A couple of nites ago I couldn't go to sleep. I did the toss and turn thing thinking I would eventually go to sleep. Part of the problem was I was thinking. The next nite was worse. I couldn't even get comfortable. About 3 in the moring I got up "thinking" I could get in the recliner and get some sleep like I ocassionally do around lunch time. The joke was on me. No sleep. I turned on the TV and the next morning the wife ask what I watched. I looked at her and said I don't have a clue. All I know is I heard it on all the time I sat there. I finally had enough about 6 am and got some coffee. The zombie in me got to thinking I might as well go to the shop and do some work since I couldn't sleep. I look back and know I wasn't hitting on all 8 because of the last two nites with maybe 30 minutes sleep. Because of a condition known as perpherial neuropathy I have been told by my neurologist to stay off ladders and to keep my feet on the ground. I thought to myself I needed to put up a light on the outside of my shops new addition so what do I do?? Climb a ladder!! I was about half way up a 8' ladder drilling holes for the light with a 25 mph wind blowing. No I never fell but you better sit down when you read the rest of this. It will make one weak in the knees!! I needed to drill 4 holes in the plastic case of the light so the ole zombie in me grabs the 21volt cordless drill and proceeds to drill four 3/16 holes to attach it to the shop. First hole went easy. Second hole easy too. Now I'm working with the plastic case in my left hand and the drill in my right hand and I drill the hole farthest away from me first. I'm holding this case out in front of me and sitting on a roll around stool. 3 holes and all is well. Now for the 4th hole. I drill it and I get the hole right where I want it. Now by this time I'm a bit fatigued from no sleep and the heavy weight of a 21 volt drill held out 1/2 way to arms length. You know how your pants tend to puff up or bunch up in the crotch when you sit down well mine did too. Im tired and when the drill punched thru and it was the closest hole to me I wasn't ready for the FOLLOW THRU. The drill bit barely caught the highest part of my pants. That was enough. It went down in a hurry and I wish I could have seen the look of TERROR on my face as I felt the pain. I looked at my wife and said oh shit I just drilled myself. Panic- HOMER is dead. I didn't want to look but I had to. I looked down to see if any blood was obvious. None. Now I'm in pain. I put the drill in reverse and very slowly back it out watching for blood. None on the bit. Now I gotts to know. I unzip and look down. HOMER is alive!! Seems when I drilled my pants It went thru and caught my underware and wrapped the cloth around the bit. HOMER survived with minor scratches on the left side and my left leg was completely unscathed. I thought ..what could have been. I think I kind of shook at that point. I think I would have been safer if I was about half drunk. I would never have been able to climb a ladder and certainly my judgement would have been no worse than 48 hours with no sleep. Conjecture pure conjecture at this point. I will never try to do something like that again with no sleep. No I understand why they say fatigued driving is as bad as drunk driving. Lesson learned. Whew!!
sounds like time for some sleep meds and bullet proof skivvies lol glad your alright man !................... GET SOME SLEEP
not sure how a half arm length ends up at wang length, but glad youre safe. Can I ask how your neuropathy came about? Vietnam vet by chance?
I just sat up all last night, it's all too common! Funny when you think about it, they let us run around with rifles, live rounds, grenades, jumping out of airplanes at 20thousand feet and plotting impact areas for artillery all with no sleep for days when all they needed to give us was a 21Volt cordless drill!! Man that first second when you know what you had just done would have seemed an hour long! Glad you didn't kill Homer, but.........(and I'm not sure about the second half of this)....... Remember, pain goes away, and chicks dig scars!! Doc.
Cordless drills are dangerous things - a mate of mine put one under his arm while he got a rawlplug to go in the hole he'd just drilled. It somehow switched itself on and got a grip of the flesh of the underside of his upper arm (he was wearing a short sleeve T shirt). It ripped a big patch of flesh right off. He needed plastic surgery to sort it out.
Thank God for electric brakes on these cordless drills. Imagine if it had been a regular corded drill with no brake. Last nite was another restless nite. Wind gusting to about 35mph makes enough to keep me awake. I have two garage door cables to put on a door and that requires torsioning the big spring. Not going near it today.
Naw, we still would have lived through it. I probably would have drilled an LT. The bad thing about drilling into your lap area is not zinging an extra hole in Willy, that actually could be cool. Makes Willy into a fire boat. What if you miss Willy all together and hit your femoral (sp?) artery. That kind of makes your thigh into a fire boat.
My neuropathy is classified as idiopathic. No known cause. Also classified as hereditary, mom had it. Damn feet stayed cold all nite. Thats what my nerves were telling my brain but the bed was warm. Hard to sleep thru that.
glad you lucked out jbtine! that is what a 5/16ths bit that went a half inch into my leg looks like!! ahhh electric drills!!! thank god for the easy start tip for painless entry!!
drilling a hole where the backup is part of your body... you didn't see a potential problem there before you even started? sounds like something the 3 Stooges would do.
Had an incident like that a few years back. Wire wheel on a cordless drill caught my pants and got all wound up in them... Needless to say I was VERY glad I went with compression shorts that day.
Very good thing is it had a reverce. In my case I wasn't that lucky and had to hand roll a 1/2" drive off my pants, shorts and leg.
Obviouly I didn't see a problem. Two nites of no sleep i had the judgement of a stumbling drunk. We all think we can get away with doing things while impaired. Sleep or otherwise. I tried it and almost paid dearly.
Did not expect to read a story like that on the HAMB this evening! Glad you're OK. and yes I to know what sleepless nights are like. "I is a ZOMBIE, I don't even know my name" ( King of the Zombies 1943) KK
The Jalopy Journal
