Back in the day, when I was about 20 years old, the fellow who owned a garage across the street was a stock car racer. I was a young motor head, and would stop by to "talk hotrod" to Jim, the garage owner. Jim got one of the local school busses in for an engine job. The bus was too high to fit in the garage door, so they unbolted the front sheetmetal out beside the garage and pulled the engine and took the engine inside to work on it. Those old school busses had a pair of 3/8" diameter rods that ran from the firewall out to the top of the rad, just like on a model A Ford. Somehow they got the engine out through the front with a cherrypicker, but those rods were left sticking out into what was now open space, because the front sheetmetal, radiator, and engine were now unbolted and moved away from the front of the bus. Jim went to smoke a cigarette, but they weren't where they should have been, in his front shirt pocket. He went out to the bus, and there they were, laying on the ground right in front of the bus. Jim bent over to pick up the smokes, and ran the end of one of them damn support rods right though his right eye!!! It ran in so far, and hurt so bad that he was afraid to straighten up. He yelled for help, and one of the apprentices ran out to see what was wrong. Jim knew it would probably kill him if the kid tried to cut the rod off with a hacksaw, so he got the kid to wrap a wet rag around the rod just in front of his eye, and cut the rod off half way back to the bus with an acetylene torch!!! Jim got into his souped up 59 Chev, holding the end of the rod which was still in his eye, and told the kid to get him to the hospital 15 miles away as fast as that old Chev would go. Somebody from the garage phoned into the cop shop in town and told them what was happening, and said watch for a dark blue 59 Chev coming in from the north at about a hundred miles an hour, and give him a police escort to the hospital at the far end of town. The cops met him about halfway to town, and did a burning u-turn and lit up the lights and siren and led them thru town to the hospital in Belleville, Ontario. They rushed Jim into surgery, and here is the really weird part---The rod hadn't peirced his eyeball----rather, it had rolled the eyeball up and slid into the eye socket between his eyeball and the boney socket that it sets in. They removed the rod, did some minor repairs, and kept Jim at the hospital for about 3 days. The eye surgeon told Jim that he had 3/8-16 threads on the top and front surface of his eyeball, and that after things healed up, they would be able to tell how much permanent damage was done to the eye. Jim wore a patch like a pirate for about 3 months, but the eye did heal up okay, and Jim could see out of it "as good as ever".--but----Jeez, that musta hurt!!!---Brian
oh man, i've got to go rub my eyes for a while, and convince them it didn't happen to us. glad he was ok, good read.
A similar piercing story happened along the QEW near Toronto. A school bus filled with Americans was avoiding an accident and ran off the shoulder of the road where a chain link fence separated it from the service road. As they hit the fence, the top pole ran through the window of the bus and pierced a passenger between his stomach and chest. The ambulance took him sitting up to the hospital. The surgeons successfully removed the pole and apparently, the guy recovered fine.
Okay, I want to make this clear. We've had a few shop accident threads. They can provide some good information for preventing future accidents, but inevitably someone thinks they are going to one-up everyone and post some gnarly gore. I think I've shut down two that went that direction in the past couple of months. So please keep it informative and well, don't post pictures of insane wounds or dead people. No warning after this - you'll probably just be banned.
I was in a hurry to finish a job, so I didn't use my safety glasses. I was grinding some jagged metal edge and a piece of steel hit my eye , I could actually see it ,and couldn't close my eye lid because of the pain. My wife took me to the eye doctor with me holding my eye lid open. Then the eye doctor said he must numb the eye with pain deadner and proceded to stick a needle in my eye ball, man I almost passed out , he got the metal out with me watching the instrument pull it. Now I take time to wear safety protection when ever the grinder comes out.
What can I say except God does seem to look out for us motorheads. The best part of this story is to keep your head in such situations and just like they used to tell the cowboys, don't pull the arrow back out. Sure glad things worked out so well in the end................
BUZZ KILLER! Just kidding.... Btw, thanks, I don't need anymore visuals like this one, unless like you say, there is something to learn from it.
Brian I could set down and read your stories all day long. Just good reading. I can hardly wait for the next installment, keepem' coming. Thanks Grits
YIKES. I saw something similar on a show called "Impailed" about a gut who fell on a fish sticker-kind of a pitchfork lookin' thing. In the surgery to remove it they found it pushed his eye ball aside instead of going through it. I can't imagine going through that! I also know a guy who was impailed on rebar and lived. One crazy dude.
I was working on the paperwork for my car. I got this nasty paper cut... and it hurt even more when I put alcohol and a band-aid on it. (There, one-up THAT!)
I was in canada at the time, that dude was totally consious, the 2" pipe was through his shoulder area, took a plug clean out and he was asking what hospital yall taking me to, he was luckily a big dude.
There was a guy at work that we nick-named "STAN" you COULD NOT one up him ! STAN, stood for = Shit, That Ain't Nothing !!!!
Isn't it interesting, Brian, that many of us older guys looked up to stock-car racers named "Jim" or "Jimmy". For me it was Jimmy Binks in the Niagara/St.Catharines area (Merrittville Speedway) who built several championship engines over his lifetime. His towing rig consisted of a 327 powered '49 F-1 pickup pulling a single axle farm-built open car trailer. He's been gone for many years now, but is fondly remembered by many veteran racers and fans in the Niagara region. Personally, I've had a rotating fan blade cut my index finger knuckle - took 4 stitches. Within a year, I had grown 50 warts on that hand. Had a dermatologist remove them with liquid nitrogen. Do not try this at home.
Every time the word eye came up during the read i almost threw up...... i useta love gory movies and shit like that as a teen, now the idea of something of the likes happening to a living being makes me sick.....must be gettin old! Glad he made it all right btw...but damn Woosh! Yours just as bad!
You all please take safety seriously, my job exposes me to all the end results of said injuries. I have helped put people back together after they decided that safety was for someone else. The human body can and will only take so much abuse...........eyeball surgery is delicate to say the least and having a steel rod forced in to the ocular orbit is no joke......we only have one set of eyes protect them at all costs........
Just imagine if we all enjoyed sitting in front of a computer all the time instead of being in the garage how safe we would be. I'll take my chances in the garage. Stay safe.
The Jalopy Journal
