leakyroof said:
I'll start with Metalshop in 9th grade. A fellow classmate was using a drill press, holding the drill vise with his hand while he drilled into his project.
You guessed it, the drill bit jammed, and the vise was launched into the air across the shop, missing several of us and finally landing a glancing blow on a guys shin. Drew blood, but mostly drew the longest outburst of cursing from the injuried guy that we had ever heard.
The instructor ran out of his office, our infamous Mr. Taylor, and proceeded to try and restore order. The guy manning the drill press was in total shock over what had happened in the blink of an eye.
Several responders have sited school shop accidents along with memories of their first school shop room. My first experience with wood shop was in 9th grade. I had moved away from the farm where I had plenty of experience working with farm machinery. My uncle had been a stickler for safety, so i had some fairly good habits instilled in me. the school shop had several work benches set up in groups of four set up so there were two benches set up lengthwise with two benches set up at the ends of the two lengthwise benches, sort of like breadboard. there was a table saw and a lathe. I don't really remember the other machinery. (It was 1945, and since I am only 39, i can't remember all of those years when i wasn't really here [unsure])
I do have a very vivid memory of at least part of the floor plan and the relation of the wood lathe to that floor plan. The lathe was set up directly in front of and parallel to a large window. The shop door, with a pane of glass was directly opposite the window and behind anybody working at the lathe. The door was maybe 30 feet away from the lathe.
I was making a salad bowl of some sort and was at the sanding stage of the project. I was running the lathe at a very slow speed for two reasons. #1 was for safety as too high a speed might be somewhat dangerous. We had all in the class been lectured on that. #2 We had also been told that higher the speed, the hotter wood get the sandpaper. I was one of the few in the class who was taking shop because I was really interested. Most of my classmates were in there for an easy grade and a class where thy could get an easy grade without having to study much. I was maybe one of only two or three who actually read anything about woodwork after class. That was maybe the only subject that I actually studied beyond what I had been required.
Anyhow, i was nearly finished with my sanding and thinking of what i should use for a finish. All of a sudden, one of my classmates jacked up the speed to full speed. I yelled at him immediately and he jacked the gear lever back down to its very lowest speed. It was almost like up until full speed and then a sudden almost stop within a second or two. I did not feel anything for a few seconds, but there was damage all over the place and i could not find my glasses. As i looked around on the floor I noticed blood, and lots of it. I did not find out about damage to the room until a day or two days later when my shop teacher visited me in the hospital. That bowl had split into three pieces. One had gone thru the ceiling of the room. One had gone thru the glass of the door behind me and on the far side of the room. the third piece had gone thru one of the window panes right in front of me. there was damage to three small areas in the room, none of which were in close proximity to another. The closest damage was the window directly in front of me.
The window damage was the most memorable, as the piece of bowl that had gone thru the window had first collided with my face. The little experience had happened at the end of the school day. By the time the ambulance had arrived, school was out for the day and nearly everybody in the school was out in the parking area waiting for busses. Since it was somewhat unusual for an ambulance to be in the school yard with flashers on and having arrived with siren blaring, I think everybody in the school was looking down at my bloody face as they carried me out on the stretcher.
When i had the stitches removed a few weeks later, there were over 100 that were removable. The doctor (Dr. Abrams)told me there had been even more inside my nose and mouth that were the desolvable type. He told me that all in all, there had been between 200 and 300 stitches.
The worst part of the whole ordeal for me was that i was in a hospital ward for a few days. My lip was very swollen and most of the stitches were inside and out side of my lip. there were three guys in the ward who had everybody in different kinds of stitches. I could not stop laughing at their antics and so suffered the consequences for having a sense of humor. Every time i laughed, it was pure agony. I have a few stories from that stay that i won't go into here. I still have scars but they are not noticeable. That Doc did one fine job of stitchery.
Tinker
PS I did continue with shop classes all thru high school and ended up with a very good deal in my senior year. I worked in shop thru maybe half the year making cabinets for the home economics rooms which were in a new building under construction. My shop teacher, Mr. Torno, had worked a deal with the HS principal and all of my teachers where I could work on those cabinets and not have to attend my other classes. The stipulation was that i had to take any tests and had to keep up with ALL of my homework assignments. I learned a little bit about time management that year that i would not have learned another way. I even managed to squeeze in varsity track in the spring. But shop was always my most exciting and memorable class.
