While working on YOUR various projects what is the worst...

Two years ago while I was drilling a hole in the frame of my pickup tor a mounting bracket the drillbit bound then spun the drill around breaking two bones in my hand....tried my damndest to keep on drilling but eventually had to make the walk of shame and get the wife to drive me to the ER....four hours later with some percocet, and a fancy new cast the hole was finished! :LOL2:

Had many bad cuts and busted fingers with hammers but the worst was when I cut a third of my thumb off with a power saw a few years ago. Had to go to the Doc on that one.

Not too much, considering all of the hours I've spent tinkering.

Drove a couple of two inch long 18 gauge nails, from an air-powered nail gun, into my thumb...... on a couple of occasions, years apart. D$%%# skinny nails followed the wood's grain and turned nearly sideways to get to me!

Broke a finger while cutting a piece of 1/4 inch plywood when the operator ( me ) didn't clear the fence completely before stopping the saw. The kick-back came at about a thousand miles an hour, I swear!

One time I had a ten inch long flat head screwdriver drop and hit the car's fan blade. It flew back up and nearly stuck in my skull, right above the eye. Good thing it came back on a angle and glanced off. Still see that scar every day.

Not too much, ...I'd say. Those are the ones that come immediately to mind, though.

rich

regarfds, Rich

I was cutting aluminum one time, without safety glasses, and got a piece stuck in my retna, I had to pull it out with tweezers because every time i blinked it scratched my eyelid.

Two memorable ones -

Working on some 2 X 4 framing and had my foot between 2 boards when I fell over sideways. Broke my ankle, did not hurt much at first, hobbled into the home and iced it, by morning, it was swollen like a small watermelon and hurt like heck, 2 months in a cast for that stupidity!

Drilling a small piece of aluminum while holding it in my left hand, bit slipped and decided to drill into my thumb all the way into the bone instead. Doctor asked how big is the hole, I said 5/16ths exactly, you never forget the size of the bit that bit you! :roll:

I was pulling some straps on my boat cover one night just as it started to rain, and one of the straps was coming up just a few inches short. I was pulling as hard as I could, and you guessed it, it broke. Not realizing I was pulling directly at my face, when the strap broke, my fist flew perfectly right into my face!

Have had many small injuries and boo boos over the years.

I found out "shatter resistant" shower doors are sometimes not. I severed a tendon in my thumb when my hand went through the glass door.

Dropped something (forgot what it was) on my big toe. Had a large blood clot under the toenail develop and it took years for the old toe nail to be replaced by the new toe nail. I'll never be a foot model.

Recently hit my thumbnail with something (again, forgot what happened) now going through the same thing with the new and old thumbnail. Now, I can't be a hand model either.

You get hurt a lot when you turn wrenched for a living but id say my worst was when I drank gas. Burped that crap up for hours

Loggerhead Mike said:

You get hurt a lot when you turn wrenched for a living but id say my worst was when I drank gas. Burped that crap up for hours

Click to expand...

lol... How did you manage this?

This happened from a kickback with my saw while cutting some aluminum angle. This only shows the maimed finger. The one that took the worst hit is wrapped up. The doc said it was too torn up to stitch or glue so they wrapped it. Today, it's fine, but it still runs when it hears aluminum being cut. :roll:

Now the costliest mistake I made on a project was of course to start on it. :LOL2:

Broke RH big toe when I was 11, dad had a boat repair shop and a Mercruiser outdrive fell over on my foot.

Broke that same toe 8 years ago. Welding up a chassis on a jig in my garage, fell off the jig during a small earthquake (4.8) and right onto the toe.

Broke left big toe while working on the neighbor's backhoe. Stabilizer cylinder fell down and hit the foot.

17 stitches in my left hand, some nerve damage (numbness) and when the weather changes, it hurts a little. Climbing out from under the race car and used the big steel bumper to pull myself out, turned my hand and the back of it gouged into the bumper's razor sharp edge. Was only off work for a couple hours for appt. to check the healing progres. Waiting room took forever. Removed the stitches myself. The only really nasty part was when the doc was rooting around inside the cut with a big Q-tip. The rest of it wasn't too bad. My bones looked pretty stout (nothing broken). But I couldn't take watching the end of the swab going up into my fingers and back toward my wrist. I could see it moving under the skin.

4 stitches in left middle finger, believe it or not, FISHING line cut it. Braid will cut you pretty deep if you're not careful. Did not bleed all that bad either. The scar went from a long one (from previous injury) to a full length one, from wrist to about midway up the middle finger.

EVERY finger has a scar or two. It happens when you tinker with stuff like I used to. Some were broken at one time or another and grew back kind of crooked. My GF says I have ugly fingers. I agree but them's workin' mans' hands.

'79 Chevy truck fell on me when I was 23. I was changing the transmission. Only one home at the time, and it was the day before my birthday. Had 4 jackstands, one under each corner of the frame rail. The FRAME bent/buckled and came off the one jackstand, I saw it start giving way and I moved away, trying to get out from under the truck. Didn't make it. Thing fell off the other 3, landed on the LF brakr rotor and the LR jack stand turned on it's side, and held up the rear end. JUST enough to PIN me under it, it hurt like hades and I hollered for help...but no one home, neighbors gone, nowhere near a phone and couldn't get to one. My GF showed up as a surprise for my birthday and she found me pinned under there, and luckily she knew how to operate a floor jack to get it lifted enough so I could get out. Can you believe...the only injury was ONE broken rib and some bruising. Lucky!

And had one project that didn't really hurt me during the build process but it was a stupid idea from the get-go that was EVIL in every way. A home-built Go-Kart, but with a 600cc Honda engine (about 100 HP). Ran great...effortless burnouts. Throttle stuck about 1/4 before I could round the curve in front of the house. Only thing I remember was seeing oak tree leaves, tree branches, and then the thought of "uh oh this is going to hurt"...and next thing I remember was waking up laying in the front yard, in a puddle of "water" that usually puddles up from a previously leaking septic system. I wasn't out long apparently. My neighbor said I was probably going 45-50 when I hit the ditch bank, then went airborne across my neighbor's fron yard, his driveway, and landed in my driveway, bounced across the yard and finally came off the kart. Don't know how I lost consciousness...probably hit the steering wheel if I had to guess. I sold the frame to a guy I work with and he fixed it only to wreck it again (twice). He pulled the engine off and put it on a Kawasaki Mojave ATV and in a drag race, the throttle stuck again and rolled...broke his right arm, 2 ribs, right femur. He GAVE it all to a friend of his, and he dang near died on it too. They dumped it at my house and I loaded it up & donated it to the scrap metal recylcer. Wanted NOTHING more to do with it!!

I was using a hammer drill on a ladder one time and my head was prettu close to the handle. The bit bound up some how and that handle spun around and about knocked me out. Still makes me giggle thinking about it.

And the funniest thing about all of these confessions....is that we still LISTEN to most of these guys
( me included )..... when we want to do something to our boats...ha Ha Rich

:shock:
LADIES & GENTLEMEN I DO BELIEVE WE HAVE A WINNER.....TURBOTODD!
You wouldn't by any chance be related somehow to the late, great Evil Kenevil?

richg99 said:

And the funniest thing about all of these confessions....is that we still LISTEN to most of these guys
( me included )..... when we want to do something to our boats...ha Ha Rich

Click to expand...

Yes, Hopefully we learn from THEIR mistakes & they from OURS! :wink:

Loggerhead Mike said:

You get hurt a lot when you turn wrenched for a living but id say my worst was when I drank gas. Burped that crap up for hours

Click to expand...

Man, how cool would it have been to have a lighter ready when you belched!
Rock band KISS anyone! :lol:

Bad day.

About 5 years ago I was modding my daughter's little red wagon by putting siderails on it so it would be a little bit deeper to ride in.
I finished everything and noticed a bolt poking out. I'd already put everything up and just picked up the angle grinder to knock off the little bit of the bolt. When I hit it(no safety glasses, gloves or anything else) the 4 1/2" disc shattered and put most of it into my hand, part of it into the top of my head off of a ricochet, another piece into my eyelid.
14 stitches in my hand, 4 in the top of my head, 16 hours in the er to get the piece removed from my eyelid.

Worse day.

3 years before that, I built a rolling death machine. I took an old Honda 110 3 wheeler and mounted a 5hp briggs behind the rear axle with a boat seat on it to protect me from the motor. It was geared to run around 35mph. The throttle would stick on it every now and again. It stuck w.o.t. once, on a gravel road, I ended up with a totaled 3 wheeler, 4 broken ribs, broken arm, broken collar bone, 2 fractured discs and a ruptured disc, fractured tailbone, and 22 stitches on my left ankle and still can't walk straight.

Worst day I can remember.

1999, shortly after my mom died, I was working on our buddies truck, we had no clue what we were doing(lots of alcohol involved, mom had just passed and alcohol was my friend). Had the carb off and decided it was a good idea to pour about a gallon of gas into the manifold to see if it would bump off. I woke up 2 days later and spent almost 2 weeks in icu. Buddy was in a coma for about 3 months, finally woke up and can't speak or carry on a normal conversation for more than a few seconds. His short term memory is gone, he walks always leaning to the left, and his mom says he still wakes up from nightmares about that day. I was in the cab hitting the key when he told me to, and he was under the hood. The explosion shook the town courthouse, almost 2 miles away.

The explosion under the hood was extremely violent and blew up the other two tanks on it(82 Ford truck). I don't know how much fuel was in the other two tanks, but it was enough to almost kill two teenagers that day.

Since then, I very, very rarely drink anything other than diet coke, water, or tea and cherish each day I'm around to go fishing.

possom813 said:

Bad day.
About 5 years ago I was modding my daughter's little red wagon by putting siderails on it so it would be a little bit deeper to ride in.
I finished everything and noticed a bolt poking out. I'd already put everything up and just picked up the angle grinder to knock off the little bit of the bolt. When I hit it(no safety glasses, gloves or anything else) the 4 1/2" disc shattered and put most of it into my hand, part of it into the top of my head off of a ricochet, another piece into my eyelid.
14 stitches in my hand, 4 in the top of my head, 16 hours in the er to get the piece removed from my eyelid.

Worse day.
3 years before that, I built a rolling death machine. I took an old Honda 110 3 wheeler and mounted a 5hp briggs behind the rear axle with a boat seat on it to protect me from the motor. It was geared to run around 35mph. The throttle would stick on it every now and again. It stuck w.o.t. once, on a gravel road, I ended up with a totaled 3 wheeler, 4 broken ribs, broken arm, broken collar bone, 2 fractured discs and a ruptured disc, fractured tailbone, and 22 stitches on my left ankle and still can't walk straight.

Worst day I can remember.
1999, shortly after my mom died, I was working on our buddies truck, we had no clue what we were doing(lots of alcohol involved, mom had just passed and alcohol was my friend). Had the carb off and decided it was a good idea to pour about a gallon of gas into the manifold to see if it would bump off. I woke up 2 days later and spent almost 2 weeks in icu. Buddy was in a coma for about 3 months, finally woke up and can't speak or carry on a normal conversation for more than a few seconds. His short term memory is gone, he walks always leaning to the left, and his mom says he still wakes up from nightmares about that day. I was in the cab hitting the key when he told me to, and he was under the hood. The explosion shook the town courthouse, almost 2 miles away.
The explosion under the hood was extremely violent and blew up the other two tanks on it(82 Ford truck). I don't know how much fuel was in the other two tanks, but it was enough to almost kill two teenagers that day.
Since then, I very, very rarely drink anything other than diet coke, water, or tea and cherish each day I'm around to go fishing.

Click to expand...

:shock:
I may have jumped the gun in declaring TurboTodd the winner. :shock:
Sir, somebody up there must really have your back! :-

Actually happened last night. Good thing is, my list is extremely short (filled mostly with metal and wood slivers and a couple of bruises) But last night I was using a rotary tool with a cutting bit to try and grind away on a 3/8" steel plate I was fabricating for a mounting bracket on my trailer. The tool slipped, and the cutting tool hit my thumb at around 6000rpm. Luckily, I just nicked it next to the nail--and I didn't even stop to get a bandaid.

As with most workshop accidents I see, I was trying to use a tool beyond its intended use, and it back fired--but it was easier then running down to the hardware store to get the next size larger drill bit. Got lucky this time!