Video of Lathe Accident

[Kent Adams]

You'll be able to tell pretty much who is going to get hurt in this video even before the lathe is turned on. Happens around the 3 minute mark and its a good reminder of proper safety do's and don'ts around a lathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adHU3TAnNAg

[Al Launier]

Incredible! Stupid is as stupid does! Can't imagine why the first person to help didn't immedialtely shut off the lathe rather than try to pull the kid off???

[Art Mann]

That would be a good training video if the viewer didn't have to watch several minutes of boring and uninformative action prior to the actual accident.

[Dale Miner]

You'll be able to tell pretty much who is going to get hurt in this video even before the lathe is turned on. Happens around the 3 minute mark and its a good reminder of proper safety do's and don'ts around a lathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adHU3TAnNAg

I quit watching as soon as the sandpaper was picked up.

[Kent Adams]

I quit watching as soon as the sandpaper was picked up.

So much fail there. I wonder if it was the first time on the job for him?:)

[hu lowery]

You'll be able to tell pretty much who is going to get hurt in this video even before the lathe is turned on. Happens around the 3 minute mark and its a good reminder of proper safety do's and don'ts around a lathe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adHU3TAnNAg


This seems to have happened in a commercial or industrial shop. So many safety rules broken there that OSHA would have an inch thick report by the time they got through writing.

The interesting part is what seems to have happened. Not sure if the sandpaper grabbed and got things started or the sleeve wrapped. He was begging for the sandpaper to grab and wrap hand and all and indeed had issues earlier and kept right on with the bad practices.

Regardless, he was six inches or so away from the chuck working on a far smoother shaft than the wood we are turning often is. While this happened on a metal lathe, it would have been even more likely to happen on a wood lathe. I suspect that if we could see figures broken down by man hours, more injuries per man hour happen on wood lathes than metal lathes. We need to think and when a job process isn't working don't keep making the same mistake! He had several warnings with the sandpaper grabbing before the sandpaper or his sleeve grabbed enough to pull him into the lathe.

Lost a machinist in a shop less than twenty miles from the one I worked in. A lot of the industrial shops serving the petro-chem industry are huge drafty metal buildings with little or no provision for heating. No doubt this professional machinist had been doing this for many years but he was wearing a jacket while turning. Couldn't tell if he got caught in the chuck or the metal he was cutting. Either way, it was a closed coffin funeral. Maybe the chances were only one in a thousand of his jacket getting caught with his work practices. Problem is, over the years he had probably turned well over a thousand times in a jacket. What killed him might have simply been the odds catching up with him even when his work flow was low risk.

It would look funny if I cut the sleeves off around the elbow on a jacket but I may do just that one day. Maybe I'll start a new fad. In the meantime when it is cold I turn in a vest and short sleeves. When it is too cold to turn like that it is too cold for me to turn. Unfortunately professionals don't have that luxury.

Hu

[Kent Adams]

Hu, I believe this occurred in Europe or Russia, but if I had to guess, Russia.

You make some very good points though about the probable lack of heat that contributed to this accident. However, his tightening of the chuck and incorrect use of sand paper makes me think his lack of knowledge probably contributed more to the accident than the lack of heat. Lack of heat surely could be another contributing factor as well.

[Geoff Whaling]

Kent,


That clip has been around for quite a while. It is still a very good lesson in how quickly seemingly innocent things like unrestrained clothing, cuffs etc and "low risk" operations like sanding can contribute to the turner becoming entangled in the moving parts of a lathe, metal or wood. Unfortunately entanglements in lathes happen regularly in commercial shops. Here in Australia there is the occasional death and way to frequently massive injuries from entanglement in metal lathes.

Unfortunately in the wood turning community many influential turners under play the hazards & risks of entanglement. Fortunately wood lathes don't have lead screws, one less risk, but the risk of entanglement is ever present as is the risk of de-gloving fingers or parts of hands from other seemingly innocent actions like wearing wedding rings, bracelets, watches etc. Turners have become way to flippant about lathe safety.

Personally I have been involved in a "near miss" entanglement as the supervisor of a club workshop session - really it was a "very close call" incident where the female turner was very fortunate not to be injured.

A typical & very real scenario,

Novice turner, a large 18" (450 mm) salad bowl project, still rough rim, large-ish tenon (abt 4.5") in 2" (50 mm) jaws on a Vicmarc VM120 chuck jaws over extended to max dia, Vicmarc Vl200 lathe (1980's, 240v 1 hp motor, 5 step pulley drive, belt on mid pulley)).

The female turner started the project under the supervision of another supervisor in the morning workshop session. The lady wanted to carry over into the afternoon session to finish the bowl. As supervisor I was not to keen on letting her carry on with the bowl mounted as it was, especially as the jaws were at max extension and the jaw slide stop pin was missing from the chuck! She had not done a lot of work on the bowl. We agreed to change the bowl over onto one of my personal VM120 chuck's with 4" (100mm) jaws.

There were a number of other safety concerns, hair was short to medium (no concern), rings, watch etc. The one potential hazard that really concerned me was that she was wearing a loose knit polo shirt that was not tucked in and was hanging well away from her waist and with the project she was working on was a real hazard. How can that be - the middle aged lady was well endowed and feeling uneasy in an otherwise all male group. We discussed this and she explained that she was trying very hard not to draw unwanted attention or to accentuate her generous physical attributes by tucking the shirt into the waistband of her pants. Modesty, the unwanted attention, and embarassment were almost her downfall.

I explained the hazards & risks of continuing as it was setup, and asked her not to do anything, don't start the lathe until we remount the bowl. My thoughts were focused on how to persuade her to make her clothing safer while at the lathe and to help her ward off unwanted attention. As I turned to make the short journey to my vehicle to get my other VM120 chuck I heard her start the lathe, and then very quickly heard a strange commotion coming from her as I turned to see what was going on. I have no idea why she turned on the lathe!

I had only taken about four or five paces from her. I turned to see her fighting with all her might to resist being dragged into the running lathe. She had her left elbow on the head stock, right hand on the lathe bed, the hem of her shirt was caught in the over extend jaws & bowl rim and the lathe was not about to stall easily. I had to grab her around the waist and reach between her & the lathe to hit the OFF switch as it would have taken to long to reach the GPO switch the lathe was connected too.

She was very shaken by this time & I was not so good myself. I could only think - NO BLOOD - thank you! Her shirt was ripped from hem to armpit and shredded on the front exposing her bra & very fortunately no physical injury. We were both rather shaken and it took her quite a while to settle. I guess we both experienced an adrenalin rush and now the shock was setting in. After we settled I offered her my turning jacket if she wished to stay. Then about half an hour later she simply packed up her gear and we never saw her again at the club. I don't think I did much turning that day.

As a supervisor of work shop sessions and supervising novice turners I take my safety obligations to others pretty seriously. This one really shook me up for quite a while because if that particular lady had not been as strong as she was I feel she would have suffered some quite nasty upper body injuries, which could have required extensive reconstructive surgery & extended rehabilitation. I still think about how lucky she was!

[hu lowery]

As a supervisor of work shop sessions and supervising novice turners I take my safety obligations to others pretty seriously. This one really shook me up for quite a while because if that particular lady had not been as strong as she was I feel she would have suffered some quite nasty upper body injuries, which could have required extensive reconstructive surgery & extended rehabilitation. I still think about how lucky she was!


Geoff,

Those overextended jaws could have gutted her like a carp or worse. As the employer or first level supervision on a lot of jobsites I was often the de facto safety man. While most supervision on a job talked about safety, production was king. It often took people awhile to discover I wasn't just woofing about safety. Tell the assembled crew something concerning safety and some would be ignoring what they were told less than an hour later figuring I was just covering the company's butt talking.

Nothing made me crazier than to tell people to stay out of the air for a couple of hours in the morning due to all of the steel iced over and people be climbing five minutes later. "We aren't working yet, we are just bringing up tools and material." I'd much prefer them to be working in basically one place than what they were doing but If I said stay out of the structure I meant stay out of the #*&)#%&# STRUCTURE!

Hu

[Geoff Whaling]

Geoff,

Those overextended jaws could have gutted her like a carp or worse.

Hu


That played on my mind for quite a while. When someone agrees that they won't do anything until you return then does it any way - what else can you do. In hindsight I should have taken the bowl off the chuck and the chuck off the lathe before I left her unattended. Then she would have had to put it all back together before she could attempt to turn.

[Brice Rogers]

In June I was rough turning a fresh cut log. My tool rest is only 8 or 9 inches wide and the piece was perhaps 15 inches long, so I wanted to turn to about the end of the tool rest before sliding it over. I was using a roughing gouge. All was going okay until I got a catch. Unfortunately, it made the gouge jump off of the end of the tool rest and continue downward. The tip of my left index finger was on the trough of the tool rest and was in the way of the gouge. The single middle bone suddenly turned into 7 pieces. Lesson learned. If you're wondering what the blue things are, they are plastic tips on the ends of two 2-1/2 inch pins running the length of my finger (through the bone and knuckle) to keep everything aligned during the healing process.
322380

[Kent Adams]

Brice, than you for sharing this. That has to be very painful and I can't imagine how difficult simple tasks are with that appliance on your finger.

[mark kosse]

Guess what I'm showing in class tomorrow?

[hu lowery]

That played on my mind for quite a while. When someone agrees that they won't do anything until you return then does it any way - what else can you do. In hindsight I should have taken the bowl off the chuck and the chuck off the lathe before I left her unattended. Then she would have had to put it all back together before she could attempt to turn.


Geoff,

My opinion, you are getting into the area of willful disobedience there. On one of my job sites, she gets pitched out on her ear! As a student I think I still send her down the road. Nice that she made that decision and saved you headaches. There are reasonable limits to all things and you had absolutely no reason to expect her to ignore instructions. You could have cut power to the machine and disassembled it too but at some point you assume an intelligent person will act in a reasonable manner. Impossible to protect people from themselves sometimes.


Brice,

Takes courage to air our mistakes in public, especially those that come with a pretty high price tag. Thanks for the reminder. I have tried to stretch my tool rest a few times. So far nothing worse than some really attention getting bangs as steel crashes against steel with no meat in the way. I'm going to remember your result and hopefully swear off of trying to use that last 1/64000th of the tool rest! We all make mistakes, some are just luckier than others.

Hu

[Geoff Whaling]

Geoff,

My opinion, you are getting into the area of willful disobedience there.

Hu


"Wilful disobedience" is probably a bit harsh but certainly more like ignorance of safety procedures. We can't expect novices to know what the need to know so they have rely upon the guidance of more experienced turners.

[Aaron Craven]

Yikes...

I'm still new enough to woodturning to have a healthy fear for what I'm doing. I try to keep pieces small and take my time (not always an easy task as I can be a little impatient). Early on I had my first "close-call" lesson. I was wearing gloves while doing some rough turning (don't scold... I know better now). After making a cut, I reached out to feel the surface (lathe running... again... I learned). The glove briefly caught between the piece and the tool rest. It only gave it a little tug, but I immediately realized how stupid I was being (and how lucky I'd been to get off with just a warning)... usually the gloves don't even go with me to the shop anymore and never at the lathe.

[Geoff Whaling]

Geoff,

You could have cut power to the machine and disassembled it too but at some point you assume an intelligent person will act in a reasonable manner. Impossible to protect people from themselves sometimes.

Hu


Hu,

I could have done many things differently! I had been working for quite some time to improve safety in the club as there were many unnecessary injuries. I don't like seeing turners being injured and not being able to enjoy their hobby because of the injury. I much prefer to see them happy in their retirement. :D

The scary part was that the wood turning club who owned the plant & machinery could not & would not accept that they had obligations to train & supervise members to use plant & machinery safely and to ensure that they regularly conduct risk assessments & safety audits, rectify potential hazards, and to provide a safe environment. No one wants to be a "safety nazi" but clubs who own machinery and their executives have enforceable obligations as a “duty holder” under our legislation.

I had some limited success, as a reaction to the entanglement close call, with the installation of switches with a more accessible "emergency shut off" button and “no volt” protection features, but injuries and "close calls" were not being taken seriously. The attitude was pretty much well "sh*t happens" toughen up. One involved the near amputation of three fingers on a band saw. A few years earlier a young student took off a finger and there were many "minor injuries" & near misses on the same band saw. I resigned from the executive and from the club because of the refusal to upgrade safety & other matters.

A couple of years later a gymnast died here as a result of a tumbling routine that went wrong in an unstructured adult class. The coroners findings & recommendations, the prosecution of the gymnastics club’s committee, and the imposed $70k fine on the committee are well worth reading as they clearly outline the obligations of “clubs” to provide a “safe environment.” That unfortunate event reinforced what I had been talking about and vindicated my decision to leave the club. I know of other very good turners who would make great instructors who will not get involved in clubs because of the cowboy attitude to safety in many of the clubs. http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/179775/cif-maitland-m-20130412.pdf

Probably the most significant recommendation from the coroner was "I am satisfied that Gymnastics Queensland and Gymnastics Australia appreciate the cultural change required to implement a formal safety risk management approach and its implications for the training of coaches and club management committees."

[hu lowery]

Hu,

I could have done many things differently! I had been working for quite some time to improve safety in the club as there were many unnecessary injuries. I don't like seeing turners being injured and not being able to enjoy their hobby because of the injury. I much prefer to see them happy in their retirement. :D



Geoff,

There are always dozens of other things we could have done. Hindsight is always 20-20. The question is, should a reasonable person have acted differently?

Was it unreasonable to expect a mature adult to behave responsibly and as you had just discussed? Did you and she have a calm discussion or heated exchange? If you had reason to not trust her to behave while you made the short journey to your vehicle and back you should have slapped the old bracelets on her and forced her to accompany you to your vehicle. Perhaps you could have just cuffed her to some plumbing well away from the lathe. I guess you will need to add a pair of handcuffs to your teaching kit. :D:rolleyes::D

I have sat in too many fact finding meetings where people come down from their ivory towers and tell us they would have anticipated the one in millions possibility and prevented it. The CEO would have anticipated the blue ice and stood three feet to the left!

Hu

[Jeff Grantham]

Thanks for the reminder, Kent. I've only been turning for about a year and am self-taught, outside of the books and videos that I've watched. I try to always respect the machine and the dangers involved, and follow the safety guidelines as I understand them, but I have to admit that I have caught myself cutting corners on safety out of sheer impatience sometimes... adjusting the rest with the wood spinning, sticking my hand inside a bowl while it's turning to remove shavings, etc. It doesn't help to see 'experts' doing the same thing in their videos sometimes :rolleyes:. But I'm definitely going to be more acutely aware now of loose clothing, and of not using rags! That's just scary.

I consider myself lucky to have had a couple of close calls early on, in the form of pieces flying off the lathe on me, with no physical harm done... but seeing the velocity at which a piece can fly certainly put some fear in me. I deem that to be a healthy kind of fear.

[Chris Cartier]

Brice, once again thank you very much for sharing that picture. I've had a roughing gouge get too close to the end of a toolrest once, and the resulting bang scared the daylights out of me. I'm sorry you weren't as lucky as I was when it happened to you. I try to have even more respect for the lathe now, I still can't believe I see turners move the banjo or toolrest with the lathe running, that is something I vow to never do for any reason.

[Rick Gibson]

thanks for sharing Brice, that is definitely one of those "a picture is worth a thousand words" posts. I've had a couple close calls, one when a platter I was finishing the bottom of came out of my home made cole jaws. I couldn't find the rubber grips anywhere and I had read somewhere that rubber wine corks will work well. They do if you cut a slope in the side I didn't and so with nothing to keep the platter from sliding up the side of the cork it did. The second time was rough turning a bowl blank from a log piece. First error was I was using a scraper, didn't know any better and it seemed to work ok so I did. The toolrest was likely a little to far out and the next thing I knew the scraper was veritical and the lathe stalled. Instead of hitting the off switch I grabbed the scraper with both hands and pulled it up. As I quickly found out a stalled 3hp. motor will get the log spinning faster than my hand will move. It came around and caught the knuckles of my left hand. Other than a little skin lost and a painful reminder every time I moved my fingers for the next while I was ok.
For turners like myself posts like this are invaluable. For me the nearest turning club is a little over an hour away, they don't hold meetings in the summer and with winter weather from November till March I can't really plan ahead for a meeting because of winter weather. No turners that I know of in the area so I depend on sites like this for inspiration and safety tips