Shop safety
 

One of my old next-door neighbors just stopped by today while I was out working in the shop. I didn't get to speak with him, but Rachel did.

Long story short, turns out he was recently working on the torsion spring on his garage door when something went awry and the spring broke free.

In the process, he lost a good chunk (literally!) of his left forearm, including muscle & tendons which his wife had to retrieve from the floor & place in a bag to take with them to the E.R.

Unfortunately they were unable to re-attach the severed sections, and as a result he will suffer significant (but not complete--thankfully) & permanent loss of use of his left arm from the elbow down.

We all tend to take shop safety for granted from time to time, I've done it several times myself--the last time having a copper air line burst free from a compression fitting while my head was about 6" away from it. I screwed up & thought the air had been completely bled from the lines--obviously it hadn't. I got away lucky with nothing more than a little rash on the side of my face from the air in the line and a little debris that made its way out in the process embedded in my cheek.

A couple of inches more to the right and I'd likely be blind right now.

Just a friendly reminder--to myself as well.

Stay focused.

Re: Shop safety
 

I remind my people daily of the hazards in the shop and frequently remind people to put on safety glasses, gloves and other safety features. Not to mention no welding or cutting after 2:00 just in case an errant ember or hot metal flies into something that could catch fire. You can NEVER be too safe and always expect the worst. I just recently worked on my torsion springs and was cautious but in the future I may leave that up to the professionals. Thanks for passing on the reminder Eric.

Re: Shop safety
 

We just had a torsion spring break on our garage door at 3 o'clock in the morning. I contemplated replacing the spring my self. Ended up calling a professional and had it done for $125.00

It made one hell of a sound when it broke and made a mess out of the cables!

Re: Shop safety
 

I've had two torsion springs replaced over the years and always let the professionals handle that job. It sucks that he is maimed from it now. I always try to remember mine and others safety when working in the shop.

Re: Shop safety
 

Well, speaking of safety, I made a decision yesterday about safety. I have been using a chainsaw for close to 50 years. Never gave it too much thought about what that chain could do to my legs. Just for the hell of it, I looked at chainsaw chaps. After watching a couple of videos on them, I have a very good pair on the way.

Re: Shop safety
 

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: drdave69</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I've had two torsion springs replaced over the years and always let the professionals handle that job. </div></div>

Absolutely.....cheap insurance....

Re: Shop safety
 

&quot;Give unsafe practices and inch &amp; they will take a FOOT&quot;

O-R-M

Operation Risk Management- What's going to Hurt me?, What am I going to do about it?, Whom can I tell?

Prayers for your friend healing,

Jim W

Re: Shop safety
 

I'm epileptic and have complex partial seizures. Basically, I just zone out for 30 seconds or so maybe twice a month. I really need to swap out the angle grinder for one with a paddle switch juuuust in case.

Re: Shop safety
 

We do a shop safety huddle each morning. We go over the prior days events and a Behavior &amp; Safety Observation done on a random work area daily. It's surprising what can be seen as a potential hazard in the shop. Something as simple as a defined walkway (complete with footstep) can make a huge difference in a area with multiple vehicle types. We pride ourselves with zero injuries and zero missed time due to hazards. It's a P.I.T.A but I like to go home every night. Some of my co-workers,in past, sadly have not. Our motto is ..&quot;Take 3 seconds to think about what you are doing, BEFORE you do it&quot;.


BIG

Re: Shop safety
 

Good practice, BIG. Safety culture is tuff to change and is susceptible to erosion!

Re: Shop safety
 

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

Re: Shop safety
 

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 &amp; 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 &quot;telling&quot; 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 &amp; his family that it wasn't worse.

Stay focused.

Re: Shop safety
 

Prayers for your friend.

Re: Shop safety
 

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]

https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...85-house_1.jpg
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...86-house_4.jpg
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...51687-jr_1.jpg
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...51688-jr_4.jpg

Re: Shop safety
 

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

Re: Shop safety
 

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.

Re: Shop safety
 

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]

Re: Shop safety
 

<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!

Re: Shop safety
 

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

Re: Shop safety
 

----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

Re: Shop safety
 

I will add a safety word for regular shop system maintenance.

We built our shop in 2004 and installed a modulating boiler with hydronic heat in the floor. For years it has been a great operation. Then this year I fired the system up, so my wife could refinish some furniture in a nice warm place.

It wasn't a couple of hours later that she was almost collasping and complaining of a severe headache. I bought a CO detector and set it up in the shop. The recorded level of CO in the building was more than 250ppm inside and the exhaust level was 8,000ppm. We had to air the shop out, just to investigate the problem with the boiler.

We ended up having a professional out to clean and tune the boiler. $270 later and the shop is back in the safe zone with the CO level at 0ppm.

I never thought about CO poisoning in the shop, but won't go without a detector in there now. Even running your car in an enclosed area can spike the CO levels in a very short period.

You can't be too careful.

Blair

Re: Shop safety
 

This is an important thread.

We all have stories about cutting a few corners and risking too much.

Ryan

Re: Shop safety
 

I have had a CO detector in my shop for a few years now and am amazed at how many times we set it off. Most times I never would have noticed it (pre detector) and just kept on working as we had no symptoms. Prolonged exposure is not good either so now we pay attention when it goes off.

Re: Shop safety
 

One of our Son's has a Masters Degree in OSHA Safety from Murray State Univ., he works as a safety engineer for a major construction Co. that is nationwide, his job is to keep the workers safe ,but odly enough most the workers don't like the safety guy that is there to keep them alive.