Work accident witness...

[fredcraft]

****** WARNING TO THOSE WITH A FAINT HEART ******

Wow.....I still am under a nervous shock after what I just saw.... but I just have to talk about it....




















A new employee where I work (a poor bloke with no experience in the business) just lost an hand in big sanding machine... well not really the whole hand, let's just say that I could see the anatomical detail of every bone of the top of the hand from his wrist to the tips of the fingers...

It is a traumatizing reminder of the importance of health/safety when we work with ANYTHING that can hurt us.... So for all of us who like knives / axes / saws or any other sharps, I beg you all to use them with the utter most respect and caution because I wish to nobody here a grave accident by overconfidence ...

Anyhow, I'm s-orry for writing this, I just had to tell someone.... and, admins, if it's not appropriated feel free to censure/delete/move the post at your wish...

 

[sxmolloy]

Poor bloke and poor you to have to witness it. What sort of business do you work for Fred?

 

[fredcraft]

I'm an IT worker as we speak, on the way of becoming a carpenter. The place where I work at the moment does fiberglass cloth and laminates.

The machine in question takes big laminate rolls and sand fractions of millimeters to make sure the resulting laminate is corresponding to our customer's spec. The guy tried to mimic an experienced worker in a task that was not yet showed to him...

 

[wingstoo]

Thankfully the HSE has helped prevent so many incidents, but so many accidents can still happen.

Many years ago my Father saw a woman machine operator loose her ring finger in a metal punch and die set, she even managed to walk the entire length of the factory whilst leaking a fair bit until she finally fainted...

A work colleague some years ago who was a real stippler for safety jumped from the bottom deck of a scaffold rather than using the ladder to come down 5 feet, what he didn't see was the broom handle, well where it went was to say the least a "sensitive" part of the body, well it went in about 18 inches and he had some quite severe internal injuries and was off work for quite some time...And he didn't even sweep the floor on his way...:yikes:

LS

 

[fredcraft]

Thankfully the HSE has helped prevent so many incidents, but so many accidents can still happen.

Many years ago my Father saw a woman machine operator loose her ring finger in a metal punch and die set, she even managed to walk the entire length of the factory whilst leaking a fair bit until she finally fainted...

A work colleague some years ago who was a real stippler for safety jumped from the bottom deck of a scaffold rather than using the ladder to come down 5 feet, what he didn't see was the broom handle, well where it went was to say the least a "sensitive" part of the body, well it went in about 18 inches and he had some quite severe internal injuries and was off work for quite some time...And he didn't even sweep the floor on his way...:yikes:

LS

The guy was actualy awake all the time (adrenaline rush) waiting for the ambulance. It is a "good thing" it happened on the day shift. Would have happened on the night shift and hypoteticaly would have fainted, chances are that he would only have been found several hours later...

 

[BorderReiver]

Nasty one Fredcraft.uppy_dog

Make sure you have a "live" chat to someone about it.The shakes usually happen once you get home.

 

[Matt Weir]

Sorrry to hear that Fred. About 15 years ago I saw a bloke get his hand mangled under a hot press trying to free a stuck box without stopping the machine and I can still hear him screaming and picture the scene very clearly so it will take time for you to calm down mate.

Try to chill out and have a good chat to someone.

All the best,

 

[Greg]

Nasty business!!
A friend of mine had a rather nasty accident at work when he was splashed on the neck by hydroflouric acid - this stuff attacks and eats away at all the calcium in your body that it comes in contact with and is very deadly. He ended up being heli-vac'd to a hospital in Swansea. He's ok now but he was very lucky!

 

[fredcraft]

I spoke about it with a few people already, it helps my conscience. I have to say that at least I kept my head cold and didn't panic (which suprised me...) as I had to give information on the state of the guy to the paramedics that were on their way.


News from the hospitals came in about 15 minutes ago :
The guy still has his hand and will keep it... Major re-habilitation in sight, but at least it's not all gone. A relief I must say.

Thanks for your support folks, now I will go drink a pint of cold brew with some friends and send positive thoughts to the man.

 

[Matt Weir]

Glad to hear that mate. Go sink a few

 

[Greg]

You did well to keep your head fella, you can be proud of yourself for that!
I hope your colleague recovers from his ordeal.

 

[dommyracer]

I feel for you Fred, its not a nice thing to see.

I was once witness to a very serious car accident, I was riding in the car with my cousin at the time.

I was very much up to date with first aid training at the time, and my cousin was a nurse in the Army.

Instinct took over and she stopped the car and jumped out straight away, I followed her in.
We did what we could to help the injured occupants (including an emergency trach and a few bones sticking out) until the ambulance arrived.

It wasn't until a few hours afterwards that what I had seen actually hit home. Thankfully my cousin had seen a fair few nasty injuries in her time and so knew how I was feeling.

Hope you and the work colleague are okay...

 

[BOD]

Fred,

You make sure you keep talking about it to friends and anyone who will listen. Not just the gory bits but how you feel/felt.

BR is right - just talk it out of your system and if a beer helps go for it.

I did an SAR some years ago in WA - it was the worst loss of life in decades in the state and kids died as well. It took us all a few years to forget about it

Greg,

Your mate is very lucky. My former housemate at uni died several years ago after it spilt on him. The ambulance service treated it as low priority as the despatcher wrote Hydrochloric Acid instead of Hydrofluoric

 

[ArkAngel]

As an ex-chef i saw some good ones in my time (and have a few self inflicted scars of my own too).

One that sticks in my mind was the trainee who had spent a fortune on "Global" knives (Like my own). He knocked a large new and very sharp knife off the table, he then went to grab it and took off the ends of all of his fingers (about 3-4mm off each tip).

When he came back to work to fill in the accident book (i was the first aider at the time) i asked him why he went to grab it....

...the reply was "that damn thing was £120, my fingers will grow back!"