Topic: Worst injury working on your bike??? Here's a pic of mine!!!

[bikebitzofvt]

Folks, I've been riding for almost 30 years and wrenching for 26.  Went to MMI, worked at dealerships for 15+ years.  I've changed thousands of tires over the years - on the floor, on a Coates 220, on the regular pneumatic tire machine.  In that time I've never had a serious injury while wrenching - until last night, that is...  I was changing a rear tire on a Seca 2 (fix-up project to flip for more $$ in K7 warchest), had the wheel off on a stand, rock hard old Cheng Shin tire...  got the bead broke in my bench vise.  Popped a tire iron in, started prying with the 2nd one.  It slipped, 1st iron flew out and hit me in the face.  I ended up needing 5 stitches, and cracked a tooth! 

The freaky part is if the iron had hit 2 inches higher up I would no longer have an eye.

I guess the moral of the story is just a reminder to be careful!!!

[mrrch]

OUCH!

[Kevin400F]

Safety glasses are always a good idea when doing any kind of shop work.

[fmctm1sw]

I've had many nicks and cuts and burns.  One of my more memorable ones though was spraying a bottom end real good one time with carb cleaner.  Just moments later I blew it with compressed air not realizing all the carb cleaner was pooled up where I couldn't see it.  Yep, right in my eyes...     

[benjamin550]

I've had many nicks and cuts and burns.  One of my more memorable ones though was spraying a bottom end real good one time with carb cleaner.  Just moments later I blew it with compressed air not realizing all the carb cleaner was pooled up where I could see it.  Yep, right in my eyes...     

Done that before. It SUCKS.

[bikebitzofvt]

I'm cursed to wearing glasses all my waking hours, and buy ansi rated lenses for them whenever it's time for new ones!

[bikerbart]

I was rebuilding my carbs,had a glass of water and a glass that I emptied the floats into and guess what,I took a nice big gulp of gas.You NEVER want to do that.I puked and tasted gas for the next 2 days.absolutely horrible.

[camelman]

Youch!  I don't have any current injuries, but I think all the chemicals I've inhaled are going to turn me into Gilbert Godfried in about 20 years. 

Didn't someone post a pic of what happens when cleaning your chain while the bike is on the center stand and the transmission is in first gear?

Camelman

[73hutch]

a friend of mine was taking the shocks off a bike. the frame dropped when the 2nd one was off. cut off half his finger. i ALWAYS think twice when doing that to a bike now.

[Hush]

I saw my younger brother greasing his Stinger 125 chain one day and being big brother and wishing to show my cred (I was 18) I explained that grabbing a handful of grease and letting the chain run through it while the bike idled in 2nd gear was best. Well little bro grabbed too hard and his fingers went through the sprocket, I quickly loosened the rear sprocket and got his mangled fingers out (all covered in grease) and did a quick trip to the hospital.
Not sure if Mum ever forgave me for that one?

[BeSeeingYou]

I have this habit honed over the years so it is like an instinct.  Whenever I pick up a tool/get up on a ladder, etc  it runs through my mind....what is the worst thing that could happen as I do this.  Can't remember the last time I hurt myself that required medical attention and I work with power/construction tools every day.

[crazypj]

Not sure about worst (broken toe hurt like hell, steel toecap boots don't cover little toe
 Most recent, 16th April (two weeks yesterday)
I was thinking it was a stupid idea just before blade caught and ran into my finger 
 0.025" wide, 2" dia @~7,000rpm .
 I've epoxied  it up at present, now I finally got all the bits out 
 Going to be a while before it grows out.
 I really haven't hurt myself much in 42+ yrs of working on bikes (including several years in dealerships)

[trueblue]

Touch wood I have had no major injuries working on bikes, but I have had a couple of good ones while at work.  I'm a diesel mechanic by trade and one day I was using a cold chisel to remove a bearing from a shaft, the 3lb lump hammer I was using glanced off the side of the chisel and hit the side of my left hand and instead of hearing a comforting ting of the 2 bits of metal hitting together I heard a sickening crunch as the bone in my hand snapped in half.  That was one of the worst, I have also torn a ligament in my shoulder, been knocked out by an apprentice who dropped a rather large spanner on my head while I was laying under a car and there have been quite a few other minor injuries and a hell of a lot of near misses over the years. 

[xsmooth69x]

holy batman! 

[72 yellow]

About 35 years ago I was using that old green tire sealant that came in a plastic squeeze bottle.  I was squeezing really hard (in a hurry), the bottle blew apart spraying me in the eyes.  Lucky for me I was working at my parents house and was able to find my way into the house with my semi-glued shut eyes.  My dad drove me to the hospital to endure several eye fushes.  Never used that stuff again. 

[Old Scrambler]

Is that why they call them spoons?

[70CB750]

Oh,that sucks, be glad your eye is safe.   I just got recently hit with a bungee in my right eye,for few days I thought I will never see much with the eye again.

[MRieck]

I guess I'm lucky as age has left me half blind and I always have to wear glasses. The need has saved my ass on several occasions.

[lone*X]

Fortunately no major injuries.  But I have knowledge of what happened.  A while back I was removing a couple of rock hard Conti's off a set of GL1000 rims.  I thought I was being very careful and  trying not to damage the aluminum rims.  Same thing happened as you had, bead popped back into the rim and flung a tire iron my way.  Luckily it hit me in the shoulder and only smarted for a short while.  Time for a change of tactics with these old hard tires.  Taking the advice from someone here on the forum, I took a pruning saw to the tires, cut a wedge out of both tires to just above the edge of the rim, put a large c-clamp on to the side of the cutout to compress the tire so I could get at the bead.  My HD Bolt cutter snipped the beads in half without effort and the tires literally fell off the rims.  Only took about 15 minutes for each tire and NO PRYING!   That Pruning saw made short work of that hard rubber.

[crazypj]

Touch wood I have had no major injuries working on bikes, but I have had a couple of good ones while at work.  I'm a diesel mechanic by trade and one day I was using a cold chisel to remove a bearing from a shaft, the 3lb lump hammer I was using glanced off the side of the chisel and hit the side of my left hand and instead of hearing a comforting ting of the 2 bits of metal hitting together I heard a sickening crunch as the bone in my hand snapped in half.  That was one of the worst, I have also torn a ligament in my shoulder, been knocked out by an apprentice who dropped a rather large spanner on my head while I was laying under a car and there have been quite a few other minor injuries and a hell of a lot of near misses over the years. 

I was a 'site service engineer' for a plant hire company (construction equipment)
You ever remove track pins on excavator?
I was holding drift while foreman was bashing it.
 12lbs hammer slipped out of his hand, (short handle sledge hammer)
luckily it was 'only' the handle that hit me on the head

[trueblue]

Touch wood I have had no major injuries working on bikes, but I have had a couple of good ones while at work.  I'm a diesel mechanic by trade and one day I was using a cold chisel to remove a bearing from a shaft, the 3lb lump hammer I was using glanced off the side of the chisel and hit the side of my left hand and instead of hearing a comforting ting of the 2 bits of metal hitting together I heard a sickening crunch as the bone in my hand snapped in half.  That was one of the worst, I have also torn a ligament in my shoulder, been knocked out by an apprentice who dropped a rather large spanner on my head while I was laying under a car and there have been quite a few other minor injuries and a hell of a lot of near misses over the years. 

I was a 'site service engineer' for a plant hire company (construction equipment)
You ever remove track pins on excavator?
I was holding drift while foreman was bashing it.
 12lbs hammer slipped out of his hand, (short handle sledge hammer)
luckily it was 'only' the handle that hit me on the head

Track pins are always fun, but amazingly I have never injured myself doing them.  My old boss and I were removing spring hangers from the chassis of a Hino truck about 12 months ago, and to get the rivets out of the chassis we had to drill them then heat and quench them to shrink them enough to get them to move, we had a pin punch in the hole that was drilled in the rivet and a divet machined in the end of a lump of round stock, about 1 1/2" round and 2' long, to hold the head of the punch, he was holding the drift and I was swinging the hammer, we had removed about 15 rivets in total from the chassis that day without a hassel, when we got to the last one the punch wasn't sitting in the divet properly and he kept grabbing the pin punch to recentre it on the drift, I told him to not do it, anyway he said to me don't worry about it just hit the #*$%ing thing, so I did, the rivet flew out, the pin punch went straight through the hole in the chassis and his finger was in between the chassis and the drift with a 15lb sledge hammer up its arse, it was the first time I have ever seen a finger squash like a rotten tomato, it wasn't pretty.  Everytime he mentioned to me after that about the time I crushed his finger I just reminded him that I told him to make sure his finger wasn't in the way.

[damagedduck]

my last one was 3 1/2 weeks ago,me & brother-n-law were unloading 2 P.O.S cb550's that i just bought for $55.oo we're unloading the last one & it was walking towards the edge of the 6 1/2 ramp/full size chevy truck/ i popped off & said i don't care if it falls off the ramp----
well it did,while kicking the ramp out & on to my foot,DAMN! right across the top of my foot..40lbs of alumi-ramp,i limped for 3 weeks,so yesterday we were uloading 2 more. i was on my guard,
they said you learn from your mistakes--well i should be a freaken genius by now..

[flybox1]

Didn't someone post a pic of what happens when cleaning your chain while the bike is on the center stand and the transmission is in first gear?

Camelman

yeah....i remember that hand-carnage!  gsxr forum iirc.

carb cleaner in the eyes.  now i wear clear safety shades.
numerous hand wrist and forearm header burns.  now i wait for my bike to cool before wrenching and always wear mech golves....but i still get that nice smell on my hands like i actually DID something useful 

[dylboss]

Not while working on my bike, but riding 70MPH into gravel pit at New Hampshire Motor Speedway WITH full gear on.

[72 yellow]

Oh,that sucks, be glad your eye is safe.   I just got recently hit with a bungee in my right eye,for few days I thought I will never see much with the eye again.

For sure.  The worst part was spending 2 days with patches over both eyes.  Total darkness.  Don't ever want to repeat that.