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I sent a friend the link, here's his reply...
Jerry - Such things happen on occasion. You can tell these guys have never had that happen to them, because they pay absolutely no attention to what is going on above their heads. In the first 20 odd years I worked on and around the rigs, I was present on location when this - or something similar - happened at least 4 times. Even when I became a supevisor, I never cross the rig floor without stopping to look up to see what was above me. Drilling lines can break, and the brakes on the drawworks can fail, and I have seen clamps pop off the drum when there were not enough wraps on the drum to hold it friction wise. I have seen hooks unlatch when the jars at the bottom of the string fired while working pipe that was stuck in the hole, throwing the equipment which is latched in the blocks to drop. Things can fall off the equipment that is up there - I knew of a roughneck that was decapitated when a heavy piece of iron fell off the blocks when bolts vibrated off.
We had a saying about roughnecks: the quick and the dead. Those who were quick stayed around, those who "were dead" of any awareness above them never lasted: they couldn't seem to pick up on the rhythm of working around moving equipment.
Merry Christmas!
Jim
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