Close Call

[Rob Will]

Well, there's no pictures to post but here's a close call (or two) that we should all watch out for.

Today I was picking up tools and grabbed a 1/2" Milwaukee drill by the side mounted "T" handle. At the same moment I grabbed the drill, I reached down with the other hand to pick up the cord. I suppose I was leaning forward toward the drill just a bit. It was all one smooth motion.......drill in the right hand, reach down to pick up the cord with the left. Nothing unusual.

Here's where the train left the tracks.
Just as I leaned over to grab the cord, the big 1/2" drill rotated on the "T" handle. The drill flipped upside down and in an instant the extra long, very sharp drill bit tagged me on the bone 1/4" to the outside of my right eye. It hit very hard.

I was not even using the drill but this drives home the point to wear those saftey glasses. Lots of pointy stuff in a shop to reach out and grab ya.

So by now I've learned my lesson right???

Nah, 3 hours later I knocked over a fluorescent tube and watched it slowly fall over toward the concrete floor about 10 feet from where I was standing. I can't believe it happened this way but I watched it fall like a deer in headlights.....looking right at it as it exploded on the floor.

Took a piece of glass in the same eye. I froze in my tracks and called one of the men who was able to carefully lift the sliver of glass off of my eyeball with a paper towel. Fortunately the glass did not penetrate my eye but had I moved or rubbed my eye it probably would have been a different story. You quickly find out just how still you can be with a piece of glass floating around in your eye.

So now I'm going to put up a first aid station with some eye wash AND wear my safety glasses more often.

Again, I was not even doing anything "hazardous".

I work around super dangerous stuff all the time but today two little things came out of nowhere and issued a reminder.
I hope this helps somebody.

Rob

[daniel lane]

Rob, glad to hear you're okay. Just to make you feel slightly better, though (maybe), I once spent an evening in the emergency room flushing my eye with sterile saline because I had a drop of CA glue stuck to the back of my eyelid. :o

I was applying thin (watery) CA glue with a PTFE capillary tube that stuck to the joint; when I pulled the bottle away, the capillary sprang away from the joint and flung a drop of glue OVER MY SAFETY GLASSES and into my eye. Since I was leaning over a small piece and looking very closely at it, my glasses had slid down my nose a small ways and left a clear gap over the top.

I was lucky that I didn't glue my eye closed, but the solidified drop was scratching my cornea with every blink. The whole thing was terribly embarrassing, and now I wear a larger style of safety glasses that don't slide down so much.



daniel

[Don Morris]

Rob,

We've all been there. My son and I have spent a lot of $$$ on safety items for our basement shop. When you come in on the wall there are two hangers, one for his ear protectors and glases, and the other for mine. If my wife came down in the basement area and they weren't on I/we'd get holy hell. There's a splitter on my TS and I have two Gripppers...get the picture. Now...what am I doing up late at night typing with one hand??? I normally put a heavy flower pot at the base of any ladder I put up to my roof. I was running a PVC pipe to my gutter to eliminate the drip from an HVAC system which was dripping water and staining the roof tile. LOML told me not to forget she just put some flowers in that pot and I shouldn't step back off the ladder onto the flowers and crush them. I was so worried about doing that I forgot "safety comes first". I thought if I crushed her flowers I was "toast". I thought I would leave the pot where it was and just be very careful...bad decision. The ladder slipped out from under me on the way down and I landed on my arm, resulting in a complete tear of the rotator cuff and one other small ligament. That surgery was last week and I'm still very uncomfortable, need narcotics at night to sleep. It was my right arm, but I'm a lefty. Good, you say...I'm a Dentist! Out for at least 6 weeks...and worse...no woodworking! Safety, Safety and think Safety again. I always read the posts like yours. Can't ever hurt to jar our minds on Safety. Let it slip and you're up late at night typing with one hand.

[David DeCristoforo]

Good "close call" story. It reminded me of a day (long ago) when I was clamping a cabinet pediment. The clamps, four or five bar clamps, were sticking out right at eye level. At one point I turned around and walked my face right into them...bam! My hands went to my face as I spun around and bent over (swearing under my breath). When the pain subsided, I straightened up, turned around and, you guessed it...I walked my face right into them again! At that point, I decided that the day was over and went into the house. When my wife saw my face she almost fainted. I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror and I almost fainted. It looked like I had got the worst of a bad fight.

[Eddie Darby]

Glad to hear that everything is O-kay!

Humans being what they are; and the world being what it is, has lead me to the conclusion that you can never have too much of a good thing. So I set up my shop with hearing and eye protection at several places in my shop, so that way there would be no excuse for not wearing them. I just take advantage of those sales out there to do it cheaply.

I also set up several of the commonest tools in various places to save extra steps, such as scissors and pencils etc.

[Michael Schwartz]

I like to keep a pair of safty glasses with all my handheld powertools, and if I set up a cut station leave a pair there. There have been many times on a jobsite where I have taken off my eye protection while working, went to go make a cut, walked 500 feet, and not worn them because I didn't have them with me.

[joe greiner]

Most of my self-imposed injuries have been caused by haste; rise up too quickly and bump the noggin on something overhanging, roundhouse haymaker of my bare foot on something that wasn't there earlier. And not even in the shop yet! In woodturning, I almost always move the tool to the work very slowly and carefully; but just as important when withdrawing the tool: I've destroyed, or partially destroyed, some fine work-in-progess otherwise. No injury to me, but that was merely luck.

Slow and deliberate wins the day (or something like that), as you did with the glass fragment.

Joe

[Robert Abulon]

Man, I'm glad to hear everything is ok. I try to wear eye protection all the time, but, there are those moments that I think that I won't need it for just this one second!!! Does anybody have any personal suggestions for eye protection, like which type of eyewear you prefer. I have a number of eye protection "glasses". You can never have too many!!! Sounds to me, like bigger is better, but where did you get your eyewear from? There's sears, home depot, and lowes where I live. All have ok eyewear, but it seems to open at the top of the eyewear, and feels like it still too open from the side. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Rob Will]

Man, I'm glad to hear everything is ok. I try to wear eye protection all the time, but, there are those moments that I think that I won't need it for just this one second!!! Does anybody have any personal suggestions for eye protection, like which type of eyewear you prefer. I have a number of eye protection "glasses". You can never have too many!!! Sounds to me, like bigger is better, but where did you get your eyewear from? There's sears, home depot, and lowes where I live. All have ok eyewear, but it seems to open at the top of the eyewear, and feels like it still too open from the side. Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Welcome to the creek Robert!

HF has glasses and ear protection on sale from time to time. I never buy anything too expensive because they get scratched up.

Rob

[glenn bradley]

Rob, First off, glad you're OK. Second, thanks for posting. I think we all benefit from these reports and this forum never seems to degenerate into a "I can top that" discussion; more a sharing for safety's sake discussion.

I wear glasses and was guilty of sometimes not having my goggles on when I should. I ponied up for prescription safety glasses and enjoy my time in the shop so much more. They're always on, I don't set them down and lose them, etc.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,
Glad to hear everything ended up OK.

Couple/few things:
- Side guards are simple to make. Just cut some out of an empty plastic pop bottle and put slits in them to fit over the stems of the glasses.
I have an almost limitless supply of industrial type side guards. one of my old service accounts required them for anyone working out in their plant area. They gave me a box of them. Compared to the plastic on a 2 liter bottle, the things are pretty flimsy.
- A baseball cap with a bill will deflect a lot of over the top debris.
- "let it drop" was some good advice I read years ago. I caught myself once starting to make a grab for a soldering iron I knock off a table.
I didn't catch myself in time making a grab for a 600 pound compressor that started to slip off the edge of a loading cart. I caught it all right - but it caught me worse (better?).
- T-shirts with close collars are your friend.
not WWing but - my "amazon temptress" aka SWMBO took a spent .22 shell down her top one day when we were at the shooting range. She started in doing the "branded b**bie" dance". Being the ultra-compassionate individual I am,,,I started stamping my foot and clapping my hands to her "dance". She was less than amused:rolleyes: :o .

Semi WW'ing - I've taken a fair amount of metal shavings down the front of an open shirt. My "uniform" these days is a T under a pair of bib overalls.
- If something falls,,don't watch it. Betcha Rob won't anymore eh? We've all probably done the same thing. Now-days, I just turn my head and close my eyes till it's all over.

[Peter Stahl]

Wow Rob, I just broke one of them on Tuesday. Closed my eyes and turned my head. I din't have enoug common sense to take the tubes out when I was trying to hang it up. Glad you weren't hurt. I didn't have my safety glasses on either, what for I said for putting in 2 screws?