Anyone have any scary shop stories out there… tales of close calls with woodworking tools?
This is “scary story” was just published in our blogs: https://www.finewoodworking.com/item/19233/first-blood And don’t worry, you’ll feel better about it all when you get to the end of the post.
It reminded me of a letter from #191 about a close call with kickback. Yikes! https://www.finewoodworking.com/Community/LettersDetail.aspx?id=28677
Any of you have stories like this… or accounts of near misses with shop tools? A round up of tales like this might be good for Halloween!
-Gina, FineWoodworking.com
Edited 10/9/2009 11:34 am ET by GEide
Replies
hi gina,
yesterday, while merely changing a table saw blade, a young man ripped open, to the tune of six stitches, the middle finger of his right hand. speaking as a h-school shop teacher, you would not believe the scary $hit i've seen.
eef
Yikes really? No power at all huh? That's no good.
Reminds me that I sawed into a finger with a little jewelry saw while cutting copper in middle school. Everything healed well in the end... poor teacher was pretty annoyed that I kept shaking my finger around (spreading splatters...) because it hurt.
-Gina
gina, "spreading splatter..."
yeah, i am the fool that gets to clean that up. one becomes accustomed to a wide variety of bodily fluids in the classroom.
eef
Eef,
Bodily fluids in the classroom. Now that's scary.
--Jon
Ah, yes, high school. I remember one day when some idiot decided to see just how flamable solvent based finishes really were...
and www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Yeesh... Bless all those woodworking teachers. I wouldn't have the stomach for it. At my dad's school they have a sawstop, but as you illustrate there are plenty of other ways to do bodily harm.
I was a police officer in the early 70's and responded to an injury call at a residence. When I arrived I was directed to the backyard where I found a young guy about 25 sitting on a chair, in his shorts, with a huge cut on the top of his upper thigh. It seems that he was cutting some boards with a skill saw using his knee to support one end of the board when the board kicked away and the saw went straight down onto his thigh. The blade had been fully extended so you can imagine the damage. The guy was in shock and laughed at his own stupidity. He was afraid to lay down until the ambulance arrived. I rode with him in the ambulance to the hospital and he talked all the way there.
By the way, alcohol was involved.
Tom
Edited 10/11/2009 2:50 pm ET by tdlugosh
Tom,
That story reminded me of one that made the rounds a few years ago about the young guy who was wearing long pants and decided to make them into shorts - with a circular saw. You can guess the results...
There was alcohol involved in that incident as well. I think I heard about it in one of those "Darwin lists" that frequently get passed around the internet.
Or, non-workshop related, did you ever hear the story about the guy who decided to swallow a live perch whole? It was one of those, "Hey guys, watch this!" moments. The fish got stuck in his throat and he died..
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
I was a police officer in the early 70's and responded to an injury call at a residence. When I arrived I was directed to the backyard where I found a young guy about 25 sitting on a chair, in his shorts, with a huge cut on the top of his upper thigh.
I treated a neighbour who did that, was a handyman, working on a site. He told me he was in a hurry and the sawhorses were across the room.
No alcohol, though.Leon
The scariest story told to me first-hand (so to speak) was by a woodworker here on the island. In my short visit to view a saw for sale, and chatting away, it was revealed that a couple winters before, he cut off four fingers of one hand. He went outside and passed out in the snow after calling 911, his fingers left residing on the table of the saw.
Miraculously, a surgeon at the trauma center was able to reattach all of them, even though the first crowd of doctors that gathered had said "Sorry, no hope." He cut them off by reaching over the fence looking for his pencil, having forgotten that he didn't turn the saw off.
Another yucky story, more of a teeth-grinding effect, was about the woman who was sanding a small part on a disc sander, and let her fingers slip down and get caught between the disc and the little table. Instant complete manicure.
Don't think anyone wants pictures of either of those incidents.....
ewww I'm cringing.
Hello Gina ,
Is this thread just for the season of Halloween , scary talk and blood and stuff ?
Do you just want to hear of episodes where people have maimed themselves with only the thought of wow, how scary was that , or is there more depth to your question ?
The dangers and risks we take each time or day in the shop are not to be taken lightly and laughed at like a Halloween story , no these are real injuries .
Now if there was a purpose , such as what can we learn to avoid a certain operation or to prevent future injuries for all .
It's like you want to hear some war stories.
To some of us this is not a light hearted subject , especially when I work most every day to provide for my family , these dangers are a constant reality and possibility .We can not let our guard down when it comes to shop injury.
Common sense along with a complete understanding of what you are doing will go much farther then good looks .
regards dusty , boxmaker
Hi Gina,
Your post is very timely. I came up from the basement shop just after a very,very close call. I was cutting a turning blank from a walnut log. To stablize the log I had placed one hand at the bottom of the log and didnt realize my little finger was slightly underneath the log. As the blank came around full circle,the bandsaw blade cut my fingernail and took off an ever so slight piece of flesh from the tip. A 1/16 inch closer and it would have been a serious injury. As they say always keep your hands where you can see them.
Jabe
1) Kickback. 15 years ago I was cutting a 1' x 2' x 3/4" piece of plywood in my shop. May have been slightly warped or twisted I can't remember. I was using a General cabinet saw borrowed from a friend. I htink the fence may have been toed in. Bam!!! I'm hit and I'm down on the ground in less than a second. I can't breath for like ten seconds. When I finally catch my breath I pull up my shirt to make sure I haven't punctured anything and am glad to find only a softball size bruise on my gut.
2) Very scary. In the school shop I work at a girl was cutting a board on the old Unisaw (I hated those saws). I hear this clunk followed by a horrible groan. Instantly I think, "do I dare look?" I run across the shop and she's clutching her face and blood is running between her fingers and down her face. I sit her down and run and get the first aid kit call 911 and they come to get her. She'd broken her nose and probably would have taken an eye out had she not had her safety glasses on. The board apparently caught the bridge of her nose and as it pulled her safety glasses off and crushed them I think the glasses kept the board from hooking into her eye socket.
All ended up well as she was back at school a couple of days later with a broken nose and a black eye that healed in a couple of weeks.
It must have been a lousy day for her. As I lived across the street from a sheriff that was one of the 911 responders. He told me that same day he was on a call to investigate a car collision and it was the girl and a friend and she had just trashed her car.
I was ripping a piece of birch 1/4 x 1 1/4 x 24 inches.Got it past the blade, but some how the blade grabbed it and i took it the right groin. Fell over just about passed out. Dropped my pants had a perfect 1/4 x 1 1/4 red rectangle under my belt line. Shut off the saw and hit the couch with a bag of ice and some advil. Hurt like a begger. Took some stronger meds and deciding to go to see the doc. but didn't.The wee Colleen gets home about 5 hours later, wakes me up and asks what is the matter? so I told her. Then showed her. By this time I was red from the top of my hip to my knee, and other parts. Quick trip to ER. Doc said it was normal "Like a gun shot wound" but the stick just did not penetrate the flesh. He said wood can come off a saw at 200 miles an hour.So got some real happy meds and took it coo,l but it took about a month for the bruise to disappear.High school in 1974 left shop class for science class. Billy Bullet head did not clean his hands in the shop so he grabbed some sulferic acid . I yell no!! but to late so I grabbed his hands and started running cold water on him, just as the science teacher came in and Billy was screaming like a banshee. I told him what happened. so we kept the water running till they could take him to the hospital.When we looked at his hands they were peeling flesh like ground beef.Last, when Coke was still in bottles with caps. My friend pulled out his lighter to flip the bottle cap off. It hit his eye and pulled a big flap of cornea. I push him to the passenger seat and drive to hospital. Eye surgeon says he was lucky, last couple he had seen they lost the eye. He also said bottle caps come off at about 75 miles and hour.Lessons. if your to tired don't make that last cut. close the shop and go do something else.Read and follow directions, they are there for a reason.( Thank god for WHIMIS)Drink out of cans.
Follow you gut instinct. stop for 5 seconds to think. What could go wrong here?
Then don't over ride your decision. There are more that one way, to do something.No rings, watches, roll up your sleeves, Never ever dry out a oily rag. throw them outside in a water bucket. Rags are cheap.
I bought a book a while back called "the speed of nearly everything". I haven't read it all, but I don't think they include kicked-back wood or bottle caps.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Scary story in the workshop..
I had one.. Everything turned out as I planned! VERY SCARY!
And I had kickback once that I was sure I was dead but I woke up! I have NO IDEA what happened! Broke my wish bone or is that something other in humans?
DAMN that hurt A LOT! I inch higher and I'd be ashes in a Urn!
Edited 10/10/2009 4:47 pm by WillGeorge
Had this close incident last year:
http://forums.taunton.com/fw-knots/messages?msg=41401.1
I've had 3 serious injuries over the years, but I'm not too inclined to swap war stories (of any kind) online. Are you planning to create a gallery of work by maimed woodworkers, like the handicapped Olympics?
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?lang=e&id=1
Swapping war stories can carry on and on for sure, but those of us with less experience learn alot by reading them. I'm all ears.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Hi Forest Girl,It's also very enlightening reading the warranty disclaimers from some equipment manufacturers. One springs to mind about not using a router to do dental work. These sort of things make you wonder if there should be a gray cell count before you are allowed to purchase some kit.Regards
It's not always the power tools that do it. My latest was using a carving gouge and mallet to trim off the top of a chair leg. I had the gouge in my right hand and was going to switch to my left and I reached hard to grab it. It wasn't the handle pointing out, but the sharp end was and it went into my thumb deep. 5 stitches total, but nothing permanent. Its probably the only really sharp gouge I have.
.......probably the only real sharp gouge I have....
I thought it was only the blunt tools that cut you1
This is more of a spooky sort of a story but true.
When I apprenticed about 35 years ago we sent long runs , sanding and any special mill work we were not equipped to handle to a old cabinet shop not too far away.A nice older gentleman named Mr. Vandergelder , he seemed always to work alone .
One day I was sent to get some Birch lumber straight lined and sanded , while Mr.V was power feeding the boards through the table saw while straight lining one side a strip of off cut curled and got hung up in the power feed and then into the blade , next thing we knew the long thin strip shot back at table ht and hit Mr V just below the belt.
He shut it down and pulled his trousers down a bit and asked me to look and see if he was bleeding , I said a little bit .
25 years later and in another state I did a small job for an older woman and she told me her husband was a cabinetmaker and they came from Van Nuys Calif, huh ! I told her I came from that area and used to go to a cabinet shop in Van Nuys.
I then told her the story about the man who got injured while I was in his shop and she then said , " you know that bothered him for the rest of his life"
Talk about spooky , I was sure surprised , what a small world ,the hair is standing up on my arms just thinking about it .
safest regards dusty,boxmaker
Edited 10/12/2009 9:59 am ET by oldusty
I have a close friend who is totally blind ( he has absolutely zero vision) he was injured on a construction site in 1977, believe it or not he builds lawn furniture for a hobby and and gets a little beer money on the side, he sells allot of chairs, picnic tables, benches and such every summer, he generally has a list of clients that keeps him busy late into the fall. Allot of locals wouldn't even think of buying a picnic table from anywhere else, I guess there is something about having a chair or table made by a blind man.
When he works in his shop most people can't watch him as they are always scared he will hurt himself. In his shop he has a RAS, SCMS, drill press, router table, belt sander, DC and various other hand power tools. He has a bandsaw on his Xmas wish list.
He is the person that got me interested in woodworking 25+ years ago, and yes he still has all ten fingers. I know this is not really scary but I thought some might find it interesting.
Mike
Teaching shop has got to be scary but while in college I taught Trap and Skeet shooting at the local rifle/handgun/shotgun range. REALLY scary stuff! Try getting 10 people (or kids) that have never handled shotguns before out on a cold night and try to teach them to shoot a round of skeet. Finally got to the point that one person at a time had a gun that was loaded and the only one with any ammo was me!<!----><!----><!---->
Scott<!----><!---->
(Might have been scary) I was letting the next door neighbor use my shop (under direction and supervision) to make hickory panels for his kitchen. I did the resawing, and the jointing, and a few days later I let him use the drum sander after the glued panels had dried out. When it was time to cut the panels to final dimensions, I showed him how to use the the table saw, as there would be no need to get close to the blade with his hands. In addition to the safety glasses, I told him to put on my leather apron. He allowed as he would wait until something scared him, then he would put it on. I suggested that was "horse out of the barn thinking," so he put it on. A few panels later, he said he was glad he was wearing the apron--he took a direct hit in the groin, and he said it hurt. He also said he couldn't imagine how bad it would have hurt had he not been wearing the apron. (BTW the POS blade guard and splitter were installed, and the anti-kickback pawls were in use.)
Reading all these kickback stories, all ending up the same way, does anyone wear any sort of "armour" aside from an apron?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I know how to make chain mail .... It may not stop the impact, but it will help displace some of the energy and, as long as it is not a small piece, stop penetration. I've cut myself too many times with bladed tools over the years to count. Luckily for me, none have been overly serious. (knock on wood) The worst was 3 stitches to a finger. Murphy's Law always applies. "Anything that can go wrong, will!" Plan ahead and play devil's advocate. Look for what can injure you and do everything you can to not let that happen. That way you can always count to 10 on your own fingers.
Have you heard O"Toole's corollary to Murph's Law? Murphy was an optimist!
I wear a cup. I prefer full contact woodworking.
♫ If you’re OCD and you know it wash your hands ♫
My uncle used to operate a sawmill in Bethel, Maine. He told me of the time that the shaft on one of the big circular sawblades broke. The blade climbed out of the slot and ran across the mill, cutting a man standing there in half. Pretty gruesome.
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
While doing family history research I came across an article from the 1800's sometime that described how the wife of a distant relative went to see her husband at the lumbermill. The best I understood it was that there was a spinning pole that ran from the roof to the floor that transferred the energy from the waterwheel to the equipment. The pole had a protective housing built around it but that day part of it was removed, her long hair got wrapped around the spinning pole pulling her into the area between the pole and the housing and just kept spinning her around and around beating her to death. Very sad to read about even 200 years later.
My uncle used to run a sawmill in Rice, VA. Had a worker get in the debarker for some reason, and yes, it killed him. I'm guessing in the early '60's.............. Altho' I was very close to my uncle, it was too painful for him to discuss, so I never got all the details.Rich
Back in high school I was on Stage Crew for the school's theater department. One of the other crew members was using a radial arm saw while we were building frames for a few of the backdrops in a play. She used her hand to hold a piece down and brought the saw right over her index finger. She lost half of it. Watching this first hand made me learn very quickly to always watch my finger placement when using any tool.
Edited 10/13/2009 8:36 pm ET by Eric_J
I saw the result of a smaller version of that incident. The running blade came off from a farm buzz-saw. The blade ran along the ground until coming to a by-standing boy, ran right up hix body to his face, making neat llittle punctures in a row. None of them required repair, and all healed well.
Tom, M.D.
Tom, I've seen quite a few of those farm buzz saws, and it's a wonder there isn't an entire army of armless or legless people out there as a result of their use. Farming is dangerous enough. Add a completely uncovered large circular sawblade to the mix and it gets even dicier..I'm glad the incident you saw resulted in injuries that weren't fatal. Actually, in thinking this thread over, I remembered that I also knew a guy who died as a result of a sawblade coming off a Shopsmith while he was working on it. The blade climbed up out of the table and cut him deeply in the abdomen. The injury was bad enough, but it got infected in the hospital and he died. ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
I was at a house the other day picking up a used laser printer and in the garage the man had a Shopsmith. This is the first Shopsmith I have seen in person and what surprised me was that the 10" saw blade was mounted to the spindle and there was no table or guard of any kind around it. I have seen pictures of the saw with the table over the blade but I never realized that, apparently, the lower part of the blade is exposed. I would not want to use that if it is the case. Maybe there is some kind of enclosure that was missing but it was not apparent. As it sat I would never use it.
Bruce"A man's got to know his limitations." Dirty Harry Calahan
Bruce,
I've always thought of Shopsmiths as kind of a marginal tool. The exposed blade confirms it. But maybe that was what was done back in the days when it was being produced. Thank goodness times have changed...
ZoltonIf you see a possum running around in here, kill it. It's not a pet. - Jackie Moon
Many years ago I administered anesthesia to a lumber-yard worker who had caught a large and heavy plank thrown the length of a long room by a heavy old time rip- saw. The plank struck him in mid-abdomen, bursting the stomach. My surgeon friend opened him to find stomach contents all over the abdominal cavity. The rent in the stomach was closed, the puke removed by copious irrigation, the belly closed, and all turned out well.
Tom
I started early with woodcraft injury. At five I nailed together a ladder planted in the back yard which came apart as I climbed it, but not enough not to leave a deep c shaped scar in my stomach as I slid by the almost pounded nails.
A drop into a swimming pool almost caused my death at 15. Are team mates tools? A team mate caused me to miss the water and the others ran to save my life.
Tired in my twenties, I came too close to saws with that odd chill as you just realized that you just did something incredibly dumb, stopping fractions of an inch from a 10" spinning blade. I still have a hard time reading articles about people who get caught closer. You learn to use a lot of sticks and polk at things.
Then there was the time I used a hatchet to pound in a stake for a neighbor. Swinging it loosely like a hammer it flew from my grip swirling up into the sky and then downward neatly slicing into my thumb as it spun by.
Or the time when I helped a friend trim his house. He had one of those small, Home Depot table saws that seemed to me like a kids toy. I was ripping a bevel on short pieces of 2 x 8 when one of them bound and kicked back into my stomach. It hurt a lot. At home, lifting my shirt I swear the end grain appeared tattooed in the swelling bruised skin. How could such a small thing have so much oomph.
Finally they say the most common incident at health services for the U of Minnesota were architecture students with deep cuts or missing finger tips from xacto knives while trying to cut chip board. The next most common group were architecture students in deep depression, struck down with another type of soft tissue injury. Go figure. In the end some accidents have no obvious explanation.
Peter
I needed to look closely at some West System epoxy that I had just applied, so my right eye was about 5 inches from the glue joint. I looked up, had blurred vision in that eye. Absolutely no epoxy splashed or was rubbed in my eye -- only fumes, nearly odorless. I was wearing glasses plus an organic vapor cartridge mask. Still, the blurred vision lasted for perhaps 15 minutes. It was scary.
Checking "epoxy fumes" on the Web, I found that others had exactly the same experience. They had read the safety instructions carefully, as I did, and interpreted the instructions to mean that if you get epoxy in your eye, you do indeed have a problem. The "epoxy" seems to refer to the the chemical itself, not the fumes, though they are a real danger.
So why don't the instructions mention the fumes? Well, then people might not buy the stuff.
I never knew about epoxy fumes, but I once mixed up a few tablespoons of 5-minute epoxy in a plastic mixing cup. Boy, does that stuff ever give off a lot of heat, especially that much in a container (large mass)! I burned myself holding that cup!I have heard that cyanoacrylates can cause really severe nosebleeds. I've been overexposed to finishes enough to be dizzy. Not good. Now, whenever I will be working with a new chemical, I read a copy of the MSDS. There's lots of good, important info in them.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodworks.com and http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Hi GuysOld mate of mine was doing some work with a timber called black bean (beautiful colour and grain) After a lot of sanding (no mask) went to the doc with bad sore throat, headaches etc. After examining all the soft tissue in his mouth and throat, the doc told him straight out he would have to stop sniffing coke!
This didn't happen in a woodshop, it happened in a sales area at K-Mart. I was the Building Materials Department Manager at a K-Mart in the 1970's. We stocked a lot of home repair /construction items. We were doing some remodeling in the back lumber storage area and this area had a loft on one end. We had to clear a large floor area for something or another and we were moving the items from a storage area on the ground floor to the loft. One of the items we carried was a system for putting a colored chip material down on a floor and covering it with a tough clear coat. The clear coat was some kind of tuff material but I am not sure of its make-up. Anyway, we had qt. and gallon cans to take to the loft. We got tired of walking up and down the stairs and one of the crew decided to throw the qt. cans of the clear coating to another worker in the loft. Everything went fine until one of the cans fell to the floor and burst open. It was just a qt. so we left it for a few minutes and threw the rest of the stock up to Russell, the guy at the top. Russell slowly started turning red and grabbed the wall for support. He had a big grin on his face and acted like he was drunk. We quickly realized that the fumes had traveled up to the loft, it was open with just a handrail, and Russell was drunk on the fumes! We quickly got him down and outside to the fresh air and cleaned up the mess. He was fine in a few minutes and we resumed our task. In retrospect we probably should have taken him to the hospital for a checkup, but he was fine. The fumes were very strong smelling and it really did not take long for them to have a effect.
Today I am a lot more careful around solvent and finishes.
Bruce
Edited 10/14/2009 10:35 am ET by Wingdoctor
Had a guy working in my shop when I was in the Navy. He was drilling something fairly small and was holding the item on his lap. The bit broke through unexpectedly and he drilled a 1/4" hole in the body part all men loathe to drill into! REALLY STUPID!!! I doubt he will ever live it down. The good news: he had two kids after the incident so the recovery must have been complete.
"Close enough for government work=measured with a micrometer, marked with chalk and cut with an axe"
I'm never going in a basement again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR075mRCUHo
--jonnieboy
My father (cabinetmaker) was showing me his first ever electric planner, grabbed it under the toe as he was want to do ah la N0 7 jointer, turned it on and neatly took off the very tip of his little finger. He turned it off, handed it to me and said "here you are son, I just bought you a new planner."
He never owned another electric planner, said you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks.Cheers
That's a hoot. I was feeling a little nauseous reading all the other stuff. That one made laugh out loud.ThanksFrosty“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert,
in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Milton Friedman
Frost,
Laughing at others misfortune? I posted it as a cautionary tale only.
--jonnieboy
When a supposedly "real life" situation is depicted in a ridiculous fashion I find it funny and classify it as humor - as it was intended to be. Look how many addition people have viewed the DeWalt ad and DeWalt didn't have to pay for the exposure.Frosty“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert,
in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Milton Friedman
Frosty,
I apologize for my response to your post. I was being facetious and it didn't come across well at all. I'll be more careful.
I thought the video was hilarious. I also liked the pit crew tightening the lugnuts on the race car.
--jonnieboy
Thanksf or the note. I din't see the 'lug nuts' video. I'll go back and look.Frosty“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert,
in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Milton Friedman
building a barn ...
lifting a 14' 6x8 13' feet off the ground with a boom pole inside my tractor bucket ...
got it at full height and move toward the posts it's going to sit on ...
boom pole comes out of the bucket (i.e. nothing holding the 6x8 anymore) ...
long and short of it ... it all comes crashing down on top of the tractor about 3 feet in front of my face ....
phew .... Praise the Lord!
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