Crazy/Insane Shop Accidents

Iwas outside when it happened, but I heard the crash and lots of swearing. I looked into the shop to see a new Volvo on its roof between the lift uprights. I walked by the bosses office and heard him on the phone"Mr. **** , we had a small problem with your wifes car...........No sir, no real trouble, other than what color does your wife want her new one?"

 

Got my shirt sleeve stuck in a fly cutter on a bridgeport. Wrapped me up into the cutter and had to stall out the motor to get help to get my arm out. Thank god it was only spinning 500rpm and my co-worker heard my cry for help...

Spoons

 

I looked at this the other day and decided that I was not going to comment about anything in the past,,,and damn,,,If i didn't smash the crap outta my thumb last night trying to remove a race from a hub,,,

Round piece of stock,,3 pound sledge hammer and one bloody thumb,,,the shop floor looks like I was painting something red and the paint gun was leaking,,,,damn,damn,,,damn..... HRP

 

When I was in high school auto shop another kid had a dead battery. The teacher tells hin "hook up the battery charger to it, and I'll be over there in a minute to help you." A couple minutes later the student comes back and tells the teacher the plug on the charger won't fit the wall socket. There was a good reson the plug on the "charger" wouldn't fit...It was a 220 volt Lincoln Welder!

 

Hey! I had one of those Umbilical Hernia operations a few years back...

 

I fought the saw and the saw won........

 

Wow, where to start. Used to work in a corvette restoration shop and I was given the nickname "Super Dave" (not a good thing). The one that hurt physically the most was when I was working on dismantling a 60 corvette. Had almost all of the interior out of the car including the grab bar but not side brackets the hold it. I was tucked up under the dash removing the windshield frame bolts with a 1/4" ratchet and socket when the socket came off. The first reaction is to get out of the way of the falling object. Not always a good idea when the falling object weights 2oz and the steel bracket sticking out of the dash is securely mounted. I did slice my head open and have caught a lot of socket in the face since then.

 

My buddy and i were going to swap a 351 into his 88 ranger. the ranger was parked on a hill on the side of my buddies property with blocks behind itwe got his van and a tow strap and we were going to pull it onto the driveway i went and got in the truck to steer as he was baking the van down the hill to hook up the strap. i yelled i needed the keys to unlock the steering wheel so he just jumps out of the van and throws it into park....well before he could even make it out the door the van slips into reverse and he tries to jump back in with his right leg to hit the brake but the van ran over his leg. all of the sudden i look up and saw that the door was shut and this 2005 econoline with its reverse lights on hauling a** at me i just stayed in the truck well the van hit the truck at an angle and started pushing me into the woods i was standing on the brake luckily the front wheels of the truck were not point straight so the truck veered off and flipped onto its side in a ditch while the van smacked a tree busting the back doors and glass. haha i was laughing my a** off.
this same friend was over at my house working on his truck while i was welding, he pulled his truck right next to where i was and started working on it i was like dude im going to be grinding and you dont want that hitting your windows......2 weeks later after it rained he had a rusty window haha.
this is the same kid that dropped ran out of gas on the dragstrip and dropped my 352 on himself just pushing it across the shop.
one more good one
this same kid again had this 4cyl mustang we called the muskrat i was wasting some old tires on the galaxie so he had to do a burnout too. 2 weeks earlier he had to buy a new battery bc the other one fell into the fan blades so thinking that he learned his lesson the first time and tied his new battery down i didnt think anything would happen....so he jumps in and does a burn out as the car lurches forward i hear a grinding sound and smell and acid smelling smoke haha he did it again after that before he finally bought a tie down

 

My hubby was tuning on his engine, it backfired while he was standing over it and caught his arms on fire. I am screaming and running for the hose, and he is running the opposite way yelling at me to put the damn truck out!!! Needless to say, he had no hair left on his arms for a while. After that we quit for the night and started drinking beer.

 

I had only been in the shop for 15 mins when I decided to cut the bottom 4 inches off a 35 chevy grill, I put a fresh 6 inch diameter metabo slicer on my grinder with no gaurd, 2 minutes later I was being rushed to hospital because the grinder had kicked back and cut my index finger 95% off A pin in the bone 22 stitches and 5 horrible hours later I was back Home.

 

Of all the crazy shit my friend John did, the only time he got hurt
was when he was sorta trying to be safe.
He was airing up a truck tire (at about 120 psi) and had the good
sense to put the split rim down but not enough sense to chain it.
He was leaning over it when the split ring blew off.
The tire caught him under the chin and his head and the tire made
a dent in the 10' ceiling.
Had his jaws wired shut for 6 weeks.
If it was anybody else it would have ripped their head off.

This is the same guy that used to slice dynamite like pepperoni, put a couple of slices in a match box and shoot at it till it blew.
Same guy that ran a power takeoff shaft with out a guard.
It grabbed the hammer loop on his pants and stripped him as clean as a newborn babe but with no damage to him.
He had his Mom stitch them back up and he wore them again.
He used to say that those were his "lucky pants".
John was a farmer and got sick so he thought he would use a little cow penicillin to solve the problem. It killed all the bacteria in his intestines and he almost died from diarrhea. Only a week in the hospital that time.
I could write a book about all the bonehead stuff he did.
Even so, when it came to creating anything mechanical, he was the smartest guy I ever knew.
He died in bed of massive heart failure at 57 and other than the incidents above he was never sick a day in his life. The world is a less interesting place without him.

 

this isnt so much of a accident but more of a prank. anyway this guy that works at the shop i hang around at had an old ford truck with a flathead in it. the thing was a peice of sh*t but never missed a beat. i looked out the window and saw him walking across the parking lot with my optima red top. when i approached him about it he called me every kind of no good son of a bitch there was for calling him a theif while he was putting my battery back in!!!! anyway this guy had taken so much stuff from ppl over the years. he would steal lightning and grab at thunder. i had enough when a 4160 holley i had got stolen and decided to get him back. i went down to the machine shop and got a coffee can full of metal shavings and poured them down the carb......the damn thing never missed a beat haha it ran fine haha finally i just took a bottle of dawn dish soap to the oil.....that stopped it and the stealing.
one of my buddies had just put the motor in his mach 1 and started it up and it would run at about 2000rpm but no lower what the hell? i was like its got to be a vaccum leak he checked all the lines and they were fine i put my hand on the carb while leaning to look at something and the damn thing moved i actuall picked it up a little, well there is your problem....i would call that a vaccum leak haha
another friend was in my house and my dads .38 special was sitting on the coffee table i was loaded and my buddy grabbed it and unloaded it one by one instead of just pushing the rod in the front and ejecting all 6 he pulls them out one by one....anyway i sawe him coulting them and didnt pay anyattention next thing i know he points it in the air and starts pulling the trigger, during this time im on the phone with my grand mother. next thing i know on the thrid trigger pull BOOM. right into the roof not 10 min before my dad gave us a huge speech on how unloaded gus kill ppl

 

Crap...
I'll betcha donut there's an insurance HAMB'er reading this and taking names...
WTF are you guys thinking posting all this stuff?
Jeff
(Typing this with my 3 good fingers)

 

Had an guy trying to help push a car in the shop. He put his hands on the back tire, left hand went up between the tire and 1/4 panel, then out the other side, came out skinless on top. The shop dog came over and immediately scarfed down the skin flap.

 

i was adjusting the timing on my 53 chevy and got zapped by one of the old cracked sparkplug wire which caused my elbow to jerk right into the fan blade,which unlike newer cars has no fan clutch ta stop it from spinning.
it cleanly shaved off a 5/16 inch prime cut of elbow and for the next few months i had what looked like a big slice of pepperoni on my elbow that cracked open and started oozing nasty looking stuff every time i bent it

 

Ok, here’s some more. One of the first times I was changing oil I was pulling on the wrench while taking out the drain plug. Well, the wrench slipped off and I stabbed myself right between the eyes. It was bad enough to get stitches and the resulting scar looked like the “VW” logo without the circle around it.
I was watching my dad move cars around the junkyard when he ran over the edge of a bumper. It flipped up and you could see it fly into one side of the cab on the forklift while pop was flying out the other side.
Once I was working under a car using the forklift to hold it up and this crazy Cajun who worked there needed the forklift too. He assured me that we could prop it up with a driveshaft, but luckily I was skeptical. I knew that the yard used to be a swamp and still had a pretty high water table. As soon as he dropped the forks the shaft punched through the crust and the car drove it completely into the ground in about two seconds. I explained to him about the swamp and he decided that he had been pretty lucky since that was SOP for him.

 

Most recently, I was using a wire wheel on a drill with the trigger locked down position to strip some paint. I had a fan behind me and my t shirt was flapping in the breeze...you can see this one coming. Yeah, the shirt gets snagged by the ww and the rodeo begins. It jerked the drill out of my hand, twisted the t shirt into a tightly packed ball and everytime it came around the handle would hit my ribs, arms, stomach and finally the parting shot to the groin. Hello Chris Farley! About the most dangerous was when I was about 16 and changing a tire on my dad's 1967 Ford Country Squire Stationwagon. It's up in the air and I'm sitting on the ground with my legs spread apart. I don't know what happened buy the car fell and the rearend landed right between my legs. That was scary, nothing was hurt and I tell you, I never did that again. Be careful, safety first!

 

Ok, I got one that doesn't involve a whole lot of pain...........but was funny as fuck 5 minutes after it happened.......still is after 15 years!

So, I'm drilling some holes in the wheelhouse on an old Landcruiser and needed a bit more pressure to compensate for a dull drill bit. Okay, just lean into it a bit. Being the rebellious rockstar wanna-be that I was, I had hair a bit past nipple length.

Next thing I know, my face is getting closer to this piece of metal and something is pulling my hair! Yup, you guessed it...........I had a 3/8" drill stuck to the side of my head! Walked into the house to ask my girlfriend for help........"Uh, honey, I got a minor problem here". Yeah, she laughed her fucking ass off! Took forever to get that thing loose from my head without cutting my hair, especially with both of laughing the whole time!

To this day, that drill still has hair between the chuck and the motor.

Safety really is important, as we all know, and not to be taken lightly. Still, there is some funny shit in this thread! The ones without serious injury are the funny ones.

Tim D.

 

I knew a kid right out of highschool that was doing a brake job on the front of his car. He knew not to stick his legs under the car, so he was squating. Then sat cross-legged. The sat kind of sideways to the car with his legs stretched out in front of him parrallel to the car. Then kneeled. Finally, looking for a more comfortable position, he stretched his legs out under the car while he squarely faced the rotor he was working on.
At the time, he was a volunteer fireman, and his dad was a full-time fireman at the same station house. Dad and the rest of the guys got to come out and lift the car off Junior's leg, which was broken in three places.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again--if the wheel is off the car, stick it under the frame.
-Brad

 

A little O/T but here's a couple of funny ones....

When I was a kid the old bloke next door owned a tourer, 27-28 Chev I think. He also owned a home delivery business, and used to go to the markets real early in the morning. The car was always crank started, and it was in excellent condition, so it always started first turn on the handle. Anyway one morning there's this dreadful noise coming from his yard. Seems kitty had decided the top of the warm engine block was a great place to spend a cold night, but was still there, sound asleep, when pop came out and fired up the old motor next morning. It took days to clean all the bits of kitty out of the engine bay.

I worked in a car yard in the 70's, and we had a Chrysler sedan in the showroom with a 318 V8 in it. Typically, it had a sticking valve, so the mechanic decided to fix the problem by pouring a can of some sort of oil into the carby with the engine revving hard. Fixed the sticking valve alright, but it took almost all day to clear the air inside the showroom, the smoke from the burnt oil was so dense you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Cheers, Glen.

 

this was gross enough the first time around but Im sure resurrecting it will present use with some new stories. Ewwwww....

 

I could tell you about a few. There was a dumb ass neighbor that thought he would use the ditch in front of his house to drive across to change the u-joints on his old pickup this way he did not have to jack it up. When he pulled the last of the u bolts out of the rear end yoke guess what, he did not have a parking brake and the truck began to roll so he grabbed the yoke to stop it and yelled at the top of his lungs until he dad came out and saved him.

I was once doing a quick repair on a bracket I needed for the radiator I pillaged from a local junk yard, I was using a bench grinder when the pull over hooded sweat shirt I was wearing got the draw strings caught in the grinder wheel and pulled my face into the spinning grinding wheel, it took a long time for that skin graft to heal on my cheek.
Then I thought back about that dumb ass neighbor...he walked away un harmed ......

 

Dude if you ever enter my shop tell me who the hell you are so I can get all my shit off the lifts and onto the ground.You my friend are bad luck to a guy with a lift>>>>.

 

A little off topic, but just remembered a night a long time ago with all these stories.
We are just hanging out one night, one guy has this biker who started up by the long goatee. It is a really long one so the goatee is wrapped around his left fist, and he is pounding the biker in the face while they are both standing up. We are kind of drunk just watching the bikers head jerk back and forth with each blow as the slack of his goatee is taken up at the end of each punch over and over, a strangish site. All of a sudden the biker goes flying back and is rolling around on the ground. The other guy is just standing there holding something in his left hand he is looking at in a really puzzled way. We are puzzled too, then realize the biker's goatee and skin from his faced just ripped off his face, like scalped.
Very bloody and odd.
I guess the moral of the story is those goatees are not good to have if you are going to cause trouble, and for this site it would be watch that goatee around the lathe or other equipment.
wil
www.sakowskimotors.com

 

Ahhhhh shit, I always wondered if that would happen to someone, I saw it happen to some dude who tried to jump a guy I know with a knife. Only thing is the dude had dreadlocks and the guy I know ripped a handful of them out when he came after him, grousome.

 

Stuffed a 4" angle grinder into my chin, clean to the bone, nice scar but i had to grow a goatee beard.......i keep it short.......Peace

 

When I was a kid....I built this go-kart using a motorcycle engine and rear axle (200x Honda ATC)....the darn thing ran like a scaldid dog !!

Anyway, one afternoon, I decided to test drive it before it was complete (no brakes, vise-grips holding on floor)...later found out no steering wheel nut either!!!)......

So I jumped on and had my buddies push start me. So I'm flying down the road, going thru the gears. Reach the end of the street, and turn around head back home, and all my buddies watching me. As I am bouncing down the road, I went to pull my-self up on the seat and the flipp'n steering wheel comes off.....as I am panicing to get the splines lined up I look up and crash into (or under) a parked Granada. As I awaken (after a few moments of being out).....I looked around and realise what had just happened. Push the kart away from the bumper, and attempt to stand up....As soon as I put weight on my right foot.....EEEEYYYYOOOOOOWWWW !!!!.....fell to the ground. Buddies ran to my assistance and rushed my to he ER....I had snapped my foot right in half, and was in a cast, with pins for 6-months. I was lucking the steering shaft didn't go thru my neck/chest !!!

I eventually finished the go-kart, with cage, seat belts. I never drove it again, but my buddies sure had a blast !!!

It was a five speed, hydraulic brakes, live axle, and a real CLUTCH !!! Man that thing spun donuts like a Mutha !!!

Sorry, not really shop related...but it's all I had next to basic burns and grinder accidents !!

 

I have two disasters that come to mind.....One, in my machine shop, the surface grinder was knocking a piece of heavy steel down a little. It was held by an electrically operated magnetic chuck. Abouthalf way down the travel, the buildings power went out and that steel stock shot across the room, through a wall. Luckily nobody was in the way.
Second, a tall Snap-On tool chest. After numerous warnings, an apprentice opened drawer after drawer, and didn't close them as he went, until the box became top heavy and fell over on him. Tools everywhere, damaged tool boxe$, And lots of broken bones. He healed. Snap-On didn't.

 

I used to have long hair, and still did for 10 years after this incident--


Rented a 90 degree drill and brought it home to drill just one hole. This drill had one of those full grip style triggers where while you gripped it, it ran.

Anyways, I get the drilled hole done but the drill hangs up in the car. So I lay out there by myself in the yard, trying to figure out how to get it out.

Somehow, my long hair got caught in the whole mess, and in an instant of panic, I thought I could just reverse it right? That didn't work. Each time I tried it in reverse, it went forward and kept bringing my head against the frame. But then the drill trigger got in a bind it was pressed in such a way that the more I got close, the more the trigger was pressed!


As my head got closer to the frame, I knew my scalp was next to come off, maybe even allow me to bleed to death and ------that is the way i would be found dead!

Somehow, with the last inch of room I had, I managed to sloooowwwwwlllllyyyy get out of it. One wrong move and it was into the frame.

 

A friend of mine's old boss once decided to clean up the dust all over his electric drill with carb cleaner, then proceded to plug it in to make sure it still worked. Yep, it caught on fire right in his hand. Then a week later he does the same thing with a circular saw, this time when the saw caught fire, he tossed it out of his hand and right into the parts washer, of course catching the parts washer on fire. Why do bosses sometimes seem like they're not so bright?