End of the day, end of the week, last bucket of hot mop on Fri. afternoon – young guy trips on a skylight curb and wham! Puts out his arm in a reflex as he falls, and plants it right into a bucket of hot tar. His right hand and forearm will probably never be the same. Covered in tar and puffed up to the size of his foot. All down his leg too, and some on his foot. He looked like he was in so much pain. Could barely make it down the ladder, so the ambulance could zip him away to the hospital.
His foreman said he was his best worker – got distracted because his wife just called to tell him their little 5-yr. old girl was hospitalized after falling from the car.
He was an employee of one of my subcontractors, but I still feel sick when something like this happens on my jobsite.
“…never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too” – Mark Twain
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I have a couple of helpers who take chances all day, efficient and never get hurt.
They think nothing bad can happen to them.
It sucks, but we all need to read this. Thx.
Edited 3/10/2007 2:15 am ET by 1muff2muff
Disttraction - bad thing, especially what this one was!
I feel his pain - literally. I've had mumberous small burns from hot stuff, and one that took all the skin off my right index finger and some on the next finger and thumb. He is lucky that they have such more better treatment facilities and technology now than back then, but pain and infection will be his nemisii to battle for awhile
The pain this kid felt immediately was nothing compared to what he will go though in healing, treatment and physical therapy! Not to mention the emotinal griefover this an his daughter. Try to find out for me if he has an emotional support team like good family, church, or whatever. Meanwhile, I'll be praying for him.
On my finger, they thought they'd have to do grafts, but there was just enough skin cell left on the side where it contacted the middle finger that they grew back around.
Every AM and every PM, I had to unwrap, soak ina solution, and bend the finger as much as possible to avoid the adhesions that would have left me with a skinny pointer instead of a strong digit.
At first, the skin was no more than like saran wrap on pigs knuckles. I could see every detail of muscle, cartilage, etc through the new skin whil I excercised it. The bending felt like tearing my hide right off. It was excruciating.
I'm hoping this kid had gloves and a long sleeved shirt on. That could make the difference in how deep this went and whether he regains full use of his arm or not. I was not wearing a glove for my accident. I'd stopped to wipe swet and boss was yelling for more hot quick, so I just grabbed the bucket. It was stuck to the roof just enough to lurch loose and slop some stuff on my hand.
Lemmee tell yah, it'll make a grown man sit down and cry!
Half the guys on our crew had some sort of scar to show. The coloured guys have some unique party coloured opnes since the pigment doesn't all come back.
One guy had come down a ladder where somebodyu else had set a bucket of hot right at the base. He'd stepped into it so his scar was about a 2" ring around the calf at top of his boot and sock. damage to the foot itself was minimal cause of the boot.
I met a guy once who had been the tender for a large kettle that blew up and covered about 85% of him. He survived. He said all the worker comp benifits in the world were not enough too make up for the pain he had endured though.
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Last year Dale left his hot torch hanging on the scaffold to cool off before we wrapped up the day, I was climbing down to gatherup scraps.
Man, I hit that torch head copper with the side of my neck, yowwza that is some sensitive skin right there. Lucky I was climbing pretty fast and it swung away when it bumped, but it did leave a nice scar.
But I'll never forget the day one of our guys just about took off his thumb with a circ saw 30' up on the scaffold, and actually was able to scamper down...I was the only one that could drive him to the hosp. I still have blood in the van, I left some as a reminder to be safe. If he was working alone, with poor english skills, and unable to drive himself he woulda been in a bad way. We were way out in the sticks, and 911 would notta helped him much.
Few years back I was putting the final touches on a house I was building. Called the landscaper to seed and straw the yard. The landscaper brought a tractor pulling a trailer with a straw shooting machine. A Very nice young girl (tough country girl type, bib overalls etc) was up on the trailer feeding the machine. The straw somehow got stuck and she tried to shove it down and her hand got pulled in. It made a real mess of her small hand.
My dad rushed her to the hospital. I am pretty sure she lost a lot of use of the hand.
Everything can be dangerous when ya do it enough. I worked in a pallet mill when I was a teen. I was running a champher machine, it created the champhers on the top edge of the bottom 1x6's on a pallet so's a pallet jacks wheels could ride in easier.
This machime had a moulding head to do both edges and a stack of 1x6 was placed on a chain driven feed trough...a dog came along and feed a board into the cutters, which were on a cam that lifted the cutters to skip the center stinger area of the board. I would load a batch of wood and grab the out feed and stack them.
Well, one day the feeder dog went under a board, and the next dog grabbed a new board and they were jamming in the cutter...I tried to get the stack off in a hurry and placed my left hand under the stack, as the feed dogs kept feeding..I was losing 3 fingers for sure.
I got the super man feeling and LIFTED with all my might with my right hand, the 800lb machine came up outta the lags bolting it to the concrete, and POW! the 1x6 Oak snapped in half..I got my hand free....The noise was incredible, and the dust collection pipes shook all the dust off for a few yards in every direction.
I looked at my fingers ( pretty mangled) and my foreman came running, expecting the worst...he looked at me and I at him, then the machine...I said "I'm sorry, I broke it" ...he about passed out.
To this day, I don't know how I saved my hand...........
I spilled hot tar on my forearm and panicked and ripped it off wit a few layers of skin, The pain is beyond words and i almost passed out, I could not work with long sleeve shirts but being boss i did not have one on, Dont even wanna do hot anymore i would never feel right someone getting hurt, And no matter how carefull you are its gonna happen
I don't know which is worse - ripping it off immediately or letting professionals debride it at the hospital. Both are bad, but they have some meds in syringes to spray on that can help - a little.Besides, it can be a fun distraction to watch the nurses passing out...;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
My dad worked in an Iron ore plant while he was putting him self through university. The stories from that place could make you lose sleep at night. At one time they were shutting down these blast furnaces to do maintaince. The had cooling pipes running through them and someone was told to shut the water off so they didn't cool to quick and crack the firebrick. Instead of shutting off the intake side he shutoff the outtake. With the pressure and heat rising, the furnace exploded and burned every thing off this guy. The skin was boiled clean off his bones.
One thing though dad always said about every accident in that plant, is that they all could have been prevented. It was always someone who either didn't know what he was doing or was taking a shortcut. In his time working they it was never something like an equipment failure that caused an accident.
So are there any accidents? The fact of the matter is, that in this day and age we shouldn't be getting hurt at work. My guys all take risks everyday and for what. I always tell them I'm not paying you enough to risk you life. They all think that the safety inspectors are a pain. I tell them if you being safe there nice guys. Im so tired of accidents that I'm now going to be stating a fine system. If I or my partner or any of my head foremans spots somebody not obeying safety rules we will fine them. They have nowhere to hide now. Accidents have got to stop