I barely even know where to begin on close calls. You try to be careful but sometimes things just happen. This one was based on getting stupidly careless for a few minutes; nothing more.
One evening I decided to go cut out a part on the metal lathe. It was chilly, I was wearing a loose fitting, knitted sweater, and this job should only take 20 minutes or so. What could go wrong…
So after chucking up a piece of metal I engaged the power feed for the compound and as I moved my left arm the loose fitting sleeve got caught on the chuck. The mind had been on the right arm and ignoring what the left was doing.
It was set on the slowest RPM so luckily there was no more damage done than a badly wrenched shoulder before the sleeve tore open.
For a split second all I saw from close range was that spinning chuck near my face.
A bit shaken, I just turned the lathe off and cursed myself for wearing loose fitting clothes around machinery; something I knew full well is a no-no.
Worst close call I ever had took so much stupidity on my part I almost don’t want to admit to it. “Young & dumb”.
Before I was a mechanic I worked at a few tire shops that did a lot of truck, farm & off-the-road stuff. Sometimes a 14 wheel dump truck with a 3/4 load of stone-- you had to use 2 or 3 bottle jacks to do a flat repair. So one day when a single axle 2 ton stake body truck came in, unloaded, for 4 new tires on the rear–it didn’t seem like a big deal. I left the truck in neutral since leaving it in gear wouldn’t have helped because of the drive wheels being off the ground anyway.
Truck was on a level concrete pad outside. I neglected to chock the front wheels.
I jacked 'er up & replaced the tires. I let the L/R hub down & got that bottle jack out OK but when I released the bottle jack that was holding up the R. side of the rear axle–because of the different diameter of the new tires compared to the old (retread truck tires back then were notorious for not being the correct overall diameter)–the different diameters caused the R/R tires to be still a hair off the ground. So I figured I’d re-jack it & put a couple 2X4’s under the R/R tires for clearance. We had to actually get under some of these trucks to jack 'em up, since all we had sometimes were bottle jacks as opposed to air jacks that extended under the frame of the truck. So I’m lying right in front of the 2 R/R tires re-jacking. I thought, Hmm, not smart to have my body scrunched next to the tires. Maybe better to be lying longitudinally under the center of the truck. That’s what I did but I hadn’t properly centered the 2X4’s under the tires. When I let the jack down, the truck, being in neutral & un-chocked, rolled off the 2X4’s & traveled about 10 feet forward–with me under it! Untouched, I scampered over & engaged the tranny & park brake. I made a mental note to always, always chock the wheels some how some way, every time, no exceptions.
I didn’t feel scared but when I went inside to get a drink of water I found myself shaking like a leaf. Normal, I figured.
If I’d let the jack down while laying against the R/R tires I wouldn’t be making this post.
I keep a stock of 6x6 & 4x4 timber on hand and use those as backup to the jack stands. I guess this is like insurance, when you have it you don’t need it. For me the worst thing that happened was removing a front brake rotor on a VW Rabbit. Hammer, no good. Propane torch, no good. Trying to decide what to do next, underneath the car, the rotor just fell off by itself. Landed flat on my leg. Not a big deal, it isn’t that heavy. Until I realize it is very hot. Sizzle … Nothing too serious, but I had marks matching the lug holes in the rotor branded to my leg for about 6 months.
Had a split rim 20" truck wheel assembly seperate and strike me in the center of the head took seven stitches and sort of messed my forearm up,but I think someone must have been looking out for me,this could have easily killed me(learned to always safety chain those things when messing around with them-they have claimed many lives)I don’t even like to put air in truck tire because the chucks we have you have to manually hold them on and 100-105 psi exploding in your face is not pleasant to say the least-Kevin
You’re very, very lucky kmccune. The 21 year old son of a very long time friend of mine was killed instantly by an exploding truck tire about 10 years ago and he was using a safety cage at the time.
It’s very sad because I knew that kid since the day he was born. The death soon led to a divorce when the step-mother could not take anymore of my friend considering the act of ending his life due to grief. It took a long time to learn how to cope with the tragedy and there is never any “closure”; an irritating phrase batted around in the media a lot which seems to denote flipping a switch and things are good from then on.
Had a friend, thought he blinded himself after trying to get a break spring on with a screwdriver, it slipped then whammo I can’t see!, lucky for him he had only pushed the lower eyelid into the upper! Safety glasses rule! @GeorgeSanJose and @kmmccune Glad tou are here with us today, mean I caould talk about a few things, but your stories are monumental. Sure my biggest problem now is why I get plug voltage zap on the boat I assume. I’ll make a new thread!
The tire shop I used to go to had a cage that they put truck tires in when inflating them. Heard many bad stories and don’t even like to be near them on the road. When I was a kid our neighbor had a bulk oil truck with the split rims. Had one come off on him and he was laid up with broken bones for over six months.
Well thanks for the support,have heard horror stories about people getting seriously hurt airing them up, I may be wrong but I dont think this type of rim is made for trucks anymore,they may make an multi piece rim for heavy equipment now,because those beasts would be everything but impossible to seat manually,those ramps that the Guys showed were made with a defect from the get go.I would never get under something constructed that weak( a pity about the days when you crawl under the old F-100 and do a lot of repairs without even jacking it up)-Kevin
When I was a kid and gas stations were full service there used to be a Texaco where dad always bought gas, had flats fixed, and so on.
As was the norm, there was a roughly 6 foot tall concrete block wall separating the 2 service bays.
One of the guys who worked there spent almost a month in the hospital after a tractor tire exploded. He was torn up pretty badly and was lucky to have even lived.
I remember going to the station with my dad and seeing the damage. About 2/3 of that concrete wall separating the 2 bays had been turned to rubble along with almost everything in the bay where the tire blew up. It blew out all of the windows and about half of the overhead door on that bay.
The air"spring" in compressed air can release a good amount of energy in a short period of time,most explosives dont contain a great amount of energy,but can release that energy in an instant(heard that a gallon of gas contains the power of 8 sticks of dynamite)-Kevin
there was a kid in our structural steel shop who tried to tack weld a handle on the valve of an acetylene tank, they had detachable handles then. luckily a co-worker saw him strike the arc and stopped him before it got too hot. ARE YOU OUT THERE RICHIE POWELL. he thought all old people were stupid and evolution made younger people smarter. idiot
I quit one of my first jobs in a gas station ( they did full repairs back then) when the boss told me to wash down the bay floors when I closed up with gasoline because he was out of solvent.
Two weeks before that two guys were blown through a gas station wall in Niagara Falls doing just that. The one that survived said he saw a wrench dropping off the pegboard to the steel workbench and that was the last thing he saw until he woke up in the hospital.
I worked for a trucking company in the 60s and 70s that had a large repair and tire shop. There was one tire guy who did nothing but mount, repair, and change tires. I was walking through the shop when I heard the shop manager yell at him to put the tire he was inflating in the cage he had just bought for that purpose. The tire guy was looking back over his shoulder yelling back that he had been doing it this way for years, still airing the tire when the split rim let go and went through a concrete block wall 20 foot away.
@kmccune: I’ve heard that “LiPo” or lithium-ion polymer batteries (such as the battery in your laptop or cell phone) contain about the same energy density as TNT. (fortunately they cannot release it as fast, even under extreme conditions that cause fires) If you’re bored hunt around youtube for “lithium ion short circuit”
I’ve taken a torch to a few gas tanks but what I’ve usually done is run a hose from the exhaust pipe of a running car into the filler neck of the tank. The exhaust will force the oxygen out.
About 30 years ago 2 guys were welding on a gasoline tanker belonging to an oil field company near where I live and did not take any safety precautions.
The resulting explosion obliterated the large metal shop building and both of those guys who were on top of the tanker.