Shop safety

[bbbentley]

Man. I have seen enough in my life. Can't emphasize enough, Think ! Those garage doors are killers. I use a 18" 3/8 extension to turn garage door springs.

[VintageMusclecar]

Just to follow up on this;

I got a chance to speak to my (old) neighbor today. His entire left arm is in a cast from the elbow to the thumb. He has some feeling in the thumb but no mobility at the moment.

W/O going into too graphic detail, his injury is extensive--he lost the entire muscle and tendon(s) that extends his left thumb--the whole thing. It literally ripped the entire muscle & tendons completely out of his arm from the elbow to the thumb through a golf ball-sized hole in his wrist, which is why they weren't able to re-attach it.

Yes, he showed me pictures. Yes, it was gnarly.

He's still understandably shook up about the whole thing, but he said that the doctors told him they can utilize one of the extender muscles from his index finger (there are 2 extension muscles and one contracting muscle) and attach it to his thumb so he will be able to have some use of it again.

However, he's going to have to re-learn how to use his hand since his mind will be "telling" his arm to extend the index finger but the thumb will also be responding to the command at the same time.

He told me how the incident happened: he was using a steel bar to wind more tension into the garage door spring when the bar gave way and folded over 90°--naturally the tensioner sprang free and the bent steel bar became a whirling J-hook...you can figure out the rest from there.

I really feel bad for him--he's a young guy with a wife and 2 kids and now he's out of work for an undetermined length of time. Thankfully his wife works, but he's got a lengthy recovery ahead of him.

As bad as it is, I'm thankful for him & his family that it wasn't worse.

Stay focused.

[markinnaples]

Prayers for your friend.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Having worked at a chemical company, I've become a work/shop safety advocate!

Sadly, last Wednesday, our Jr Dragster racing friends Jim and daughter Maddie had a garage fire that destroyed the garage, entire house and Maddie's Jr Dragster that was inside the race trailer parked next to the garage. Jim was air lifted to John Hopkins burn unit with 3rd degree burns on his hands, arms, legs and butt. The Dr's put him into an induced coma for pain management.

We assumed that Jim was working on his race car, and was somehow trapped under.... Not the case. Turns out, there was no car in the garage at all, and Jim was simply transferring gas from a street car tank to plastic containers. Unknown as to the exact ignition source, but fire marshall believes static electricity build up, whereas the insurance adjuster believes that fuel vapor traveled across the floor and into the cabinet of a working refrigerator which then ignited and exploded - it was blown away from the wall by ~2'.

So, another task that many of us do/have done without much regard to 'what could go wrong'. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/frown.gif[/img]

[Xplantdad]

Wow...I hope Jim fully recovers...

[SS427]

That is terrible. Hopefully your friends recover both in health and financially. You can just never be too safe or careful. Prayers to Jim and his family.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

My son Benjamin and his friend Jarrod are rebuilding Maddies car for her....the racing community at its best! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[Xplantdad]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My son Benjamin and his friend Jarrod are rebuilding Maddies car for her....the racing community at its best! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img] </div></div>

Great to hear, M!

[earntaz]

Wow!! Our prayers are with them ... TAZ

[olredalert]

----Having been thru a devastating shop fire 5 years ago, I'm pretty sure I know how they will feel. I lost 2 cars and my Suburban, all my tools and shop equipment, and Jan lost a bunch of irreplaceable old stuff that was stored in an upstairs room. The vehicles were not insured but luckily I had an umbrella policy that covered everything BUT the vehicles. I wasn't present when the fire started so no bodily injuries but I sure did suffer mentally. It took 2 years to even look at the 2 cars. Had I been there I probably would have been burned trying to save something (I am that dumb) so maybe that was some sort of plus. The fire marshal found a problem with the wiring inside a wall so I wasn't at fault, but I made a decision not to go after the building owner for anything. Only the lawyers would have made out in the end, and there probably would have been years of litigation.....Bill S