Dumbest armouring injury

Keegan Ingrassia · Post by **Keegan Ingrassia** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 1:37 am

I figure, this thread has been necro'd once before, after a five year gap, I'm not doing too bad, raising it a second time, after just a year.

Most recent dumb injury to my person:
I set fire to myself. Twice. On the same project.

One evening, I was using a MIG welder to join two halves of a poleyn together, and was wearing frayed jeans. And, not just a little fringe. I'm talking holes at the knees you can stick your head through. So, I'm welding along, and suddenly I feel this almost liquid heat washing up my calf. I raise my helmet and look down, and my pants leg is glowing, like an old shade lamp. Turns out, a spark had fallen through that hole in my jeans, and landed in between my sock and boot. I managed to put the fire out, without even any hair singed. The pants were dead, though. There was no jean material left, from ankle to knee, on the inside of that leg. At that point, I figured it was time to go home for the night.

The next afternoon, I'm back in the shop, and I'm using an angle grinder to take the bulk of the weld down, before I shape it into the crease. This evening, I had forgotten to bring my long-sleeved workshirt with me. However, I did have my old hoodie, with the big pocket in the front for your hands. I even remember looking around for the leather apron that was usually in the shelf right next to the grinder, but another student had moved it. "Eh, its just one weld," I thought. "What's the worst that can happen?" So I'm grinding away, about 95% done, when there's this searing heat on my stomach. I cut the grinder, raise my face shield and yank off my goggles, and look down. The sparks that had been thrown off, had caught in the seam of that pocket on the front of my hoodie. I smothered the flames with my gloves, but not before it had burned a 5" hole in the hoodie, a 3" hole in the shirt under it, and melted about a 2" patch of cloth to my skin. I still have that mark on my abdomen.

Remember kids: dress for the shop, and wear your friggen safety equipment.

ruthardus · Post by **ruthardus** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:42 pm

cutting a piece of 12 guage on beverly. cutting long curve just taking 1/2 inch off edge, not paying attention, nor wearing gloves. a CURL KEPt FORMING UNDER SHEar, unbeknownst to me.
cutting suddenly got harder, and rather than check why, i manned up and pulled harder. the curl underneath apparently was caught on the underside of the shear near the end facing me and built up tension.
"SPRANG!"
it popped up and over the end of the shear and the point at the end buried itself in the outside of my thumb knuckle inbetween the joint and pinned me to the shear, I just stood there looking at it and getting that sick feeling in my gut and know I was turning yellow in the face.
to make matters worse, i could not pull it out as it was pressing my thumb against the plate. i could not reach my plyers from there and had to call upstairs to my 5 year old to come down, get a chair and fetch my plyers off the wall so I could pry myself out and head to the ER

mattmaus · Post by **mattmaus** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:14 pm

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:I set fire to myself. Twice. On the same project.

Only twice?

Really?

2 things.

Cotton cotton cotton. No plastic clothes.

Pay attention to smells. Almost any time I've set my clothes on fire (and I've done it a LOT) I can smell my detergent.

If I smell laundry all of a sudden I stop and put myself out.

Asmodean · Post by **Asmodean** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 8:51 pm

My dumbest thing made my wife roll on the floor laughing after she made sure I was alive.

What she heard was a "Wham!!" and "AHHH" then silence.

I smacked my thumb with dishing hammer.. Did not think and threw the hammer to the other side of the garage. In the corner of the garage is the target for baseball pitching. Complete with center target on springs. Looks like I threw a strike. Hammer went there then came back. I woke up with a knot in the center of my forehead and the hammer on the ground.....

AaronCarter · Post by **AaronCarter** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:07 pm

When I first started welding I was told "If you smell rags burning it's probably your rags."

Funny thing is I never had rags untill I started welding.

Maeryk · Post by **Maeryk** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 9:09 pm

AaronCarter wrote:When I first started welding I was told "If you smell rags burning it's probably your rags."

Funny thing is I never had rags untill I started welding.

I'm not re-reading this thread to figure out if I said this already, but never weld with a bic lighter in your shirt pocket.

mattmaus · Post by **mattmaus** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:11 pm

Maeryk wrote:I'm not re-reading this thread to figure out if I said this already, but never weld with a bic lighter in your shirt pocket.

Hand grenades are cool.

Maeryk · Post by **Maeryk** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:13 pm

mattmaus wrote:
Maeryk wrote:I'm not re-reading this thread to figure out if I said this already, but never weld with a bic lighter in your shirt pocket.
Hand grenades are cool.

Manboob grenades not so cool.

mattmaus · Post by **mattmaus** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 10:34 pm

Maeryk wrote:Manboob grenades not so cool.

Pain is the essence of humor...

In this case I expect the proximity to moobsplosion blast radius significantly affects the ability to laugh.

mongrel · Post by **mongrel** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:00 pm

dumbest armoring injury was at my first (and only to this date) pennsic. I was working at the tandy leather stand while milti-tasking to fix a broken strap on my armor. I looked over to help a customer and looked back just in time to slice deeply into my middle finger on my right hand with a pair of Tandy's Ã¼ber leather scissors. I looked down, saw the muscle tissue through the stream of blood, yelled many obscenities and ran my happy ass to the first aid pavillion where i promptly asked them for some superglue and gauze. They of course,being medical professionals, refused my request and stitched me up right there. The following week I managed to fight in every battle using a center grip shield without ripping any of the stitches out.

-mongrel-

Halberds · Post by **Halberds** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:16 pm

Man it is a wounder some of you guys haven't killed yourselves yet.
Or worse... put an eye out!

Damn... I never did anything dumb and hurt myself.
Cept for that time I accidentally shot my self.

And fell into the scrap metal pile.

Hal

Token Bastard · Post by **Token Bastard** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:27 pm

Only real injury I ever sustained in the two years I had access to the shop in the basement was the one time I managed to smash my index finger with a rawhide mallet as I dished out a knee cop. Had a leather glove on the left hand, pounding with the right, just not really paying attention. *Whack!* *Whack!* *POW!!!* *Whack!* *Whack!* "...Ow."

Pulled the glove off, and the tip of my index finger was bleeding quite a bit. Since the pain was still taking it's time to sink in, I just wrapped it up in a few pieces of paper towels, duct taped it all together, put the glove back on, and continued hammering.

-Ed

Halberds · Post by **Halberds** » Mon Jul 20, 2009 11:37 pm

Duct tape and paper towels make a very good quick repair patch.
I keep a bottle of alcohol on the shelf to sterilize cuts before the tape wrap.

My wife got me some genuine duct tape band-aids.
Nice heavy duty suckers for shop use.

Hal

So far the guy that got the thumb pinned to the Beverly shear with the curled up pointed shard wins.
Hey someone get me my pliers...
Ow ow ow...
Been there done that.
I pulled the sharp shard triangle looking Freddy Kruger thing out of my hand.

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 12:06 am

Hal you don't need the paper towel just use the duct tape.

Actually I close cuts by simply keeping working they fill up with iron filings and oil and heal nicely. Unless I'm polishing something. then I apply pressure till it stops getting what I'm working on bloody. then go back to polishing.

Krazy glue works.

There is an exception to the above practice. The ones that have fat sticking out usually get something over them.

Most recent neato injury. Drilling out ocular corners on a klapvisor. Broke the 1/4" drillbit. No idea how. Jagged end of what's left skips off into the palm of my hand. Drilling not 1 not 2 but 3 half inch deep holes in the palm of my hand. couldn't figure a good way to bandage it so cleaned them out with water pressure alcohol and elbow grease. Pushed the fat back in the holes and applied pressure till they closed then went back to work. had to re close one of them several times over the next day.

Took a pic after the first rinse for posterity.

Duco de Klonia · Post by **Duco de Klonia** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:04 pm

Well Halberds,
There is nothing you can't do with Ductape...
They even call me "Duco Ductape" over here.Now all of them are asking me for the stuff when they need it.

I had my share of normal injuries and little fires last months.
I incenerated my T-shirt with the angle-grinder, and just this morning I used the Whitney punch with a small die, but it was a rather old one, not punching a little disc all the way out of the brass, but only 80 %

So I thought, "well, I can turn that little bugger of the hole with thumb & forfinger " NOT. It just carved a little hole in my thumb and that HURTS.
It scooped out a little dot of meat out of the thumb.
Ouch.

Baron Conal · Post by **Baron Conal** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:27 pm

Ingelri wrote:
To this day I have a star shaped scar on my palm.

Ingelri

Harry Palmer?

( sorry I know it's an old post but its my first time
seeing this thread..... )

J.G.Elmslie · Post by **J.G.Elmslie** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:37 pm

I am very, very glad I've not drilled through my bollocks, welded myself on fire, or performed any such mistakes. I've been fairly accident-free since I started getting older and discovered that no, I was'nt immortal...

But I'm still particularly impressed with the mistake I did a few days back.
I dont like power tools... so using a hand drill.

of course, the does need to be used with care...
so I promptly manage to carefully line it up, get it places, and start drilling, holding it in one hand, and turning the hand crank.
and manage to make one full revolution, shift my grip slightly, and then proceed to slice my left thumb knuckle open to the bone....
loose bits of metal? no.
broken bit? no.
catastrophic breakage? no.

I manage to slice open my thumb.... on the thumbnail of my other hand.

I am, as they say, rather embarrased.

particularly as I'm there, clutching a bit of bog-roll to the slice, and notice that there's a nice strip of raw flesh still embedded under my other thumb.
ick.

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:05 pm

Suzerain wrote:... and notice that there's a nice strip of raw flesh still embedded under my other thumb.

Just duct-tape it back in place. Use some super glue too if you want to be really sure

The Iron Dwarf · Post by **The Iron Dwarf** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:21 pm

not armouring but we did used to have to do a few repairs for early re enactors

many many years ago when I first started metalworking straight from school at a small place employing 3 people.
the boss had dropped something heavy on his thumb just as we were all going for a break but could not be bothered with going to the hospital to have the nail drilled to let out the blood under it so he put in an 1/8" bit in a pillar drill and found as it was his right thumb he could not turn the handle to bring the drill down so he put on the auto feed, drills through the nail and cant reach to turn the feed off and by the time help arrives the drill bit is into the table after having gone right through his finger

Baron Conal · Post by **Baron Conal** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:24 pm

I feel I must admit I'm waiting for my thumbnail to
grow back normally after a pin I was grinding caught
and pulled my thumb into the wheel....

Didn't get stitches... nothing left to stitch together.

My 4 year old was watching.

I had been lazy and had not installed the supports
on the grinder either....

J.G.Elmslie · Post by **J.G.Elmslie** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 6:54 pm

RalphS wrote:
Suzerain wrote:... and notice that there's a nice strip of raw flesh still embedded under my other thumb.
Just duct-tape it back in place. Use some super glue too if you want to be really sure

it was'nt deep enough to be worth it, annoyingly. just one of those not-quite to the knuckle-bone gouges that makes a real mess of your typing for a week.
and I was rather more embarrased as such a stupid mistake.

on the other hand it's not as embarrasing as the time when I was a teenager, still at home when a scalpel slipped off the table, and into my leg, neatly cutting a blood vessel.
rushed to the bathroom, dropped trousers to deal with the cut, and at that point the spurt of blood made me realise this was more than a DIY repair.
"arse" I said to myself, and realised that this was more than just a little nick.
"arse" I said to myself again, as I realised that with a large pad of tissue paper clamped firmly to my leg, I could'nt get trousers back up.

15-20 odd years later I still get teased about it by my mother (usually when my dear other half is with me, visiting), after I hopped round to the kitchen with a pair of trousers at knee-height and asked for a lift to the A&E department...

Sometimes, the injury is nothing even close to the mortifying embarrasment of the aftermath.

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:27 am

Not armouring related (though it did happen only a few meters away from my workshop): I once put a pitchfork about 10 cm into my thigh, it almost came out the other side.
Somehow I managed to miss all important parts and didn't feel a thing, I thought I'd just punctured my jeans, until I saw the blood very quickly colour my leg red all the way down to my foot, in a matter of seconds.
After stopping the bleeding I went down to the local emergency room, carefully making sure to wear the bloody jeans. This was a very conscious decision based on previous experience and guaranteed to save me a couple of hours waiting at the ER.
Indeed, upon arrival there I did not have to register and was immediately ushered to the proper corridor. Getting the attention of the nurse on duty was as simple as stepping into view, which resulted in wide-eyed shock which in turn petrified a colleague of hers who happened to have her back turned towards me. It was fun to see that reaction!

Anyway, the damage wasn't bad and everything healed up nicely.

And the moral of this story: don't switch to clean clothes if you happened to splatter blood all over yourself and have to go to the emergency room. You will be automatically moved up to the top of the priority list.

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 2:33 am

Suzerain it's not that I think I'm immortal I get more injuries then anyone I know and they're not all shop related. It's just that I don't care.

Johan S. Moen · Post by **Johan S. Moen** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 6:06 am

Not quite armouring but...

I have a bad relationship with one of my blunt spearheads. I've had to put a new shaft on it twice, each time ending less well. Both times I've been stupid enough to glue the spearhead to the shaft. Both times I've also been stupid enough to at first try to dig the wood out of the socket with a knife.

The first time, the knife slipped along the inside of the socket, jumped out and gave me a deep cut through the inside of the hand. A bit of gauze and some tape fixed it.

The second time, the knife slipped in the same again, this time cutting straight over the metacarpals on my left hand except the thumb. On my index and middle finger, the cut went down to the bone, on the ring finger and the little finger the cut was less severe... I taped it up good and made sure my finger joints could not move to stretch the wound. Even so, I shoudl probably have had stitches; when I removed the tape to check after 3 days, the wound was still open. I now have a nice scar across all 4 fingers.

I still haven't started using gloves...

Johan Schubert Moen

Kilkenny · Post by **Kilkenny** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 8:00 am

Johan S. Moen wrote:Not quite armouring but...

I have a bad relationship with one of my blunt spearheads. I've had to put a new shaft on it twice, each time ending less well. Both times I've been stupid enough to glue the spearhead to the shaft. Both times I've also been stupid enough to at first try to dig the wood out of the socket with a knife.

The first time, the knife slipped along the inside of the socket, jumped out and gave me a deep cut through the inside of the hand. A bit of gauze and some tape fixed it.

The second time, the knife slipped in the same again, this time cutting straight over the metacarpals on my left hand except the thumb. On my index and middle finger, the cut went down to the bone, on the ring finger and the little finger the cut was less severe... I taped it up good and made sure my finger joints could not move to stretch the wound. Even so, I shoudl probably have had stitches; when I removed the tape to check after 3 days, the wound was still open. I now have a nice scar across all 4 fingers.

I still haven't started using gloves...

Johan Schubert Moen

Learning curve a bit flat is it ?

Armourkris · Post by **Armourkris** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:52 am

Living in an apartment i do most of my cutting, dishing and other noisy things at work.
Now, I'd just finished cutting out a bunch of pieces and was sweeping up the leftover bits off the floor. somehow, i don't know how, i pinched my ulnar nerve (my funny bone that is). One minute I was sweeping, the next my right arm was fiery burning pins and needles from the elbow down with no signs of going away soon.
I did all this on my lunch break mind you, so since i was still on the clock my boss dragged me down to the ER to keep the compo people happy. Admittedly my arm felt like burning for a few hours, but when we finally got into the doctor it had mostly faded away. The Doc said it was just a pinched nerve and that it'd should be fine in no time, but told me to take the rest of the day off anyways.
so my boss ran me home, then filled out a workers compensation report.

The guys at the shop still make fun of the fact that after all the ridiculous things they've seen me do/happen to me that it was sweeping the floor that sent me to the ER.

J.G.Elmslie · Post by **J.G.Elmslie** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:07 pm

Mad Matt wrote:Suzerain it's not that I think I'm immortal I get more injuries then anyone I know and they're not all shop related. It's just that I don't care.

no offence intended if the "not immortal" comment was a bit insulting.

I wish I could just not care, but I pretty much dodged the bullet in a massive skiing accident about 15 years ago, and which pretty much stopped me doing the sports I used to. (which is of course, why I do safe hobbies nowadays. like being smacked in the face with a 3-foot long bar of steel...

). Nowadays, I'm pretty wrecked, too many damaged vertibrae, dislocating joints, and chronic pains to get away with being careless. I'm f***ed enough already, without adding more to my list of broken parts... :/

Kenwrec Wulfe · Post by **Kenwrec Wulfe** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:18 pm

More recently...(last year) I have lived up to the reputation of my Laurel and lit one of his apprentices on fire.....

...namely myself. left the gloved hand in the kiln a little too long fiddling with trying to position a piece for heat treating.......

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:46 pm

Absolutely no offense taken.

Oskar der Drachen · Post by **Oskar der Drachen** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:19 pm

Ramius wrote:Would both stood there watching as Friend A's jeans started smoking from the spray of sparks, and simply waited for him to notice...

-Ramius

I set myself on fire that way once. Shorts, trackpants, t-shirt, overalls, cold day, goggles & ear-plugs in while grinding heavily with an angle grinder.

Really into the work and humming to myself, I'm thinking "It's really warm in here." "Really warm..." Haaaaaagghh! BatBatBatBat for the flames over the man-bits. I actually hurt myself more putting the flames out than getting burnt. Amazing what effort you put into dousing flames that are actually coming from you.

I kept the t-shirt with the nice V-Shaped burn mark in the front hem as a reminder to go and sin no more. The flames had burnt through all the layers but the shorts....

No apron by the way.

Oskar der Drachen · Post by **Oskar der Drachen** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 11:42 pm

Not an armouring injury, but work related, and caused by metal?

Working in the Army motorpool in preparation to go to the Gulf (Desert Shield still by then) and all of our communication rigs had been retro-fitted with these ugly-as-sin air-conditioners that just stuck out of the side of what had been a pretty featureless camo-painted box.

Working out under the rear of the truck on something or other and stood up to hear a really curious wet crunchy sound, and then I went blind! Just the blood sheeting over my face fortunately. Scalp and face wounds bleed like hell. I slapped a hand over the cut, which moved around in a really odd way I might add. You know that doctors just peel your face off for bone reconstruction surgery right?

The sight must have been *really* spcial because when I went to the Sgt to say "I think I need to go to the emergency room." I thought HE was going to fall over.

Keeping direct pressure on with my hand, we piled into a truck and went tearing off to the base hospital. I was second in line next to the guy they had to cut the boot off of because he had two left feet now. One with two, and one with three toes. Something about a really heavy trailer stand coming down in the wrong place.

The funny bit came though when I got into the doctor and they couldn't get my hand off my head. The blood had dried through my hair, over the wound, and between my fingers. He had to shave my hand off my head to get at the cut. Really sensitive guy too, I brought my now furry hand down off my head and he said..."If you don't stop that you're gonna go blind. Har Har."

20 years later and I can still feel the scar through my hair.

Oskar der Drachen

Johan S. Moen · Post by **Johan S. Moen** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:18 am

Kilkenny wrote:
Learning curve a bit flat is it ?

Curve?

Guess I'm just stubborn.... Besides, I got some scars to show off.

Johan Schubert Moen

Baron Alcyoneus · Post by **Baron Alcyoneus** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:11 pm

I was armoring tired after midnight one time and bounced the 25# ball stake off of the edge of my scrotum.

It sort of woke me up.

audax · Post by **audax** » Thu Jul 23, 2009 6:54 pm

I was using my drill with a steel wire disc to clean some rust off my helmet when the wheel caught the lower edge of the helmet and promptly jumped down and gouged into the forearm and knee.

So far I've managed not to cut off any bodyparts while making leather armour.

Jonathan Atkin · Post by **Jonathan Atkin** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:34 pm

I got into a fight with a ladder once. Lol working for dish network I take the ladder off the side of the van start walking and the ladder stops my face keeps going into a rung.

The ladder wobbled alittle and got stuck on the side of the van now I have a scar above my right eye