I wonder what’s the worst work place accident you ever witnessed.
This Wip Wondering was inspired by the LLPOH’s Manufacturing Plant post. The post has a few stories of dumbfuckery that turned into deaths and dismemberment.
The worst I’ve witnessed was in a printing plant. Back in the day I have been many things. One of the industries I was in for some time was printing. I was a pressman, a press mechanic, a press installer and a press demonstrator. One day I was called into a shop to determine what was wrong with a press. I can’t remember the problem but I sure as hell remember the accident. If you know anything about presses (offset/sheetfed), you understand how the inking system works with rollers.
Anyway the pressman was running a job and there was a dry piece of ink on one of the rollers. He stuck is finger on the roller in an attempt to pick the piece of ink off the roller as it was running. His finger got pulled into the machine. He was able to stop the machine with a kill switch that are all over the press in case of emergencies but not until his arm got pulled in also. We had to take the rollers out of the press to get his arm out. I almost passed out.
No accidents, but related.
For a few years I worked for R R Donnelly (printed and published magazines, including TIME).
This facility had a Press Room and an adjacent Bindery where I worked. The Bindery machines had on one side about 20 hoppers where the magazine sections were fed, to fall down onto a moving chain type on the other side. All along this main side were elec. boxes with stop and go (red and green) buttons for easy and quick access by the machine operator, as they were constantly placing their hands into the moving chain type thingy.
At times, pressing any of the Stop buttons would not work. The main power panel for that machine had to be accessed to stop the unit. This was not a feature of poor workmanship by an electrician. I came across another similar industrial situation but don’t remember any details.
There are many unbelievable things in life, including those concerning the human being itself – things that are impossible to occur, but they do exist.
What was your position at R.R. Donnelly? Just curious. I never go involved with Web presses.
I’m not sure what I would consider the worst.
I told of two on Lloph’s post.
Saw a tech rep turn right instead of left when he got off of a C-1A and walk right into the prop, lost his arm at the shoulder.
Saw a guy at a plywood plant reach into a core feeder and get his arm pulled into the rollers, pulled his arm tendon up into a little ball at his wrist. At that same machine another guy fed a 2×4 into it and it speared out at the other end and impaled the stacker right through his forearm.
One of my assistants at the veneer clipper took a pole, used for unplugging rollers, and despite many signs and training by me, tried to use it while the rollers were turning. He got off lucky with only a broken arm, broken glasses and a broken nose. Damn near got me.
So many more, over the years.
I’m a software nerd. The most horrific thing I’ve witnessed at work is slow onset carpel tunnel.
Every workplace accident I’ve ever seen has been the result of someone ignoring established and obvious safety standards.
Stuff like “do not remove this cover while in operation” or “disconnect from power before servicing” type of safety standards.
I saw a guy in our shop get lit up while doing some 480V wiring.
Technically it killed him, but he was kept alive by CPR by my coworkers until help arrived.
He survived, but never did come back to work. I was told it disabled him, but I don’t know how specifically.
Rdawg – I had a similar experience, only I’m the one that got zapped.
I was working on an inertial nav test bench pwr spply. The access was really narrow, my shoulders hit both sides. I was trying to trace a breakdown in the 440v circuit. I was using one hand, very carefully, to avoid electrocution. A friend, one who worked on a 50kv radar system, leaned over me from behind to watch and spilled his coke right down my right arm.
I tried to pull back, but it shorted up my arm and into the frame on each side. 440v and 5 amps. Through my chest. The only thing that saved me was the fact that it went out the rt shoulder too. Burns on both shoulder, scarred lungs. Knocked me back, I was out before I hit. I had to have my heart re-started, was in sickbay for 3 days. Had lung problems for several years.
All good now, tho.
Have had a couple REALLY bad ones over the years…..
1) Shortly before I started fishing commercially in ’90, I was working as a Journeyman Carpenter doing commercial concrete. Saw a guy playing Tarzan on a pump truck hose as they moved it to another part of the pour. He fell about 20 feet, impaling himself on a 4′ piece of rebar, through one ass cheek and out his rib cage. They cut the rebar off, and into the ambulance he and it went. He survived, but wound up with a colostomy bag, lacerated liver, and one functioning kidney.
2) About ’94 we had a deckhand lose the lower half of his arm between the trawl door and the stern of the boat. He was lucky that we were in Dutch at the time, so we could get him medical attention before he bled out.
3) Just 3 years ago, (almost to the day), we lost one of our Bosuns to an acetylene explosion that blew a hatch off and hit him in the head, killing him instantly.
It’s a Dangerous World out there. You just Never Know…… Tell Yours that you Love ‘Em Often….. And mean it……
I’ve spent my entire career in the construction industry. But, maybe because I entered the industry after the advent of OSHA and the recognition that accidents cost money, I’ve been fortunate to only see one real accident in my career, and not that bad, on the whole. There was a shift in consciousness in the industry and “Safety” became a real thing, not just lip service, and I came after that shift.
Roofer was cutting parapet lumber. The guard to the Skilsaw got hung up in the lanyard to his safety harness somehow, and the saw dug into his thigh muscle. We called the ambulance, guy was taken to the hospital, but wasn’t a huge deal, in the end. Guy survived and was back to work in a few weeks.
Back in the early 80’s, I worked a summer job during college break at an institutional furniture manufacturer.
I was an offloader for a edge banding machine. Nearby about 30 feet away, was a worker running a large stationary router.
All of a sudden was a loud noise and the gentleman fell over, the router bit exploded like a grenade and fragments shredded his abdomen. Workers applied pressure until paramedics arrived but he died from the organ damage and blood loss.
OSHA investigation revealed he had been running without the proper machine guarding in place.
I was working on the Howard Johnson’s Super Lodge in Fayetteville, NC in the mid 80’s as a carpenter. One morning the foreman decided to have a job site meeting in one of the hotel rooms on the third or fourth floor. He decided to stand up in the window frame so we could all get a better view of him without realizing the steel frame wasn’t set (we’d just shimmed it into place a couple of minutes earlier).
Out went the frame with the foreman inside of it like a cartoon. He landed on the footings below and pretty much broke every bone south of his clavicle. I’m sorry to say that the first reaction of the entire room full of tradesmen was uncontrollable laughter.
He never came back to the job.
I was also at a live fire exercise at Ft Bragg when a 4.2 mortar tube blew apart. Two of the crew were killed and the other two suffered severe trauma, lost arms and legs. That was pretty horrible.
LOL, I know it’s starting to look like I’ve lived about a 1000 yrs, with all the different career stories, but I have had a very diverse and interesting life…
I was in armored cav., was a track (M113) section leader, 4 tracks. We were in Dona Anna, NM. We were using reg. marine equip which was total shit because then the Guard would have to pay the money to get it repaired. Typical BS.
One of my TCs had a .50 blow up at the range. He had checked headspace, done everything right. But the receiver was so worn, the cartridge went off before it seated. Blew down into his crotch, sent the next cartridge into his face. Broke his cheekbone. Burnt all the hair off his nads, blistered them and his dick. Nothing permanent, but it could’ve been way worse. At least he had a pretty nurse. 🙂
Two tracks leaked fuel so bad into the cabin that I finally told our Col. that no one else was going anywhere until they got fixed. Thankfully he agreed.
Saw a civ fed contractor go down an F-86 intake at China Lake. We never were sure if it was suicide or not.
I have seen the skill saw on the thigh, numerous trundles off the roof with various levels of damage, even to include a thirty footer with no damage, many nail gun shots through the fingers, including my own, many, many lowgrade knee and back injuries, for a long time we have done mostly sheet metal, seen plenty of lacerations some quite serious, and while rolling some panels couple years back saw a kid get the skin peeled off his arm, near completely, in a decoiler.
I was working at a small uncontrolled airfield just out of Toledo called Metcalf airfield. A twin engine King air was being ferried wheels down from Tennesee to Toledo express when it had to divert to our field for fuel. Toledo was socked in and there were Tornadoes in the area. Now this guy had a point to point ferry card due to a mechnical issue with the gear. He landed and got a 50% fuel load and checked weather. He was told by TEA that it was closed to non ifr/ils aircraft until the weather cleared. An aircraft in ferry card does not qualify for ILS but the aircraft was equipt. He just does not mention this to tower and goes ahead and plots.
No sooner has he cleared the field when Toledo Express radios him that his plan looks like a duplicate but the aircraft was a ferry card. They decline him permission and tells him to return to Metcalf as the weather is really bad. We are listeneing in on this as our shop ran the 3 closest airfields on speaker. He starts cussing and shit and well the controllers remind him that radio is forever and just stfu.
So ferry boy turns around and when he is about 10 miles out calls into the pattern. Just then the local tornado sirens start up. My boss brakes into freq and advises ferry boy that tornado warnings are up and he recommends he calls Toledo for a way out of the area. Toledo tells him there is no way out unless you can get over the rain which looks to be at 20k. A gear down king air is not going to get up to 20k.
So with the rainsheeting through green clouds we hear him go over at prolly 500 feet and he can not see shit. A local highway patrol cruiser and a fire truck go to each end of the field with lights on but this does not help. The winds is gusting about 35-40 mph and this guy is trying to land in driving rain and no ILS.
We were the second car there when he piled in 500 yards off the runway. 200 yard debris field and a smoking cabin at the end. Seat broke and he was bounced around the cabin shedding parts including the head.
Some of these are truly horrible. I’m sure I have been lucky over the years and didn’t even realize it.
My brother in-law and father were discussing cleaning the gutters on the backside of my brother in-laws home. They didn’t want chance falling. Of course, I was bound and determined to show them up as wusses. The laugh was on me because once I got up there (the backside of the house was much higher up than the front side), I froze like a statue and they had to help me down. I can’t do heights and I don’t swim in water where I can’t see the bottom.
The road is my work place and I have seen some really terrible accidents . Several times I have stop my truck and run to the accident to find people barely alive or already dead. I have never forgotten how easy it is to be torn up on the highway.
I pray every morning for the Lord to keep myself and little bb safe .So far so good.
Worked in machine shops my whole life and have (still am) been on safety committees. A 300 pound counter-weight on a vertical lathe came loose, busted through the “safety doors”, and took out the operator’s left leg-broke it in 5 places. The steel and Plexiglas broke into shrapnel pieces, hitting the operator in the face. I was in the building, rushed down there-I held his jaw together while another person tried to stop the bleeding in his arm. The impact drove his teeth into his sinuses. The last thing he said before passing out was “Tell my wife I love her”. He survived and returned to work-he just retired this year. Being a first responder at work, I’ve, unfortunately, seen quite a lot. I keep telling, even experienced people, treat these machines like their out to get you. Nobody is a match for a 100 HP spindle motor.
Didn’t see it but heard about it and had it corroborated.
Bricklayer told his young assistant to remove surplus bricks from a second story building. Lazy youngster figured he’d be smart and put the bricks in a 45 gallon barrel precariously balanced on the edge and connected to a rope and pulley.
Once on the ground the youngster gave the rope a tug. The overloaded barrel dropped fast and the kid holding on to the rope sped upwards, passed the barrel and smashed his fingers against the pulley. When the barrel hit the ground, the bricks knocked the bottom out of the barrel and the kid, now weighing more than the empty barrel hurtled to the ground once again passing the barrel going the other way.
When the kid hit the ground, he finally let go the rope. With no one holding the rope the barrel sped down and hit the kid on the ground. Broken bones, smashed fingers, cuts and lacerations, but the kid survived and eventually recovered (somewhat wiser.)
Holy cow, that sounds like a Wiley Coyote cartoon.
Bullshit. That one has been around forever.
Here’s one I saw working underground in a hard-rock mine. Walking to the station (maybe 12 feet wide) to wait for the cage to bring me to surface I passed an electrician working on a 240 Volt junction box.
My back was to the electrician as I waited. There was a flash and a boom like lightning & thunder. As I spun around I saw the electrician sliding down the wall on the other side of the station. He was still holding what was left of his screwdriver. Both his smoking rubber boots were still under the junction box. His rubber boots likely saved him because the floor was wet.
I made sure he was still alive and breathing, then called the Topman to send Rescue ASAP. I bet he switched off the power next time.
1) swinging full drum crushed a guy’s pelvis
2) guy got shot up by his girlfriend at work
3) fingers lost, several instances. Most unusual was a guy flicking at a timber splinter next to a shaper head that was on. Just a spray of blood, no finger whatsoever left. Spindle was rotating 20,000 rpm and had 200 individual cutting blades/teeth. Do the math.
No deaths. Thank goodness.
So far, I think it’s a tie between LLPOH’s employee getting shot up by his girlfriend and Gerold’s Wiley Coyote story.
Early one morn, girl came into the factory with a 30-30, and commenced shooting up the place. It did A LOT of damage. She was shooting at her boyfriend. Everyone scattered and hid. No one was hurt. She left and got into her pickup and started to drive off. Einstein that he was, he followed her out, and began calling her names. She stopped, got out with the 30-30, and shot him through the hip/pelvis area, got back in her truck and vamoosed. He lived, but was fucked up bad.
This will curl your toes even though he wasn’t quite of working age.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3453164/boy-hand-stuck-meat-grinder-left-alone-video/
When I was a carpenter’s helper at Jacksonville Junior College, a saw went dead and another kid went to investigate; he was electrocuted in a puddle of water at an extension cord connection. While I was working at the Miami Switch-yard, a kid sat down on a Caboose foot step and lost his leg when he fell off. While building a warehouse, a coworker was electrocuted by an electric jackhammer; I took over but used a different jackhammer. In pilot training at Moody AFB, a fellow student flipped during landing and was decapitated. I was given emergency orders to Izmir Turkey to replace the OIC of the TUSLOG Det 11 Communications Center who had been killed in an Army helicopter crash. I am not exaggerating: “God” saved me from death when my jet was about to crash. “God” caught me when I fell off a second story roof and He put me back. I’m sure that Jesus is our Promised Messiah Savior, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords; the “Son” of God.
Wait. You fell off of a roof, and God put you back on the roof.
Anybody else see that happen?
Didn’t see it happen, but heard it from the guy it happened to.
Driver of a grain truck was offloading corn at a Kellogg’s plant on a Sunday. They dump it out of the back of the truck and an in-ground auger takes it to the silo. He’s kicking the loose corn into the slot and doesn’t notice his bootlaces are undone and it gets caught by the auger and starts to pull his leg in. Finally bound up just shy of his groin. The guard on duty- the only other human present- sees what happens and drops dead from a heart attack and the guy has to stay that way until the next truck showed up.
He loved to tell that story, though.
Nothing quite so bad but large scale foodservices had a few memorable ones:
– Filleted thumb with a meat slicer
– Hot oil splashes including broiling the skin of most of a person’s leg
– A slip leading to landing an entire forearm on a hot grill leaving skin behind. I got to escort that one to the hospital and the following skin peelings
During my Jack London’s ramble years I threw Lead Tong on an Oil Rig for a while…the rig was being moved by tugs through the Louisiana inland water way, the derrick was down, we were scraping rust, painting, etc.
One man had a power tool called the bumble bee, it wire brushed rust off, he was also attached to the air horse in a harness when working high up. The air horse was used to lift 90′ pipes up a ramp and into place to be attached to the bit that did the drilling. Another man operated the air horse from the deck. The man with the bumble bee was 50 feet up crawling around while grinding rust off on the derrick. Being maneuvered up and held in place by the operator of air horse.
He had jammed his right boot into the corner of a V had another leg around a beam and was grinding away with the bumble bee.
The other man on the deck controlling the air horse wasn’t paying attention and let slack build up in the line.
The 235 pound bumble bee operator made a bad move not realizing there was so much slack in the line and slipped falling backwards…but his foot with his big toe remained caught in the wedge as all his weight came down falling backwards.
It only took a split second but by the time the operator took the slack up on the air horse…the bumble bee operators big toe was pulled out of its socket inside his boot.
I hadn’t heard a man scream like that since Vietnam.
Working on drilling rig as a derrickman. Common safety is when you get the drillpipe out of the well, you close the blind rams (part of blowout preventers) in case the well starts to flow or gas comes into the well while the drillpipe is out of the hole.
Normally, the driller would say, “Watch your eyes” and make sure everyone was away from the hole, and then SLOWLY open the BOP’s (blowout preventers). Watch your eyes in case there is a little pressure (like 10-20psi) and it blows dirt around, not uncommon.
Our smartass driller, who knew everything at age 24, waltzed up and just popped the BOPs open – didn’t check pressure or warn anyone. The cover that had been placed over the hole to prevent anyone from falling into it while the drillpipe was out of the well… high pressure hit it and sent it flying. It bounced and struck a guy in the shoulder, taking off his shoulder and arm.
The guy was dead in 2 minutes – too much exposed not to bleed out. He told us to tell his wife he loved her, and then was gone. Every one of us turned to look at that driller, and he beat feet to his truck and left. I was busy re-closing the BOPs so we didn’t have an uncontrolled blowout. The sheriff eventually collared him, and I have no idea what happened to him, but it should have been manslaughter.
I have several others, having been in 3 blowouts and 2 rig fires on offshore rigs. But those tales require beer and people who understand drilling, which limits their value due to required lengthy explanation to non-drilling people.
Oilman2,
I saw two men disabled for life (this was in 75) in four months and then had a “worm bite” on my left hand just under the thumb from a swinging pipe. It swelled up and went numb for weeks, gave me pause…it could have been serious. After a couple of close calls I decided to spend the up coming summer in the Keys with the money I had made and saved ($5.50 an hour, 144 hours a week – big bucks for me then).
Well, today 43 years later that is the exact spot and only place I have arthritics.
@ Mark –
Well, I have arthritis in knees and hips, probably from years clambering all over drilling rigs from one end of the planet to the other. I have artificial knee and hip, and it’s feeling like the other hip is going, so maybe 2 hips soon. But I still work my farm, do normal things, but no more running or walking because the joints have to last me for the remainder! But zero pain in new joints and it gave me back an inch in height too.
Then again, it could have been skydiving or running or motocross or a myriad of other things I did before I had children and a wife to be concerned about. But I have an extremely short bucket list, so the regret pile is kinda tiny too!
Oilfield is perhaps, overall, the most demanding and risky of jobs in terms of potential injury. There are very many places you just should NOT stand on a drilling rig, so many things to know to work safely – and each rig is different. And teamwork and trust are required – ego gets folks killed, as seen in my little story.
Back when I worked at a new truck dealership saw a guy trying to remove the fuel tank from a brand new undelivered F-350 that had a faulty fuel pump in the tank. He didn’t defuel it first. Had it balanced on a transmission jack and was trying to remove the pump without completely removing the tank- to save time. The long slender tank got tippy, fell off the jack sideways, draining all the fuel onto the drop light and setting it all alight. Flaming gasoline ran down to the floor drains across the end of the shop and spreading out in two directions. The Fire Dept arrived as the last of about 20 large extinguishers were being emptied.
Damage was limited to the truck and paint on the shop doors and minor burns to the mechanic, who wasn’t fired, but was forever after known as “Burnt Monkey”.
Didn’t witness it but happened while I wss on terminal. An outside contractor was climbing one of the ship-to-shore cranes to work on the camera system. He was to climb a 20 ft vertical ladder to a platform where the elevator landed and ride the rest of the way up.
He was quite heavy and near the top of the ladder fainted or lost his grip and fell 20 ft to the dock.
He was still alive when they hauled him off but I heard he didn’t survive
A crewman on one of the container ships fell off the top of the stack of containers about 40 ft to the next stack below. Didn’t survive.
Some of you may remember the incident a few months ago in San Pedro where a police pursuit went onto a container terminal (the one I work at). The idiot the cops were chasing bailed out of the vehicle on the dock and climbed up to the top of a ship-to-shore crane. After messing around and acting the fool for a while he fell 160 ft to the deck of the ship below. At least we don’t have to support his dumb ass in prison.
I have a few safety rules, disobeying any of which will get a person fired on the spot. These address the areas that can kill. See above for examples. These are the rules:
No climbing on ANYTHING. Need something from up high, we have a safety cage.
No screwing around with electricity. That means do not alter anything, do not repair anything. We get qualified electricians for that, no matter how minor.
No one except certified fork lift operators operate fork lifts. Anyone caught riding the tines, ridee and driver get fired.
No screwing around with compressed air. Instant dismissal.
Sure, other things can take off a thumb, or hand, but generally do not kill. I cannot get rid of all risk, but so far, no one has died.