Close Calls - List yours

[Josh]

Just wondering if any of you have had some close calls both on the jobsite or off. I think the 2 I remember the most were.

1) on the way back from football practice I pulled right in front of a speeding car coming up a hill. Barely cleared in front of him. Really gave me that sick feeling inside realizing I coulda been killed so easily.

2) was working on my grandpas farm driving a front end loader while some guys were shoveling slag into it. While driving up to a new location the clutch engaged sorta weird and lurched forward and almost clocked one of my best friends in the head. Doesnt sound all that bad but heavy equipment doesn't give all that much when someone hits it or it hits someone. Woulda been a horrible concussion at very least.

Overall I have been pretty lucky and not had too many of those situations.

So whats your story.

josh

[Gene Bickford]

After laying pipe with each excavator operator a while you start to understand each of their quarks, strengths etc..
Example: I worked with three operators on a regular basis.
With one I stood right where I wanted him to cast material and he would land it right at my feet. With another I had to stand back 5' or he would shower me with whatever he was casting. With another I had to stand 10' back or he would always cast short for fear of hitting me.
Luckily this day I was working with the third guy. He had a quick switch bucket on his machine and just switched buckets. He had my new (useless pot head) top Guy put in the pin and lock pin. He scoops a bucket of stone out of the truck and casts it in the trench. I grade it out and he gets another bucket of stone and casts it. Then I see something odd. It's the bucket. WTF:eek:. I feel a rush of air and then thud, the bucket lands 6" from my feet. Everyone just kinda froze for 10secs trying to get their mind to catch up to what just happened.
I turns out the pot head put the lock pin in back wards and it fell out. He lasted another 2hrs before he walked off the job and I added yet another chore to my list of things I wouldn't let other people do.

[Frankiarmz]

Too many to list, would get boring but here are a few while working as a Telephone Lineman and Repairman. Winding up the Auger on a digging truck when the stow winch snapped, auger swung away from truck and took out a stop sign before swinging back towards me! Foreman sent us on a job to replace a 45' pole and said he checked it for rot, all was fine. He lied, base was rotted and when we put the claws on it, it snapped and headed for the street and cars below. Luckily the power lines stopped it a few feet from the ground. On loan to the repair dept, partner and myself ask permission to go to the back of a three family house to check crossbox. We were met by a man holding a gun who thought we were there to steal his limo? Sunny summer morning in the South Bronx I pull a manhole cover and wait to place a 3600 pair cable. While leaning against a mailbox I hear a commotion in the box truck waiting at a traffic light twenty feet away. Three men in the cab and one is weilding a gun which happens to be pointed in my direction, turns out he high jacked the truck from the two occupants. Prior to all this I was a garage mechanic for the Telephone Co. and while I had a van up on a lift I moved away to get some tools and the truck crashed to the ground. There are supposed to be saftey stops to prevent such an occurance but thirty plus years ago they weren't much on safety. There was also the occassional toilet bowl, radiator and brick tossed in our general vecinity while removing or placing cables behind occupied or abandoned buildings. Gets to the point where not much bothers you. Josh, I have a theory that we are constanly flirting with disaster.Think about it, every time you are driving around a curve and traffic is coming towards you all it would take is a slight turn of the wheel by either you or the other guy. Illusion of security, it's what makes life bearable.

[DuckButter]

About 7 years ago I was working on a cherry picker, soldering a 3" water main in a new factory.
My super was at the base telling me to just move the arm over, rather than relocate the base, despite warning light and buzzer going off, saying "I do it all the time".
I repostion the arm, walk over to where I need to work and notice the pipe above getting slightly farther away...the machine was beginning to tip...at approximately 20+ feet in the air directly over millions in commercial computer/robotics machinery.
I eased back to the base side of the platform...moved the arm in and told him NOT to tell me to do that again.

[Frankiarmz]

This incident came to mind when Duckbutter mentioned taking directions from someone on the ground. A new guy was loading a three thousand pound reel of cable on the bed of his truck using the boom and winch. The load started to swing wildly as two different guys were barking orders at him. I got his attention and told him to just "Stop", don't listen to anyone else and when you move the controls go very slowly as the movements are greatly amplified by the equipment. I just wanted to mention that it's best that just one person give directions unless the job really demands more, it's easy to overwhelm a person when he's trying to split his attention. It's also helpful if the person directing you knows what the heck they're doing!:rolleyes:

[jamison_tilne]

I was cleaning gutters one day and all of a sudden friction gave way and I was sliding toward the edge. Managed to catch myself just before my feet were completely off. Good thing too it was a concrete sidewalk below me.

[westcoastplumber]

Multiple close calls.

I was under a retirement building installing a c/o, about 100' crawl to the main, dug down 2 feet, older people not listing to the don't use the toilet sign, flushing and the clay won't snap right, so pull the grinder out, in water, bailing it out, yummy, well before I know it I am covered in water, laying in water and grinding, I felt it and was able to shake it off, then in 10 mins, I go to get started again and dig the knee into the extension cord joint that the light is plugged into and get it again from the knee.

Another time is a helper was cutting old galvy out of the crawlspace, told him to cut hanging pipe, he started cutting something that didn't sound right, so I turn around and it's a gas line, I stuck my nail in the groove, he was almost there with a dull blade.

Fell out of 2 cielings, first time I was wrestling something in the cieling, don't remember, but slipped off the joist and landed on the vanity, broke the mirrior and light fixture, the fan sparked and feel with me

I had a scheduled call at scottsdale housing complex, a war zone in los angeles, I was 45 mins late, when I arrived the area was roped off with police tape, about 100' away there was a object covered up, I had to cross the police tape 2 feet to get into this customers house so his water could be turned on, 7 houses back, every alley was taped up, approx 1 hr before I arrived there was a shoot out.

[Drain Medic]

My major close call was, i was working at a hotel in the middle of January one year (about 9yrs ago).

The temp outside at 1am was around 5 degrees. The hotel was under construction. We were there cleaning the kitchen lines with the jet truck. As i was walking around the parking lot behind the hotel, there was a huge blue tarp laying on the ground. No cones, no barracades, no caution tape, nothing. So i decided to walk across the blue tarp. I stepped into a hole in the middle of the tarp, that was actually the grease pit for the resturant.
I fell directly in with the tarp about 8ft into pure grease. To this day i thank my lucky stars for it being cold out because the tarp was really hard, so it didnt sink to much in with me, or it might have covered my head and sufficated me. Thankfully the other guys were getting something off the truck and ran over and got me out. Pretty close to death there, if the pit was empty, it wouldve been a 10ft fall to the bottom with a tarp wrapped around me.

[gear junkie]

Waterwell drilling in the Phillipines and were tripping in collars(pieces of pipe that weigh 1300 lbs). We normally hold the back end of the collar while the crane on the rig lifts it up but decided to do it different this time. We attached the crane on the truck to hold back while the rig's crane lifted the collar up. I was looking directly at the collar, then decided I didn't need to be there and stepped to the side and WhOOSH the collar slipped out the brace and came shooting foward and missed my chest by inches. To make sense of this for those who are not drillers: we did something stupid and I almost got a 1300lb piece of pipe through my chest.

Later that same night;

Our welder asked me to hold something while he tacked welded in place. I felt a small shock in my arm then next thing I know, my boss is kneeling next to me punching me dead in the chest. The crew said they looked up and I was flopping around on the ground like a dying fish. My boss swears to this day that he saved my life by punching me in the chest, a technique he said he learned watching ER.

All this happened the same night and on the first night of drilling. For the next 4 months, no one got so much as a paper cut.

[tinmack]

There's probably others, but here's the latest.....

Last December in the middle of a snowfall on a winding turn on the road, an 18 wheeler decided to drift over on to my side of the road... Got close enough to whack my side mirror and crack my tire and control arm on the drivers side wheel, yet left the rest of the car(and me) unscathed. Was doing about 50KM/H(31 miles per hour) at the time(not terribly fast because of the weather) - best I can figure I drifted into one of his wheels and bounced off after he hit my mirror. Never even stopped.

My mechanic is still shaking his head, considering I called him as I was waiting for the tow truck and told him "I just hit a truck, can you fix me up later this afternoon..?"....

[ToUtahNow]

I've had a bunch but the most recent one was here in Las Vegas last night. We are on week four of inspections on this project and it is starting to take it's toll. Last night rather than going out to dinner I thought I would go find something and bring it back to the hotel. After finding dinner I was headed west on Flamingo when I sudenly saw Paradise which is the street our hotel is on. I quickly made a right turn then noticed Paradice was a one way street at Flamingo and I was heading against traffic. Not knowing what else to do I slowed down and starting flashing my high beams to alert other drivers a moron was traveling the wrong direction on a busy one way street. As soon as I got to the first street I made a right turn and was releived to have gotten safely off the street.

Mark

[drtyhands]

There are many times I have been spared great bodily injury if not death.I give thanks that I have been allowed to live a healthy life with all the functioning parts I was born with.

Skillsaw only tearing my jeans,holesaw opening my wrist to expose tendons but not cutting them or major vein.A 4X8 sheet of 1/2" plywood falling on end of the roof in front of me while I turned away from my project to talk to someone for the moment.Hitting one leg only on a unmarked 220 feed.Another 220 grounding through a water heater strap and shorting out instead of going through me.

My most memorable was the one in my early 20's.I was chicaning through the canyons on my GS1100 and hit oil in a high speed turn.It was like a dream,no sound,the bike just floated out from under me,when it grabbed pavement on the other side it went from low side slide to wanting to instantaneously high side.It was out of my hands,a couple of wobbles and head towards the last couple of inches of pavement in the corner before hitting the wall.Huge knee shakes.Time to putt home.

So many to give thanks for watching over me.

Adam

[woodenstickers]

Setting traps on a commercial fishing boat the line grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the back of the deck. There was probably about 500 to 1500 pounds already in the water on the end of the line and the boat movement added who knows how much. It slipped off the end of my hand and took my glove down with it. When we picked that line the next day I got my glove back.

Was on a "home made" scaffold that my foreman nailed together with the nail gun. It was inside a house addition with 20' ceilings. We were sistering some joists and using bowed 2x8s so we were both pushing upward on the end as hard as we could while he held the nailer and was ready to spike it. When it went we were a good 13' up at our foot level--we looked at each other and fell straight down and both landed on our feet--then our asses. I had about a 30lb tool belt on and there were tools and tool boxes and crap all over the place not to mention the nail gun he was holding. Neither of us said a word. I had roaming pains for the next week or so, but if we had not gone straight down the way we did id could have been worse than bad.


Eli

[PLUMBER RICK]

1990, i was in a small town brite or bright? in australia. i went there to learn parapenting/ paragliding. the class was on a hillside that was used for training. there was the instructor, his assistant, and 8 students.

day 1 was going good until the wind picked up. i was already in my paraglider set up. basically a parachute and harness that you use to sail from hilltops, not out of a plane.

when the instructor anounced to pack it up, a gust of wind took my chute off the ground, my spotter partner couldn't hold onto me and i went sailing back up the mountain, going head over heals:eek:. i rememeber as i was going up in the air and crashing back down, bouncing off my crash:D helmet and cracking it in half. trying to disable the chute, i finally stopped on the downhill side on the other side of the hill. the whole thing happened in less than 30 seconds, but i remember the whole event like it was yesterday.

after that incident, the instructor was amazed i was not seriously hurt. the next day i came back to finish the course, the other 7 students quit after they had watched me the day prior.

i compleated the class with flying colors:D

rick.

[MrsSeatDown]

1990, i was in a small town brite or bright? in australia. i went there to learn parapenting/ paragliding. the class was on a hillside that was used for training. there was the instructor, his assistant, and 8 students.

day 1 was going good until the wind picked up. i was already in my paraglider set up. basically a parachute and harness that you use to sail from hilltops, not out of a plane.

when the instructor anounced to pack it up, a gust of wind took my chute off the ground, my spotter partner couldn't hold onto me and i went sailing back up the mountain, going head over heals:eek:. i rememeber as i was going up in the air and crashing back down, bouncing off my crash:D helmet and cracking it in half. trying to disable the chute, i finally stopped on the downhill side on the other side of the hill. the whole thing happened in less than 30 seconds, but i remember the whole event like it was yesterday.

after that incident, the instructor was amazed i was not seriously hurt. the next day i came back to finish the course, the other 7 students quit after they had watched me the day prior.

i compleated the class with flying colors:D

rick.

This is just stupidity:bash:

[plumberscrack]

This is just stupidity:bash:


LMAO! :D

[DUNBAR]

Back in my days pouring concrete I was pouring a footer, the builder was jabbing short upright rebar stakes behind me as I straddled the forms scraping to grade and cutting a keyway.


Lost my balance when I straightened up and fell backwards onto the forms. He had run out of stakes like 1 foot above my head when I fell down flat on the forms. Lucky is an understatement.


Growing up being forced at gunpoint to go to church, didn't want to walk in freezing weather so here comes stupid me on a 10-speed with 2" of snow on the road. It was cold, trust me.

Snow has a way of isolating sound sometimes and the common habit of riding a bike is cross the road if someone is coming behind you so they don't clip you on the bike.

Another family who gave enough care to safely transport their kids to church was the car that hit me *my fault entirely* and slid to a stop with my legs up inside the front wheel well of the car.

The car's driver applied the brakes in enough time where when it stopped on snow, it had me pinned against a non-movable set of concrete steps leading up into someones yard. To this day I have no idea how I didn't get mortally injured that day......to be up against concrete steps with my legs up over the front tire with the only bruise being my ego. <<< Someone was looking out for me, otherwise I would of died or at least been a parapalegic.


There's a few others but I'm not putting them to print.

[Frankiarmz]

Back in my days pouring concrete I was pouring a footer, the builder was jabbing short upright rebar stakes behind me as I straddled the forms scraping to grade and cutting a keyway.


Lost my balance when I straightened up and fell backwards onto the forms. He had run out of stakes like 1 foot above my head when I fell down flat on the forms. Lucky is an understatement.


Growing up being forced at gunpoint to go to church, didn't want to walk in freezing weather so here comes stupid me on a 10-speed with 2" of snow on the road. It was cold, trust me.

Snow has a way of isolating sound sometimes and the common habit of riding a bike is cross the road if someone is coming behind you so they don't clip you on the bike.

Another family who gave enough care to safely transport their kids to church was the car that hit me *my fault entirely* and slid to a stop with my legs up inside the front wheel well of the car.

The car's driver applied the brakes in enough time where when it stopped on snow, it had me pinned against a non-movable set of concrete steps leading up into someones yard. To this day I have no idea how I didn't get mortally injured that day......to be up against concrete steps with my legs up over the front tire with the only bruise being my ego. <<< Someone was looking out for me, otherwise I would of died or at least been a parapalegic.


There's a few others but I'm not putting them to print.

I read all the other posts and along with mine they show how dangerous life can be wheter it's on the job or having fun, but this one stuck in my mind. I keep thinking about this kid who is a grown man now but who had to endure such abuse and it bothers me. I think something needs to be said but I'm not exactly sure what that is? Maybe we need to take a moment and think how precious life is and especially the young lives we may be trusted with. Of all the work that's discussed on this site, being a Parent is in my opinion the most important job a person can have. Dunbar, glad you made it to tell your story.

[Australian Plumber Josh]

The other day i was hiding out in a plantroom having a nap and i very nearly slept past go home time.phew!!!!!!!!


sorry, had to inject some humour.

[HVAC HAWK]

The other day i was hiding out in a plantroom having a nap and i very nearly slept past go home time.phew!!!!!!!!


sorry, had to inject some humour.


now that was a close call

[Bogart]

Driving home drunk on a Friday evening. I fell asleep and drifted across the oncoming lane. I went into the ditch at an angle and the leftover personal pan pizza went airborne off the passenger seat and blasted me in the chops. I woke up and stuck my foot on the clutch by instinct. I slowed down and came to a stop about 5 foot in front of a culvert. I waited until the oncoming traffic cleared (all with eyes as big as saucers) let out the clutch and burned out of the ditch.
Another time, driving home from the midnight shift, sober for once, only a 6-pack to wash the taste of work out of our mouths. All three of us fell asleep. I drifted into the incoming lane and was woke up by the sound of an airhorn, I jerked the wheel hard to the right, just missing an oncoming grain truck. The guy in the back seat got his head blasted off the window, the guy riding shotgun spilled his beer all over his crotch so it was pretty great. What a way to wake up. Later on I became born again and this sort of behavior stopped.

[mrs. westcoast]

I know f sure not to drive with any of you now:)

[Davet]

It was awhile back, I was driving my grain truck, a pickup was headed straight towards me!
I blasted my air horn.... The oncoming truck swerved hard to the left just missing me! :p

[Bogart]

DaveT,
it was a Buick, but that was a pretty hilarious, Paul Harveyish, "now you know the rest of the story."

[Ace Sewer]

Had a few.... stupidest was backing up pulling hose out of one manhole I was jetting from, backing right between my cones and stepping into another I had open. Smacked my head pretty good, deserved worse.

The one that sticks with me though was from a previous career. Was an engineer at a large plant, designed test rigs and facility mods for upcoming tests. Had a large water pit, needed a new level sensing arangement in it. Needed a standpipe for it so needed the lid core drilled. Pulled my prints and picked my spot. This was a union shop and I was salary; shirt and tie, get yelled at if you pick up a wrench, so I mark the spot and tell the foreman I need a hole there. Two guys are standing in the water from the drill running it when it just stops. This was like a 10" hole so a big drill. Turns out the power for the pumps was cast into the concrete lid and I had them drill right through it. This was industrial; big three phase pumps. Took out the power for that building, fried a 600 amp breaker. Fried it, not tripped it. There was a second set of prints that showed the power, it wasn't on the ones I had. I was told it was a mistake anyone could make, the prints should have shown it, power should have been in conduit on top in the first place, not my fault, they should have used their electrical tester wand thing before drilling, etc. I was on good terms with that crew, well liked. No-one else blamed me, but I did. It took a while, but I quit that job. I'll rather fall in a thousand open manholes than have to look those guys' familys in the face if I'd have got them killed.

[drtyhands]

A guy died the day before I showed up at a local university.He was sawcutting for an electrical feed.Seemed like the entire duration of the project had ghosts.Spooky.

[Frankiarmz]

Had a few.... stupidest was backing up pulling hose out of one manhole I was jetting from, backing right between my cones and stepping into another I had open. Smacked my head pretty good, deserved worse.

The one that sticks with me though was from a previous career. Was an engineer at a large plant, designed test rigs and facility mods for upcoming tests. Had a large water pit, needed a new level sensing arangement in it. Needed a standpipe for it so needed the lid core drilled. Pulled my prints and picked my spot. This was a union shop and I was salary; shirt and tie, get yelled at if you pick up a wrench, so I mark the spot and tell the foreman I need a hole there. Two guys are standing in the water from the drill running it when it just stops. This was like a 10" hole so a big drill. Turns out the power for the pumps was cast into the concrete lid and I had them drill right through it. This was industrial; big three phase pumps. Took out the power for that building, fried a 600 amp breaker. Fried it, not tripped it. There was a second set of prints that showed the power, it wasn't on the ones I had. I was told it was a mistake anyone could make, the prints should have shown it, power should have been in conduit on top in the first place, not my fault, they should have used their electrical tester wand thing before drilling, etc. I was on good terms with that crew, well liked. No-one else blamed me, but I did. It took a while, but I quit that job. I'll rather fall in a thousand open manholes than have to look those guys' familys in the face if I'd have got them killed.

I'm sure you felt bad even though it wan't your fault. We had an engineer give a couple of Telco splicers a print on Fordham College and told them to cut a specific cable. This manhole was not supposed to be dual use, they all thought it was Telco only. The splicer was a big young guy and as he cut through with big cable cable cutters they exploded and threw him back. He was unhurt but it turned out to be something like a three thousand volt electric feed. I would rather hurt myself than someone else. You're a good guy.

[Big Dog]

Worked for an x-ray company once. We x-rayed welds in the pipes at a refinery to check for holes or imperfections. You have a 'camera' that has a radio-active source, a tube for the source to go out and come back in, and a set of cranks to push/pull the source. Crews of two worked different parts of the refinery at night (when the sane people weren't there). One guy let a newbie hook up the source and he did it incorrectly. Pushed the source out, but did not retrieve....no telling how bad they got burned because the response from the foreman was: " I'll need your film badges tomorrow and you'll probably never be allowed to work x-ray again, orrrrrrrrr if the badges get washed in the washing machine, I'll issue you new ones tomorrow.." When I found that out I quit on the spot. Went back to construction where at least the dangers aren't as invisible....

[TOPDAWG]

About 15 years ago i was on o a sewer job that had to be dug up because of a collapsed clay line. It was in March ground was saturated with water and about 10' down. dug up line shelved the sides, thought it was safe so i went down removed broken piece of clay went back to truck to get materials, got back and the ditch had collapsed, it pushed in from the sides. I still wont go in a trench with out a safety box to this day.

[DanLRootX]

When I was sixteen I was working for a family owned plumbing and construction company and we where installing a new septic tank for a home owner. My job was to locate the old tank which was a small tank that was rusted out and was located less than two feet from the surface but I didn’t know that. So I was prodding the ground when I found it by falling six feet into the ground going under water and hitting bottom, I was able to stand up but found myself standing in the old tank chest deep in thick crap and cuts on my arms and legs from the rusty tank. I had to get tested for every disease in the book and get a million shots for tetanus among other things. I can tell you that a bath in poo is not fun!!!!!!!!!!!! I was not hurt bad but getting hosed down in an Oregon winter was not fun either. That was a very bad day and a close call:(

[stokefire7]

baby scorpions in my bedroom, Tempe Az.

[SlimTim]

I went to a duplex to diagnos an electric water heater problem. There were two identical 40 gal elec w.h.s side by side in the attic. The receptacle for each heater was mounted overhead next to the heater. There was a chicken wire fence separating the two sides of the attic and went between the water heaters. I unplugged the water heater, removed the panels, pulled the insulation back and felt the tank right above the upper thermostat to see if it was warm, tugged on the wires to see if they were loose and pushed the reset button. I glanced up at the power cord and my eye just naturally followed it---up to the RECEPTACLE ON THE OTHER SIDE! I had to sit down. My knees started shaking.

Many years ago I went out on a roof of a two story house plus an attic to check a lav vent. This was a home from the 1920's with 11 ft ceilings so the roof was extra high. I started to slide. Nothing between me and the points of the iron fence below but 30' of air. My feet hit the gutter and my fingers were dug into the shingles and my heart was about beating out of my chest.

As a helper, 1976, I was sent under a house to pump water from under a floor furnace. Laying on wet ground, I grabbed the pump, the plumber above the floor plugged it in, the current hit me and my legs contracted and propelled my head straight up into the floor joist and I feel BACK ON THE PUMP. As I screamed the plumber finally decided to unplug it. I guess he thought I was through pumping. He was right.


In the 80's I was lighting an old coal fired boiler that had been converted to natural gas. There was a constant pilot and a thermocouple. It had those fire bricks that stand up on the inside of the boiler. I lit the pilot, depressed the safety on the gas valve. It was my stupidity, but somehow the pilot had shifted away from the burner. As I reached up to turn off the gas because it was taking too long to ignite, it exploded. Man, I swear that whole boiler expanded and contracted. There was so much asbestos in the air that had been insulating the boiler, it looked like a white-out. I couldn't hear a thing except the ringing in my ears.

[Service Guy]

In the 80's I was lighting an old coal fired boiler that had been converted to natural gas. There was a constant pilot and a thermocouple. It had those fire bricks that stand up on the inside of the boiler. I lit the pilot, depressed the safety on the gas valve. It was my stupidity, but somehow the pilot had shifted away from the burner. As I reached up to turn off the gas because it was taking too long to ignite, it exploded. Man, I swear that whole boiler expanded and contracted. There was so much asbestos in the air that had been insulating the boiler, it looked like a white-out. I couldn't hear a thing except the ringing in my ears.
__________________

A similar thing happened to me. My hair and eyebrows burned partly off.:shocked2:

[JCsPlumbing]

I don't know if any of mine compare to the others I've read. But I'll list a few.

Backfilling around a house with my dad. I was in the corner of the brick steps and stoop. He would push the dirt near and then I would shovel it in. One time he came back and didn't slow down. I could tell from the momentum that the brakes would not stop it. So in the last second I jumped up on the stoop (about 35") as the box blade smacked into the brick. Would have broken both legs. My dad said "You better watch what the hell your doing."

Working on an electric water heater in a ceiling of a commercial building on a ladder. Switched off the breaker labeled water heater. Went up and removed the covers. Put my meter on it. Read no power. Went to work. Accidentally touched both wires enough to knock me off the ladder. Come to find out the breaker was marked wrong AND my meter was screwed up. What are the odds? So I shut the main off.:D

Went to move an ice maker line in a zero property line townhouse complex. The kind that are all connected by a common firewall.
Shut the internal main to the residence off. Drained the house at all points. Went to work on cutting the line to move it. First cut and BAM! water shoots 10' in the air. I run to the meters 50 yards away. 6 meters in a row, unlabeled, and underwater. Shut them all down. Some IDIOT CONNECTED THIS ONE LINE TO ANOTHER HOUSE SOMEWHERE. YES THEY DID! The only good thing that came out of this is the homeowners couldn't have been more helpful and gracious. Even help clean up the water. AND THEY INSISTED PAYING ME! Even after me arguing with them for like 30 minutes that they didn't owe me a dime.

Still some good people in the world.

J.C.

[Tom W]

A few years ago we had to jack hammer through a cement wall at a college. Normally we would suspend the hammer from a backhoe and hammer away horizontally. But there was a brick wall around the building and no way to get the hoe anywhere near the building. We would take turns swinging the hammer up to the wall and hammering for a few seconds, or as long as we had strength for. During one of my turns the hammer kicked back hard and came down horizontally with me still holding the handles. We had cut a vertical pipe a few hours before and the stub end was still sticking up. Unfortunately for me the hammer came down and my middle finger and ring finger on my right hand were nearly severed by the jagged end of the pipe. It gets worse.

My daughter-in-law works for a group of orthopods. I called her and drove to the office. With her influence, got to the head of the line with my dangling fingers. No waiting room no nothing, right to the doc. He unwraps my hand surveys the damage and starts to inject novocaine. That injection was the most painful experience of my life to date. He started jamming that needle in at the base of my middle finger, palm up, and proceeded to keep pushing the needle till I thought I would scream. I suspected what was coming next and I was correct. The same treatment was given to my ring finger. Terrible, unbelievable pain.

He cleaned the yuck out but for some reason he decided to wait until the next day for surgery, at which time, thankfully, I was put under. Fingers sewn back together. No scars visible unless I look closely, but some loss of movement and my two fingers become very cold during the winter. I called the company to see if I could return to work, after a lot of discussion with the doc got his permission, and was driving a dump truck two days later and for the rest of my recovery period.

Tom

[SlimTim]

I don't know if any of mine compare to the others I've read. But I'll list a few.

Would have broken both legs. My dad said "You better watch what the hell your doing."

J.C.

:)ROTFLMAO!!:D He sounds just like my dad.


A few years ago I stuck a large screwdriver under the lid of one of those big rectangle water meter boxes. I pushed down with my foot and lifted the side enough to get my fingers underneath and lift it up the rest of the way. After getting my readings off the meter I dropped the lid back down in place - forgetting to move the screwdriver.Ofcourse, I was looking straight down at it. The screwdriver flew up and hit me in the face cutting a gash from my lip across my checkbone and into my eyebrow. How I escaped losing an eye I can only attribute to the Grace of God. :help:

[JimDon]

Was working in a Texaco station mainly pumping gas but doing mechanical work also to help out the owner who was a clutz. Came in at noon one day and the owner was in a tizzy. Was trying to put a new filter in the glass fuel bowls of old (about a 1961 Olds, IIRC). Anyway, owner couldn't get it to seal right and everytime he started car, gas leaked all over the place. Bay smelled like gas when I arrived. He asked if I could put it all back together without a leak. I did. Trouble light was hanging down in front of engine, and I was practically laying on the radiator with my head down inside eng. compartment. Owner is in a hurry and sees me put my feet back on the ground and he asks if I got it. I say yes, and he jumps behind wheel and turns the key!!! I saw trouble light get hooked in the pulleys and belts and it comes around once just missing my head, as it hits something the bulb explodes with a bang and a flash, with all the gas around, I'm sure something's going to blow up. It didn't. Owner turns off the key and rushes over to me. I'm pissed but don't say much. Then I notice my face feels wet. Blood coming from a cut just below my eye where a piece of glass from the exploding light bulb hit me.
Another night, same station, I'm closing down about 11 p.m. Working alone, but my friend shows up. As I'm bringing stuff in from the islands, I notice a thin whisp of smoke coming up from the concrete. I figure somebody spilled some battery acid there (in those days we filled new batteries so always had sulfuric acid around). It had rained a little so everything was wet. Figuring it's battery acid, I go get the rad. watering can and flood the entire area with fresh water to dilute the acid. Still no result, smoke rising. I look down and see a wire. I go inside to get a Vice-Grip to grab the wire, and luckily thought better of it. I pick up the watering can, and stick it in the slight depression where the smoke is rising. Suddenly, the dark night is lit up. I look closer and investigate and find that there are two wires in the depression and they are obviously a hot and a ground or neutral. Luckily, when I touched them with the can, I was holding onto the plastic handle of the can, as I was now standing in water all around the area I had just flooded. Next day the owner had a Sparky come and shut off power to the old light fixtures which had been removed previously.
Jim Don