shop safety

[MMW]

Always a good time for a reminder. On Tuesday late I get a call from my son Tim's co-worker that they are at the ER. Tim cut his finger pretty bad. He works at a car resto shop & was removing clips from trim pcs. at his work table. Of course they were stuck & he was prying on them. One let go or his hand slipped, whatever & he slammed his hand into/onto the work table. Wouldn't have been so bad but just so happened he hit exactly on top of the open razor knife that was laying there. Sliced across the top of his thumb down to the bone. The worst part is he cut halfway through his top thumb tendon. Prognosis looks good for self healing, no surgery but he has to wear a special splint type thing for 6 weeks. Going to get him fitted for it today hopefully.

He's out of work until the splint is done & then he will be on "light duty" until doc gives o/k. I know we've all done things like setting things down not paying attention if it's pointy side up or not but we should be careful. He wasn't some idiot doing something plainly stupid. Just pulling on something that slipped & hit at the exact place to do damage.

Right now he's in the standard ER splint that looks like he's hitch hiking or giving thumbs up. Luckily it's his right hand & he is a lefty.

So hope you all work safely!

[JTR70]

Hey Mic,

Thanks for the reminder and very glad to hear that Tim did not sever the tendon! He was quite lucky! Unfortunately this is an all to common occurrence working out in the shop; just a moments lapse in attention or not wearing the proper protection and Bang! You're hurt before you're even aware of it! Reminds of a kid working in my mentors shop years ago who was hammering on a piece of metal over an anvil. The anvil is of course case-hardend and the hammer head is also treated, well he missed and hit the edge of the anvil fragmenting a sliver of it which went right into his eye like a bullet. Not wearing eye protecting of course. I remember like it was yesterday Greg looking at his eye under the light where there a bleeding slit just next to the pupil on the white of his eye. He swabbed it with a Q-tip and tried to find the fragment; could not find it so we assumed it bounced off somewhere. The next morning he woke up with his eye turning an off-green color so into see an opthomologist he went. After x-rays it was discovered the fragment stayed in and imbedded itself just thousands of inch from his optic nerve. This of course required surgery and the threat of losing vision in the eye. Fortunately for him he recovered. These days I always wear eye-protection and headphones when I grind or hammer. Hell I even use a respirator now when I grind. when I was young and invincible I wore none of those things. My best to Tim for a speedy recovery!
Justin

[roy mawbey]

Mic,

Sorry about your boy, so easy to happen and difficult for the next 6 weeks. You are right you have to be careful now for sure. I sprayed a 356C I owned in the 70's green. It was cellulose and I did it in a small garage. It filled with a green mist and after 30 minutes or so breathing it all in through a very basic mask I went outside because it was so hot and layed on the grass outside the garage. My neighbour looked from her window saw my green face and thought I was dead

I later bought the correct gear to do that work.

Eyes are so important to look after as mentioned above. In the late 50's as an apprentice toolmaker I had to clean some parts before assembly. We had a trichoethelyne bath which in which the tricho should boil and the resultant mist his held down in the bath by cold water pipes. The tricho was always covered by a guaze sheet. But not the day I used it. Would have been okay but I dropped something in the boiling tank! It went straight in my eye! Two years of hospital visits till it was okay but the scar still remains so lucky not to lose my eye. I wear protective glasses when ever possible doing work where things can fly up!

Roy

[tperazzo]

Speedy recovery for your son Mic and thanks for the reminder.

I've been to the ER for sliver of metal in my eye and it isn't fun. I was wearing eye protection, but not the goggle type. I was using a carbide burr on my small dremel to shape something on my 356....not sure what it was now and somehow a piece ricocheted into my eye.

Now I always wear goggles when working with metal.