What's the worst thing that's happened to you in the workshop?

[grayson101]

I was working on the drill press with wood, just drilling small holes. and I raised the bit out, and there were compacted shavings still in the cracks on the bit, so I normally take my finer( bare handed) and just run it along side to knock it off. and I was wearing gloves because it was about 30 out side. and when I went to wipe the dust off my glove got caught in the drill when it was still on and it took my glove right off my hand and I thought I lost my finger right there, then I pulled my hand out and I had god watching over me because I didn't even have a scratch just heavy pants. if you know what I mean

[funflyer]

Not in my workshop but when I was 17 while at work in the machine shop. I just pulled a steel plate off the CNC mill and set it down on a pallet where the next plate was standing on edge. While I was removing the sling from the plate I just set down, the one on edge started to fall over. To this day I have no idea why I thought I could catch it in time to keep it from slamming down on the freshly machined piece, but I did. Well, my hand did break the fall and in the process my middle finger's knuckle landed directly on a 1/2" freshly drilled hole. If memory serves me correctly, these plates were about 15" x 25" x 2" thick so you can imagine the outcome. I immediately wrapped the finger in a shop towel and was taken to the ER for stitches. I remember the doctor showing me what a knuckle and tendons looked like as he lifted the flap of skin so he could pick out the loose cartilage.

[kb4mdz]

Stupidity, like highly contagious infectious diseases, is ultimately self limiting on a large, ecological scale.

[steve-cox]

Many years ago and the first of two Times I have been shocked once by 240 Volt the first time and the second time by a three phase Tig and the 240 volt was worse than the three phase which was 415 volt.

The first one was using an Italian Faro hanging grinder porting two stroke cylinders and it appears what happened was aluminium chips from porting somehow worked its way down into the foot control which was the style where you move the control sideways with your foot not like a pedal style as used on Tig Welders.

Well did it bite me conductivity was through the Right foot and all the way through the right hand, The end result was it threw me some thirty feet across the workshop and in the process I hit the Oxy Welding set knocking it over which then broke both the regulators off the bottles which were turned off at the bottle valves luckily.

Reason I made the last point about always turn Gas off at the bottles is a friend when doing his fitting and machining apprenticeship saw an accident where somebody knocked over a G size Oxygen Cylinder breaking off the gauge head the bottle valve was fully open and the bottle did a very good impersonation of a rampant Torpedo as it took off and ran through the factory wall (Sheet Metal) of not one but two factories then shot across a road narrowly missing passing traffic before embedding itself in an Earth embankment.

One can never be too careful and as with the foot control you can be bitten when least expected doing something not seemingly so dangerous.