Topic: close call stories

[Don R]

In the intrest of safety does anybody have a close call story from work the rest of us can learn from?
 I was welding an overhead gas main while standing a bucket lift, below me there was an oak pallet leaned against the wall. I was not worried about sparks landing on a green oak pallet, after welding a few minutes somebody yelled at me to stop. He pulled a 5 gallon gas can from behind the pallet. he had hidden it there rather than put it inside the building.

[BeSeeingYou]

I lit my pants on fire welding many years ago.   Make sure your jeans don't have cuffs or flipped up at the bottom.  That's were mine caught a spark.

[Duke McDukiedook]

Brain has a good story about watching some welding with only a dark piece glass to cover his eyes.
He kept asking the guy if he smelled something burning. 
And then he realized he got a craptacular burn on his face. 

[72 yellow]

When I first got out of high school, I got a job at Chrysler Trenton Engine plant.  I worked my way up to a machine operator in charge of a automated section of about 10 machines, 3 probe stations and a final inspection station, all my responsibility.  I had a problem with one of the machines and called for a electrician.  I shut the power off to the line and he asked me to remove a cylinder head so he could check out the problem.  As soon as I reached in and moved the part, a transfer bar came down on the back of my hands and began to drag me into the machine.  I was just able to pull my hands out of the rubber gloves I was wearing.  I had some deep cuts on the back of my hands.  Turns out the day shift guy had not reinstalled the gasket and the switch was full of water.  Also had rewired the switch to stay hot all the time.  I was about 2 seconds away from typing this with a pencil clenched in my teeth.  Lesson learned: Never trust anything.

Same factory about a year later, running a huge broach, machining cylinder heads dry, basically scraping cast iron off with a 250hp cheese grader.  I shut the machine off to change tooling.  In order to get to the tooling on the low fixture, I had to kneel down behind the conveyor.  I had shut the machine off and tagged the emergency stop switch.
Our department had just gotten a new foreman who knew nothing , but was eager to impress his boss.  I heard the sound of my broach being started.  I looked up to see him poking at the buttons on the control panel.  He was one button away from starting the machine and shredding me in the process.  I jumped over the conveyor, across the inspection table and he looked over to see me coming at him like Superman. I knocked him down and proceeded to choke him until I was pulled off by our jobsetter.  He was sent to medical and later sent back to work on the line.  I was just sent back to work.  Lesson learned: Never trust anyone.

[Duke McDukiedook]

Or lockouts, WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING LOCKOUTS!!!!!

WE IZ FOREMANS!!!!!!!

[Don R]

A racing buddy just rented  a bobcat with a jackhammer installed on it. For a while it worked great all of a sudden when he lets go of the controls it lurches foreward. He's not even going to load it back on the trailer.

[72 yellow]

Or lockouts, WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING LOCKOUTS!!!!!

WE IZ FOREMANS!!!!!!!

In his case wuz foremans 

[Kframe]

Many many years ago, broke a cardinal rule of gun handling in not making sure one was unloaded.
I'd been out at the range with friends, and so that evening I had several that needed cleaning.
Was also watching TV and got to cleaning one of the .22 pistols. 
To disassemble that particular model the trigger has to be pulled so the striker spring is relaxed. 
So, I pointed it at the floor and was taking up the slack on the trigger when a little voice in my head screamed "CHECK IT!!!" so I racked the slide and a shiny live round popped out onto the carpet.   
Damned if I didn't just about plug a round into the apartment below me.  I don't know that a .22 would have made it through the carpet, padding, subfloor, insulation, drywall and into the room below, but I sure would've had a lot of explaining to do.   

That scared the crap out of me, and from then on, when ever I clean guns I always check all of them at the start of the session, then each one as I get to it. 
And no live ammo or loaded clips are allowed in the same room while I'm doing this. 
If I leave the room and come back, I check them again.  Even if I'm the only one home; it's just a good habit to be in.
Sometimes you can learn before something really bad happens.
-K

[MJL]

Or lockouts, WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING LOCKOUTS!!!!!

WE IZ FOREMANS!!!!!!!

I work in a factory, and have heard a few stories. One I was told, a tire builder was behind his machine changing a roll of material. A supervisor walked over to the machine and started pushing buttons. Fortunately the operator had locked out his machine, but he was pissed anyway.

I heard another story, from another factory, where an oiler locked out some machines so he could grease it. He had climbed over a conveyor and started to work when the machine started. He jumped over the conveyor to find that the operator had cut his lock off to run the machine.  As a result, the oiler got suspended for two weeks, the operator got canned.

The oiler got suspended for knocking out the operator.

[72 yellow]

About 10 years after leaving the above factory job, I was working in a machine tool shop.  The boring mill operator and I were unloading large castings and weldments from a large flatbed truck that was backed into the shop.  We had a A-frame hoist that spanned all 3 boring mills.  The owner had installed a swivel hoist on the one end.  While unloading, I heard the hoist moving on the rail rapidly.  I dove under the truck just in time to see one end of the A frame come crashing down.  The boom of the swivel had turned and the large casting pulled one end of the A onto it's side.  The real scary part was the swivel arm, which was about 10 feet in length had gone through the wall separating our shop from a business next door.  The wall was sliced from about 12 feet above the floor all the way down. I ran next door and found no one was hurt.  It was a Goodwill Industries shop and most of the people were handicapped and could not have moved out of the way.  Scared the crap out of me.

[Grnrngr]

I worked at a distribution center as a fork driver long ago. One of the other drivers was placing a double stack of palleted cases of gallons of Clorox on the top rack (about 30' up), tilted the mast back a little too far and dumped both pallets onto the top of his fork. There was a washroom with showers there, but unfortunately, it was on the other side of the long-a$$ building. By the time he got to it, his clothes were literally falling off. Had a nice bleach job on his hair too. Nasty mess to clean up too. Almost as smelly as the guy that tried to set a double stack of Sauerkraut on the top with no safety boards...fell thru the rack taking a couple lower pallets out also. Comparatively few of the plastic Clorox bottles broke, there was lots of broken glass and Sauerkraut....and then there was the guy that drove his fork off the rail dock..

[Kframe]

Years ago I was a pizza guy and one of our frequent customers was a glass manufacturer.
I'm on a run out there and as I get close there are cops and the rescue squad, fire trucks, and EMT's all over the place.
I wasn't allowed further and found out why from one of them. 
Workers were moving about 4000 pounds of plate glass on a rolling cart thing and the glass was stacked vertically, like an unbound book.
Apparently a caster or part of the chassis failed and the cart tipped, flapping 8 foot by 10 foot panes of glass over one by one, and one of the guys was caught under it.  He lived, but got really really injured.  I was about 20 at the time and he was a year or two younger. 
In the paper later they said that if the glass had gone over all at once he obviously would've been squashed, but not cut as bad.  As it was, they fell separately in quick succession and he got messed up but the weight wasn't that bad, relatively. 
I saw him a year later and he didn't look bad, somehow he didn't get any cuts on his face or neck, was really lucky for being so unlucky.
-K

[IndyFour]

About a year ago I was driving to work...a boring 35 minute drive around I-465 here in Indy to the North side of town.  I was just about two miles from my exit when I noticed a semi truck ahead driving VERY erratically.  He would swerve right...then left...then hug the center barrier.  He was crossing three lanes of traffic in the process.  He stayed to the left, so I passed in the right lane to get the heck out of his way.  In my rearview mirror I see him almost scraping the center barrier as I speed ahead.  I soon exited and was stopped at a stoplight waiting to turn at the bottom of the ramp....when to my HORROR this crazed truck driver swerves suddenly and starts down the ramp towards me.  Keep in mind....I'm in a MINI Cooper and an 18 wheeler is coming right towards me from behind!  The people in front of me were in no hurry since they had not idea about this guy.  Finally, in a desperate attempt to get out of this guy's way, I drove off the rode and out of his path.  The people in front of me turned right just in time and the semi driver drove right through the intersection and up over the median.  I would have been totally squished if I hadn't moved.

By this point I had been on the phone with the State police twice telling them what was going on.  The driver made a hard right turn and drove up over the median AGAIN and headed up the road and made a turn.

After giving the cops all this information about where he was and what his truck looked like....markings and all....I later found out that they never did find him.  I just couldn't understand that since I know that literally dozens of people had to have called about this.  It was morning rush hour.   I don't know if the guys was drunk....impared...whatever.

Lesson learned....if you see an erratic driver, don't get in front of them.  Stay behind them and out of their way.  I still get chills thinking about this event.  If you've ever seen that old Steven Spielberg movie from the 70s called "Duel" .....it was totally like that, but real!

[Kframe]

Man, "Duel" is a great, and scary because it's so familiar,  movie. 
Great cinematography that's for sure!
-K

[dave500]

i drive a skip bin truck,and we have a few account customers who are marble and granite firms ,like bench tops and the like,,a few years ago i went to change over an 8 cmtr bin and noticed quite large off cuts,like way to big to be wasted,the owner of the shop was next to the bin and we never see him,i remarked in a chirpy way about the waste of material here,he just looked at me and walked away,i thought rude bastard,it turned out a guy was crushed and killed a week earlier under this marble sheet when it slipped out of the grab on the overhead crane,a whole stack like dominoes fell on him,it was in the news but i didnt think it was this shop,man i felt crappy after that.

[strynboen]

hey i did this fir 20 years,,ago..it vas close..3 weks on intensiv..and some bad legs rest of life,,,dont drive and drink..
at same time ,,,both are great fun..but not at same time....lucky i only smashed my self.. :-\i vish i vas abel to learn the jungsters not to do the same..but ....

the car vas a ford granada germen model..2,3 v6.manuel gear ghia

[72 yellow]

The closest call I think I ever had was being on my motorcycle and being caught up in a high speed police chase with shots fired.  3 ex-cons were planning to rob a party store.  They parked nearly in front and were putting on wigs and false beards.  An officer pulled up to go into the store and noticed what was going on.  They took off and he pursued.  I glanced in my mirror and saw the flashing lights and pulled to the curb and stopped.  As the procession of cars sped past, I saw one guy in the now shot out back window with a M-1 carbine shooting at the cops.  The cop in the first car was returning fire.  I then wondered where all the bullets were going.  I then went to see a friends aunt in the next city.  She lived 2 houses from a residential intersection.  As I pulled up in front of her house the convicts car was entering the intersection and was immediatley rammed broadside by a police car.  The cop crawled out the drivers window with his shotgun.  One of the cons took off running and the cop fired at him.  In a few seconds 3 citys worth of police arrived and it was all over.  I looked over and my friends aunt was hiding along side her front porch.  I asked if she was OK.  She said she wanted to go in the house and sit down.  I decided I had enough excitment for the day and went home.

[74cb750]

Many moons ago, in a sate that will remain namelesss....

We were in a hurry to finish up and get some lunch. We parked th van in the middle of a
residential/commercial area to inspect a sewer main. Usually the man going down would
wear a harness with a rope tied off to the van. The hole was 25 feet deep, the brick
lining was greasy with white stuff, and the steps were old and rusty, but they felt solid....
until I reached the last 3 which broke.

I fell and was overcome with noxious gas. My partner ran to the gas station at the intersection
and told the attendant to call an ambulance. The jerk didn't.

My partner held his breath, climbed down with a rope, tied it around me and somehow
managed to pull me high enough so I was out of the gas where I regained consiousness.

The next day I drove back to the gas station in North Hampton Mass. and asked the
attendant to step out so I could kick his ass. He called the cops. 

Jerk. 

[Frankencake]

I messed up while loading a small cannon and had one of these blow up in my hand; in a boat three miles from shore.  Two weeks in the hospital with five different surgeries, two skin grafts, a muscle removed from my leg, nerve damage, a missing finger tip and a big hole where my wrist used to be and I'll never make the same mistake a gain.  There were three of us in the cockpit of the  sailboat crowded around the blast.  The brass end cap was lodged in the douglas fir spar about 1.5".  I am amazed that none of us were killed.  When we got back to shore one of my co-workers (Vietnam Vet) had to pick chunks of my skin out of a passengers hair. 
That was a close one, I think.

[seaweb11]

Went to sleep in the V birth of my boat with space heater burning.
Thought I had the window opened enough for ventilation , but it must have closed sometime during the night.
Buddy opened door in the morning and I woke up with him shaking me........and me gasping for air.  Don't think I would have lasted much longer.

It's a classic way to die, and I did know better

[scottly]

\i vish i vas abel to learn the jungsters not to do the same..but ....

Yes, Lars, good to try to help the youngsters learn from your hard lesson.

[dave500]

any drillers here?mid 90s i was working an old "longyear" spindle drive diamond drill rig and we were about to send the overshot down,the hole was i forget but anywhere from say 300 to 400 meters deep,ive climbed up and dropped the overshot and the cable formed a loop and was wrapped around my thumb just as the slack took up it just sort of caused a twist and flipped of ,man my thumb could have gone flying off or down the hole.

[Don R]

I was working in a wet steam tunnel under a school, On the way out with all out tools I dropped my trouble light into the water, I pulled it out by the cord and told my apprentice since the GFI didn't trip to unplug the cord. He got shocked on the metal frame of the hatch so we just jerked the cord out.
 Our company wanted to save money and made up GFI adapters using wall mount type components rather than buy GFI cords. It turned out the wall outlet was not grounded and polarity was wrong. A factory made GFI cord has neutral protection for just such instances. We also were supposed to check the outlet with a tester first.  They bought me new GFI cords and a tester since I was still alive to complain.

 Once when I was a green plumbers apprentice I went into a flooded basement when I looked into the room where the sump pump was there was a dehumidifier under water and plugged in. I could feel current in my rubber boots so I made it back to the steps and turned off the power to the whole house.

A natural gas hi line had been hit by a crane the boss said there was a lift there and to use it while we repaired the pipe. I let my apprentice drive the lift because we were mostly in the open and he needed to learn how. The swivel left control stuck and the bucket hit the hi line post causing the wheels of the lift to start coming off the ground. He forgot about the dead man switch and continued to stand on it while I was kicking his feet to get him off of it. He did and the machines engine died and the wheels settled down. We used the 12 volt emergency power to get down just as the owner of the lift came flying into the lot throwing gravel in his truck because he forgot to warn me about the sticky control.

I was melting a lead joint out of a hub on a 5" cast iron drain pipe to remove a plug fitting so I could extend the pipe further into a new addition, I left to get tools and fittings. while I was gone a crane being useed to spread gravel with a concrete bucket tipped over. The beam of the crane landed on the building and the concrete bucket dropped on the pipe neatly snapping off the hub I was trying to connect to. I couldn't have cut it cleaner with a saw.

want me to keep going? Sadly, I have more.

[tortelvis]

Years ago I was working a construction job that involved a lot of close work with a crane. I had to change the hook on the end of the crane cable. It was early morning, cable wet with dew. As I held the cable in a loop trying to slide in the hook the cable started to slip out of my hands. A buddy saw what was happening and rushed over to "help". I shouted "NO!" but he made a grab for it and knocked it loose. I jerked my head back as the cable whipped upwards but wasn't fast enough. The end of the cable caught the lens of my glasses and shattered, spraying my eye with broken glass. All I could "see" was blood and thought, that's it, no more eyeball. Went to hospital and watched the reflection in the huge magnifer they were using as they pulled chunks of glass out. To say it was painful is an understatement!!! Kept the eye but lost the "friend". We were working out of town so I had to sit on a peach crate in a rig bulldogging it back home. What really pissed me was the look the doctor gave me as he wrote out the prescription for pain meds. "Hmmmm, long hair, tats, obviously a degenerate hippie dug abuser!" He wrote a scrip for ONE pain pill! Bastard!

[wardenerd]

 I was driving thru Alabama at the legal speed of 65 MPH. A shadow fell over my eyes from the left rear as a truck full of flour moved over to exit the highway.  He had mixed my 1989 Cadillac with a Buick that was running with me.  He struck me on the left qurter panel and since I had the cruise on he spun me in front on his rig.  I instantly was looking at a large chrome bulldog that was pushing me sideways down the interstate. Several hundred yards as described by an amazed onlooker, still in shock I continued around the front of the truck and now hung up on his bumper he was dragging me backwards.  I then broke loose and steering backwards I managed to navigate to the median.  Translation  While trying not to crap my pants I tried to steer backward and slid into the median .  I was now at least facing forward and guess what .  A string of semis was coming down the interstate in the other direction.  I clearly remeber thinking at the point that it was not my day as I slid into the opposite lane and perfectly timed my pass between four tractor trailers and ended up on the shoulder of the road. My Cadi was destroyed but I was alive and unsoiled.