Was very lucky today.

[Henry W]

Since 1966 I been using a table saw with no incident. Today I was ripping some 3/4" plywood on the Delta Unisaw and I lost concentratoin and nicked the tip of my thumb with the blade by pulling my hand back after ripping one piece. The blade just cut through the callused part and just touched the sensitive underlayer of skin. The immediate reaction is to pull the hand back and that is exectly what I did. This would of not happened if I had the guard on it saw. As a fool I been so used to working without the guard on. Sometimes the guard just gets in the way but most of my cutting the gaurd can be used. Well I made some nice push sticks for now. I will need to look for the guard mounting bracket and if I can't find it I will order one.

I was one lucky fool. I sat down for a while and thought about what happened. It could of been much worse.

My tip of the day it work smart and use the gaurds on power equipment.

Henry

[glort]

I'm a bit more blasie.  You have been doing that 45 years and had one incident. Sure it could have been worse who is to say that had you taken all the precautions the same thing or worse may not have occurred anyway?
The thing was maybe by mere muscle memory, you didn't really hurt yourself and you will probably be ultra aware of what you are doing for the next 45 years now. 

I take risks and do silly things. If I get bitten I won't complain. What I complain endlessly about is what does hurt me are the things with zero risk that even the most painful safety zealot wouldn't see coming.  Ceiling fans are going to be the cause of me loosing a digit. How many times have I gone to put a shirt on and in doing so stik my had in ceiling fan and copped a hit?  I have woken up to it at home now but going to friends places and even hotels I have been wacked more times than my  fingers care to remember.

Guess I'll start have to wear safety gear when I get dressed!

Yesterday was a classic.  Had the big burner going melting aluminium.  Had it up a bit high and noticed the melted metal spraying out on the concrete.  Even started a couple of little fires on the piles of dead leaves in the corners. I didn't bother to put them out as there was nothing but cement to burn.
I was pushing bits of molten metal around with steel bars and doing other things that would have the safety nutters going off their brains.
Didn't get a burn or a scratch.

Shut the thing down, cleaned up and went to come inside. as I was about to step onto the patio, I stepped on a single piece of gravel, twisted my ankle, went down like a sack of spuds and just touched one of the metal patio benches with the side of my head as I went down. Where the hell the bit of gravel came from I have no idea but I'm a sore boy today. Hurt my ankle, knee and elbow and damn near nearly split my skull like a melon.

Another one a couple of weeks ago, I was playing with an induction motor I had set up as a generator and was running 400+ volts. I was changing caps and wiring while it was all live knowing one slip would not be a good result and didn't get a tingle.  I decided to change the drive belt setup and then went to drill out a cable end because it wouldn't fit over the terminal. Using a cordless drill, I put the cable on a bit of wood so as not to dull the drill when it went through and held the end with some pliers.  Somehow, the Drill  snagged pulled the cable out of the pliers, caught my thumb and wrapped the cable round my finger and the drill bit crushing the thumbnail which went numb and turned black before the pain set in that made me dizzy.  Never happened to me before and I still don't know what I did wrong.
I have had several people now ask whey I painted my fingernail though given how black it is.   

It drives me nuts. I do things I know are dangerous and have great potential for pain and injury and I never get a scratch.  Do some every day zero risk factor activity and I come to grief!
Ugggh!

At the end of the day, I believe that you can take every precaution and if something is going to happen, it will.

If there is one thing that's making me want to scream, it's every single time I look at something on the net be it a youtube vid or on a forum where someone is doing something DIY, it's the moron idiots crapping on about safety. I'm seriously beginning to hate the word.

To be insulting, I don't know whether it is just some American brainwashed cultural thing or that people feel compelled to say something when they haven't got a clue about the subject at hand, but all this safety crap is driving me insane.
Ya know what? I don't give a damn if someone hurts themselves. I don't know them, will happen anyway ( or not) and it's no skin off my nose or any other part of my body. There are idiots out there that shouldn't be allowed to breed and I'm a big believer in the process of natural selection.  The funny things is, you never see anyone whining about safety on Vids of kids trying to skateboard off the roof of a house ( another American Proclivity, what is it with kids and leaping off roofs?) But a guy goes to water the lawn and people are proposing he should be wearing PPE!

I tend to give people credit though. Like me, theres a real good chance they know what they are doing, have done it 100 times before and unlike the whining safety zealots, they probably have both a brain and the ability to do something for themselves.  Also like me, if they get hurt, that's life. You roll the dice, you take your chances and YOU assume the risk and don't blame anyone else if you stuff up.
You can sit on the couch eating Bon Bons all day or you can go and get the satisfaction of doing something and creating things of use and fun.

The way a lot of these safety sissys are, no one would do a thing from themselves. I often wonder if these safety whingers are game to leave the house but I suspect they are ignorant enough to do things that would scare the pants ff the people they whine to because they are too ignorant to see the risk in what THEY are doing.
By the same token, I have also seen the safety nutters ask for " Plans" ( WTF is it with Americans and " Plans" anyway?)  for DIY endeavours that were no more complicated than nailing 2 bits of wood together.  My standard reply to these people is " If you don't know how to do it from looking at the pictures, that's telling you not to do it because you will create a danger for yourself and others by your lack of any practical ability."  And boy, doesn't that bit of truth upset them!   

Anyway, end rant.
One day I might really hurt myself but I have got this far without any trips to the hospital so I'll  do as I do now, stop, think about what I'm doing, have a look for the dangers and risks and do the job without incident.....  then hurt myself on something like walking down the driveway to go inside or pulling on a T shirt.   

[LowGear]

I've gotten hurt a couple of times.   I usually run into someone the next day that has scars that make my teaser scab look like a joke.  And I'm usually doing something I should be old enough to know better.

Thanks for the heads up.

Casey

[vdubnut62]

Welcome to the club!  I have an odd shaped, and "funny" feeling left thumbtip from the same tomfoolery.
No pushstick, what a dumbass thing to do. Oh yes, it could have been much worse.
Ron.

[highwater]

How many times have I gone to put a shirt on and in doing so stik my had in ceiling fan and copped a hit?

sorry buddy.
had to laugh with you on this one.

Mostly 9 ft ceilings in my house.
was out at my daughters place the other day doing some plumbing.
hers are lower than 8 ft.
right shoulder up and forward to wipe sweat  from forehead
got hand n the ceiling fan.
knuckle still reminds me.

Randall

[glort]

Laugh with or at me.
Someone may as well get some enjoyment from my pain and stupidity!
I sure as hell haven't.   

[Tom Reed]

A former boss was trying to convince to cut some 3/8" aluminum plate on a table saw. While he was showing me how well it worked he nicked his thumb. Needless to say I declined to engage in that project.

[LowGear]

My favorite safety class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw-jTCNZSmY

Casey

[rcavictim]

My favorite safety class:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw-jTCNZSmY

Casey

Another who believes in the principle of 'learn by doing'.  I respect that!   

[AdeV]

I have a couple of milling machines - a CNC one and an ordinary one. The CNC one sprays oil around like its going out of fashion, so I bought some safety guards for it. Well, due to a mix-up on eBay, I ended up with 2 sets of guards; so I figure what the hell, I'll put one set on my manual mill.

Bugger me if I didn't scrape my arm (drawing blood) twice on the damn things, walked into them, headbutted them more than once, and scuffed my knuckles on the damn things trying to change tooling or whatnot. They hurt me so badly I took the buggers off the mill and put them on the floor where now I trip over them at least once a week.

Health and safety, my arse.

Oh, and the CNC machine? Yeah, I put the good set of guards on that; but you have to mount them so far out front of the machine, the oil simply sprays around just like it always did, and now the machine keeps trying to shove me into the lathe. I need to push it back a couple of feet so I've got some more room.