Table saw kicked me hard!

[nickao]

Thanks for the kind thoughts everyone.

Eiji I try my best for my mind not to wander. When I am in a rhythm nothing can interfere with me getting hurt. Its all natural. But when I am tired and worried about many things about work and personal family issues like I am struggling with now,  its tough to stay focused and easy to skip simple safety steps.

I only have ten years on you and hope you stay focused in the next ten years. Actually, in the last 14 months I got hurt three times and never before that have I had a carpentry or woodworking related accident. So you have about 9 years of error free woodworking to catch me. Just keep doing what you are doing and everything I have seen in your posts show me you are very safe in your procedures.

Jesse wearing gloves for that operation is a definite NO NO! Loose clothing the same. About 13 months ago I was sucked into my spindle sander because of a loose fitting T shirt. My arm meat got sucked in that tiny holy around the spindle. My gosh never would you think anything could get pulled through that, especially almost my entire bicep. I was in so far that the spindle bent and the machine stopped and was smoking before I came out of a daze and hit the shut off button. Again I was at the end of a 30 hour shift. It scared the living daylights out of me!  So no gloves or loose clothes or hair. I have hair down to my rear end and even in a pony tail that dam thing has had some near misses. Almost wrapped it around a spindle sander.

Other than these incidents I never had an accident. Maybe it was 25 years of safe work that made me complacent or possibly my personal issues are keeping my mind from getting in tune with the work.

Either way Keep safe guys! A thread on safety techniques specific to  some Festools could be good if someone wants to start one.

Nickao

 

[Tom Wales]

Nothing more than finish nails ( oh and that razor knife that slippedand sliced my thumb ) hitting sheetrock nail and curling around poking into my fingers, until this winter. Doing a siding job on a scaffold with a ladder over onto the roof... It was only 11 feet to the ground. Good thing I had my tool belt to land on. Fortunately I got off with a minor tear in my shoulder and a 5" bruise on my hip from my belt. Dang, talk about Chicken Little now : And 30 hour shifts are way too long for anything. Glad you are doing better.
Tom in AK

 

[nickao]

Tom you could have been killed or paralyzed.

In high school one of my friends dad was a carpenter and was making a Gazebo. He was only 8 feet off the ground at most. He fell and now is paralyzed from the neck down the rest of his life.

I am glad you made it through the fall.

Nickao

 

[semenza]

Nothing more than finish nails ( oh and that razor knife that slippedand sliced my thumb ) hitting sheetrock nail and curling around poking into my fingers, until this winter. Doing a siding job on a scaffold with a ladder over onto the roof... It was only 11 feet to the ground. Good thing I had my tool belt to land on. Fortunately I got off with a minor tear in my shoulder and a 5" bruise on my hip from my belt. Dang, talk about Chicken Little now : And 30 hour shifts are way too long for anything. Glad you are doing better.
Tom in AK

Hi,

    Sounds like you got lucky Tom.   Nothing like a tool belt to break  a fall.    Though you are so tall I would think that at that height you could  have just stood up

Seth

 

[semenza]

Hi,

    Nick,   dude ,  deadlines  or no, you gotta stop working too late and long  or you won't be working at all. Seems that your accident rate  coincides.

Seth

 

[robtonya]

Hope you are doing better Nick. Sorry for the slow response, I have been without internet for a few weeks. Please don't let work or family issues get you down,especially to the point when you are getting hurt.

Also, just reading all these responses at once was making me cringe at every one. I have been hurt at work more than wood working. I use to cook food for the military, called MRE, before working at Toyota. One time I had the kettle lid open to get a temperature reading, sure enough it was over two hungred degrees Fahrenheit, then it popped in my eye (no safety glasses). I was digging two hundred degree spaghetti out of my eye, and then there was this one time I was opening a 55 gallon drum of tomato paste, metal lid, almost cut through with the can opener, so I thought I would grab the lid and pull it open (no safety gloves), cut my thumb open where it looked like tomato paste itself. Then there was this time I got my hand stuck in a machine, and when I finally got three people to free it, and pulled it from the machine, it almost looked like a cartoon hand because it was so flat. Also I have been hit by a fork truck, hit by a thousand pound metal cart (that left a hole in my shin).

I don't play golf either, last time I did, I was standing too close to the guy swinging, and the last thing I seen was the bottom of the club ( i can still mentally see the bottom of the club to this day, 9 iron, with lines, and a little bit of mud on it), any way I got stitches in my upper eye lid.

I could probably think of some more, but I had to see if I couldn't make someone cringe too.

I hope all is well Nick, please be safe. I try to as well.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Hope you are doing better Nick. Sorry for the slow response, I have been without internet for a few weeks. Please don't let work or family issues get you down,especially to the point when you are getting hurt.

Also, just reading all these responses at once was making me cringe at every one. I have been hurt at work more than wood working. I use to cook food for the military, called MRE, before working at Toyota. One time I had the kettle lid open to get a temperature reading, sure enough it was over two hungred degrees Fahrenheit, then it popped in my eye (no safety glasses). I was digging two hundred degree spaghetti out of my eye, and then there was this one time I was opening a 55 gallon drum of tomato paste, metal lid, almost cut through with the can opener, so I thought I would grab the lid and pull it open (no safety gloves), cut my thumb open where it looked like tomato paste itself. Then there was this time I got my hand stuck in a machine, and when I finally got three people to free it, and pulled it from the machine, it almost looked like a cartoon hand because it was so flat. Also I have been hit by a fork truck, hit by a thousand pound metal cart (that left a hole in my shin).

I don't play golf either, last time I did, I was standing too close to the guy swinging, and the last thing I seen was the bottom of the club ( i can still mentally see the bottom of the club to this day, 9 iron, with lines, and a little bit of mud on it), any way I got stitches in my upper eye lid.

I could probably think of some more, but I had to see if I couldn't make someone cringe too.

I hope all is well Nick, please be safe. I try to as well.

Ouch! Well done Rob. Be careful.

 

[nickao]

Could be worse guys, the worst of it I am not showing, the hit just above the right nipple.

 

[robtonya]

OUCH! I have to thank you for not showing your nipple though, there might be a web site for that kind of thing somewhere though.  ;D

 

[Al]

Hope you are doing better Nick. Sorry for the slow response, I have been without internet for a few weeks. Please don't let work or family issues get you down,especially to the point when you are getting hurt.

Also, just reading all these responses at once was making me cringe at every one. I have been hurt at work more than wood working. I use to cook food for the military, called MRE, before working at Toyota. One time I had the kettle lid open to get a temperature reading, sure enough it was over two hungred degrees Fahrenheit, then it popped in my eye (no safety glasses). I was digging two hundred degree spaghetti out of my eye, and then there was this one time I was opening a 55 gallon drum of tomato paste, metal lid, almost cut through with the can opener, so I thought I would grab the lid and pull it open (no safety gloves), cut my thumb open where it looked like tomato paste itself. Then there was this time I got my hand stuck in a machine, and when I finally got three people to free it, and pulled it from the machine, it almost looked like a cartoon hand because it was so flat. Also I have been hit by a fork truck, hit by a thousand pound metal cart (that left a hole in my shin).

I don't play golf either, last time I did, I was standing too close to the guy swinging, and the last thing I seen was the bottom of the club ( i can still mentally see the bottom of the club to this day, 9 iron, with lines, and a little bit of mud on it), any way I got stitches in my upper eye lid.

I could probably think of some more, but I had to see if I couldn't make someone cringe too.

I hope all is well Nick, please be safe. I try to as well.

Ouch! Well done Rob. Be careful.

Mike,

37 years as a professional firefighter, I've seen a lot of accidents, most of them stupid......... but you're the guy I'm looking for.  Where do you live and what's your birth date?  I'm going to take a life insurance policy out on you and become rich!!  I'd say that the odds are in my favor.

You're probably too young to remember but there once was a comic in the papers named Little or Lil Abner and there was a little fella that walked around in the comics with a perpetual storm cloud over his head, maybe a yard in diameter and everything that could befall someone happened to this little fella............. I think you're related to him. :

Al

 

[Steveo48]

..... I have hair down to my rear end and even in a pony tail that dam thing has had some near misses. Almost wrapped it around a spindle sander.

Nickao

Ouch!  Reminds me of a kid in my HS days when we had long hair, Doug got his very long hair caught in a drill press in metal shop.  Ripped out a patch of scalp with the hair!  Blood everywhere, but he thought it was pretty funny. 

I've learned teaching/watching kids how to safely run the saw, I actually have learned more watching them than I was ever taught.  I use a splitter/kickback fingers, push sticks or blocks and a Brett Guard when ever I can (but sometimes they do have to come off).

Steve

 

[Steveo48]

Another poster, (Steve Jones perhaps?)  brought up the youtube video "The Big Splinter"  It's emergency room video with a guy that looks like grizzly adams with a BIG hunk of green, white oak in the place where his nose was. 

If you search table saw accident on youtube, there is the guy that cuts off his left thumb, runs around his shop muttering "oh god, oh god" before running to the saw and picking his thumb up!  It's funny is a sick sort of way.    I teach with a guy who cut the same thumb off twice on the TS.  Some people never learn.

You can also search table saw kickback on youtube, they have a decent school shop demo of kickback.

Luckily for me I've had only 2 band aid incidents, and a ton of near misses the last 35 years..... but I've never done the 30 hour day with machines either.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

...If you search table saw accident on youtube, there is the guy that cuts off his left thumb, runs around his shop muttering "oh god, oh god" before running to the saw and picking his thumb up!  It's funny is a sick sort of way.

Perhaps you're referring to this -- CLICK HERE.
Matthew

 

[Steveo48]

That's the one Matthew, I thought it looked like he's held a brat in his hand. 

Coulda been the finger though.  :

 

[Bill Wyko]

I did the exact same thing to the exact same finger. Damn pull cut on the router table and a spiral bit. How'd you do that?