Thread: Job accidents .

Had a 4" angle grinder with a tungsten carbide blade go straight into my bicep whilst cutting up a battery bank in the basement of an ANZ bank. Cut straight through the muscle, knicked an artery, blood squirting in the air every where. 25 internal stitches and 25 external, a bit of plastic surgery and physio and still works fine

Most painful bit was the physio, imagine cutting your bicep in half, having it stitched back together, the 5 weeks later the physio trying to straighten your arm, i can still feel the muscle tearing, **** that hurt

6.5 rangie, A good mate of mine blew his shoulder out and after the recon needed my help (on direction from the physio) to rotate his shoulder and assit in moving it through its whole range of movement for a few weeks. I can still hear the solidified fluid cracking and breaking up..............

I can only imagine what physio on a stitched up muscle would feel like.

well working in the building game for a few yrs now

i have heaps of story's about scaffold leaping to safety

makes for good conversation around a fire..........

No I don't want to go into the horror of the trauma room - but there are some awful injuries.

Kellog's at Botany, cooked one of their apprentices, almost 100% burns - the worst thing was that the poor fellow lived for a few hours.

A building larourer, had a nail from a Ramset nail gun (used 22 cal cartridges to power the device) the nail went through a crack in the floor above and into this guys shoulder, through his lung, nicked the inferior vena cava, through the diaphragm, through the stomach and was lost in the small bowel.

Another building construction worker fell from height and impalled his thigh and abdomen on a cyclone fence pole.

Garbo got caught in the compactor horrific injuries but the worst of it was the putrid state of everything.

I can go on but wont.

Diana

Grass cutting using Ride on lawnmower - big toe cut (blades not engaged but "spooling down") - toenail turned black, was removed, toe stitched.

Another ride on mower (this one was a "Rover") - engine fire, minor damage to clothing.

I guess I've come off quite lightly

some people whove followed me around have unoffically nicknamed me the crash test dummy as Ive walked away nearly unscathed from almost everything that should have deformed or killed me.

my acutal breakages are from

1. left clavical, broke it coming out of the 4th turn of an outdoors velodrome only to find a bank of asians walking the track (why they were walking on a signposted cycles only track I will never know) in the wrong direction I headed up the bank aiming to hit the ramped back slope but wound up going over the cut away for the lighting poles and slapped straight into is, relvent as I was a push bike courrier at the time.

2. broke my left middle finger after lashing down a load, put my hand on a box of vertically standing pipes that were about 3-4 foot long with flanges on them and knocked one, it moved away, swung back and just caught the edge of my finger between the flange and the box I yanked it back in pain and now have a free floating chip on the end of my finger.


Ive fallen off of stages, armoured vehicles and truck trailers, Ridden a tipping crane to the ground (mobile crane that rolled while being driven from lift site to lift site) been zapped, nearly shot (civilian rifle range where the ranges cross and there was a double booking), hit by large farm animals and occasionally vehicles.

My wife being a nurse in casualty at the time in Pietermaritburg treated a "local" who had tried to rob a store and pulled out a gun from his pants and was now missing half a pecker.

many stupid injuries and accidents over the last 25 years. from electric shocks, (not so many in recent years, but back when i was invincible, quite a few "one handed" shocks), back injuries, nails thru the foot, screwdrivers thru hand, all of these i survived with minimal or no permanent damage.
the worst one i ever had was with my present employer, about 10 years ago we were doing infrastructure work for foxtel and this particular day i was out around nth parramatta. my collegues from Telstra were running late and i needed to get some gas for my burner so i went down to BBC in church street in Parra. on my way back i was motoring along in a econovan that was woefully underpowered doing roughly 50 or 55 km/h, approaching the intersection where pennant hills rd meets church street and windsor rd i noticed an old man with walking stick and a teenage girl waiting to cross at the next set of lights.
the girl, about 14 yrs old, ran out to the median strip and she was looking away from me up pennant hills rd, at this stage, i was about 1- 1+1/2 car lenghts away from the traffic light pole she was leaning on. as the lights on the top of the pole disappeared from view due to my roof, i saw them turn orange, at this exact moment something hit the front of my van right in front of the steering wheel. i got showered with broken glass and although i can't remember what happened next, i can only assume that i turned my body away from the shower of glass, at the same time pulling the wheel to the left and hitting the brake.
as the van skidded to a halt sideways within the width of two lanes of the side street, i saw the girl that was standing on the median strip hit the ground in a crumpled heap about 20 meters away.
luckily for the girl, and for me as witnesses, the line of traffic waiting at the lights opposite was full of doctors and nurses on their way to westmead hospital.
the old man and several witnesses came forward to the police and explained to them what had happened and that there was no chance in the world that i could have done anything to avoid hitting her.
while i quickly came to terms with what had happened and with the help of one of my friends, a psychiatric nurse, i don't carry any blame on myself and i am convinced that my actions in no way influenced the situation.
she lived, but the hospital would not release any details other than tha night she was serious but stable.
i do however, have that image of the girls body landing on the road burnt into my mind and i will never forget that. i am more aware than most people of potential hazards from the side of the road and tend to be ready to jump on the brakes at the slightest sign of a kid that is either not paying attention or not under full control of it's parent.