny Don....we could live to be 200 and we still wouldn't have seen it all!

My philosophy is......just when you think you have seen it all, pay attention because something good is going to happen!