Went by a job, late afternoon. “Just stop and caulk the window” boss said.
No one home when I get there. Grab caulk gun and caulk from truck. Look over and there is an old wooden ladder laying right by where I would set up my ladder.
“It’ll reach” this idiot said to himself. On the way up I noticed the missing second rung, and told my self “watch that on your way down”
Coming down I didn’t watch it. Right foot doesn’t hit a rung, goes behind ladder as it hits the ground. Left foot goes in between two rungs, and I grab the sides of this ladder.
I danced a beautiful dance, with many pieroettes on my way to the ground.
Banged and bruised, back killing me. Doc’s say I am just sore and strained, thank God for that.
30 seconds and I could of set up my “good ladder” but no I was in a hurry, now I will be slow for days.
SLOW DOWN, ESPECIALLY WHEN IN A HURRY. Dad always told me that, now I know why.
Jeremy
The bad news is you’ve done exactly the right things to be exactly where you are today.
“IdahoDon 1/31/07”
Replies
SLOW DOWN, ESPECIALLY WHEN IN A HURRY.
Just thought it was worth repeating.
Never come close to hurting myself when I was taking my time.
In a rush though? Lookout!
Democrats.
The other white meat.
Go back and cut that ladder in half and toss it in the woods!!!!!!!!!!!
[email protected]
Owner did that last night, they told me today.
The bad news is you've done exactly the right things to be exactly where you are today.
"IdahoDon 1/31/07"
Good.
Best wishes for a healthy and speedy recovery.
Getting hurt sucks, and the older we get the more difficult it is to realize full recovery.
Please be careful; I hate hearing about this stuff.[email protected]
I hate hearing it too. I've made it this far relatively injury free by hearing voices - the one inside my head that's smarter than me, telling me that what I'm thinking of doing is really stupid. Learn to listen to it. I always tell my guys that there is nothing that we do that is worth getting hurt for. Nothing.PhatI remember back in the day, when everything was shiny new. Now, instead of being polished, it just kinda chafes.
Edited 3/27/2007 8:50 pm by Phat
Hope you are OK.
Other than that,
JUST SAY NO TO WOODEN LADDERS!!!
Sometimes they are OK when they are new, but they don't fare well at all with the test of time, and they are heavy.
Glad you weren't hurt worse! Even small falls can be bad. The gyrations you tend to make on the way down often make things worse because you're all twisted up when you hit.
The following isn't about anyone falling off a ladder, just a lot of potential to do so!
(Read the thread titled "Ouch!" by another poster for what "small" falls can do. Ouch is right!)
Yesterday I went to the house of a guy I know from church to replace a couple shingles that a tree rubbed against on the edge of the roof. I was thinking from the way he described it that it was at the eve of a one story house--no, it was the rake edge about half way up the roof on a two story and the way to get up there was an extension ladder to the first story roof, walk around that roof to the garage and then there was a (wooden) step ladder straddling the peak of the garage and we used that to get to the second roof--the step ladder ended about a foot below the rake of the second story roof. Kind of tippy, but no one was hurt during the process!
The guy didn't have nails and I forgot to bring any, so he left while I removed the old shingles and found that they were the second layer and they were fiberglass--I hate fiberglass shingles. Yesterday it got up to 74 degrees and these things were already limp--like wet paper, tear if you looked at them cross-eyed. Then the guy returned and watched while I cut the wrong side of the first shingle, then stabbed my utility knife into my finger, then opended up my tube of old Black Jack to find it had all hardened. He went off to the store again while I went down and got a couple extra shingles just in case. The roof is so spongy that there were a half dozen or so places where the nails had come up through the faces of shingles.
When he came back we finished and dabbed tar on the places where the nails had popped and where shingles had torn. Both of us had tar all over our hands, but he seemed happy with the fixes we made.
Edited 3/27/2007 8:01 am ET by Danno
Glad ya wasn't hurt worse.
Too bad ya don't have some video of those pieroettes ya did.
(-:
Don't use other peoples stuff!!
Get well soon.