Sure as shootin’, this is going to show up in one of our safety bulletins at the office — though I’m not sure what the safety lesson is supposed to be, besides the obvious “Don’t let this happen to you.”
A construction worker, using a 1.5″ auger drill, felt his ladder start to wobble. He threw the drill aside, as trained, but still ended up falling on it, driving the 15″ bit through his eye … and through his skull.
“I ran my hands up the drill bit, up to my eye, and put my other hand in the back of my head and felt it coming through the back of my head,” he said. “And that’s where pretty much the shock set in.”
Yeah, that would pretty much be it for me, too.
Fortunately, the bit pushed the brain aside, rather than punching through it. Doctors basically unscrewed the thing. Though the guy lost his eye, he seems to be fairly uninjured otherwise.
(via BoingBoing)
Safety bulletins at the office….do you often have to use a 15 inch auger?
How long will it be before this is made into a made-for-tv movie?
When Auger Drills Attack!
No, we don’t use many of them here in IT, but, being an E&C company, we have plenty of folks out in the field at any given time, and regularly bulletins about scaffolding and other field safety issues. Lots of scary stuff out there.
(We also get lots of bulletins about office safety, too. None of which has, so far, involved an auger drill.)
Where I used to work, we had quarterly safety meetings. Mostly they consisted of a couple of movies and reading of the work accidents that had happened on the site over the last three months. Some of the movies were quit funny…the one about ladder safety had us laughing out loud.
One of the funnier safety violations at the site, was a time back during production, when some co-workers decided to prank somebody. The grabbed him and duct-taped him to rolling chair, hauled him out into the high-bay area, and hoisted him 20′ feet up into the air.
They had forgotten about him when a crew of safety inspectors showed up and found him two hours later.
Good time, good times.
My company is extremely safety-conscious, and injuries and safety violations are subject to review up to the highest level (and ass-chewing all the way back down).
Causes us a lot of problems with clients and subs, too.
Man I just remembered a few more…
The Guards used to be a great source of comedy:
One time a couple of Guards were driving back from play fighting when the passenger started to juggle a flash-bang grenade, after the driver told him to stop, he tossed it in to the back of the Suburban. While the grenade rolled around loose in the back the pin dislodged and the grenade detonated. FLASH! BANG! It managed to blow out all of the Windows in the suburban and the Guards ear drums. Luckily the driver managed to bring the vehicle to a stop without hitting anything.
Another good one about the guards:
After a long shift, a not fully awake guard drove back to HQ. While attempting parking the truck, he hit a bollard. He was so out of it, he forgot to undue his seat belt, shut off the truck, and take it out gear while exiting the truck. He tangled himself up in the seat belt, fell out of the truck, and knocked himself out. He was found later hanging from the drivers seat belt, while the truck was busily trying to climb the bollard.
Last one:
Picture if you will APC vs. Audi 5000…Lots of Laughs!
Maybe a 15 inch auger should be considered a motivational tool for the office?
Boulder Dude has been thinking back to the “fun with explosives” that the military provided. I remember the bumper off of a Austin Robin getting blown off with a ground burst simulator (GBS). Good times….
This is a good ‘un:
Doctors in Australia have urged people to not to attempt Jackass style stunts after a man burnt his genitals in a firecracker accident.
The 26-year-old Australian man suffered a fractured pelvis and severe burns when a firecracker exploded between the cheeks of his buttocks.
The incident has left the man, from Illawarra, New South Wales, incontinent and unable to have sex and he is expected to remain in hospital for several months.
Dr Robert McCurdie, who operated on the man when he was taken to Wollongong Hospital, likened the man’s condition to “a war injury”.
Dr McCurdie said he believed the man had stumbled while the firecracker was in his buttocks, and fell down on it.
“By virtue of the fact that the explosion was confined in an upward direction, it went up into his pelvis, blasted a great hole in the pelvis, ruptured the urethra, injured muscles in the floor of the pelvis which rendered him incontinent. His pelvis was also fractured.”
It is not known whether the man was imitating the cult prankster film Jackass in which men place firecrackers in their buttocks and shoot them into the air.
The incident has left the man … unable to have sex …
Sounds like natural selection at work.
(Randy, not Doyce says)
Me, I’m surprised that a firecracker had enough force to blow the hell out of his pelvis. A regular firecracker, probably, because even a moron should hesitate before trying the stunt with anything bigger.
He’s eligible for a Darwin Award now!
The drill bit story has hit Snopes (which confirmed it).
A quote from the doctor:
We had to either cut down on it, which meant making a rather long incision through a lot of muscle, or just unscrew it – twist it all the way through and out. We would have cut it off, but after a few minutes of drilling, we noticed that it was loose. And so we just put down our blade and twisted the bit.
Ick. That’s why I’m not a doctor.
All things considered…
Wear an eye patch and let the fun cocktail party stories begin!