I was on a six foor ladder doing a prewire, drilling a 1 inch hole with a paddle bit with a corded drill.
The bit caught, the drill twisted out of my hand and wacked me in the jaw, I thought that was the worst of it. This was when I relized that the drill was stuck on high, somehow the bit was still in the wood and the drill was spinning around totally out of control.
I was being wire whipped by the cord on th4e drill, which was plugged into a extinsion cord, tied in a knot where the two plug in to each other. Finnaly the cord on the drill wrapped so tight that it ripped it into. Now I had bare hot wires on the floor.
All of this happened in 10-15 seconds but it seemed like forever. Several people watching all this commotion though it was real funny, all I got was a fat lip, and a new cordless drill!


Heres another one.
I was doing a trouble shot at a DR's house. The back of his cabinet had a door on it for easy access to the equip, when the door was open it was right above the stairs about 8 inches from the wall. He was down stairs his four year old was in the playroom behind me, his wife was in the kitchen. The four year old let out a ear peircing scream, I heard him running up the stairs, then a huge "thud" then a lot of cussing, his wife went to the kid m(nothing wrong, saw something funny on TV I guess) I went to see what happened to him, I turned the corner and saw that he was down towards the bottom of the stairs with a perfect corner gash in his head right above his eyebrow, with alot of bood running down his face.
I guess as he was running up the stairs he caught the cabinet just right so full force of his impact with the door went totally to his head. The door was still open, didnt give at all.
he ended up with six stitches.
ouch!

cb1

only bumped softly into roof nails, havent "hoisted" myself up into one yet!

Early on in my prewire days while reading plans and walking from one side of the house to another I stepped into a nice opening used to access the crawl space. Didn't see it coming. While straddling the floor joist and leaning back and noticed my shin was in some serious pain. About 12 inches of fresh skin or lack of showing. My tail bone hurting like hell the only thing I could do for about 10 minutes was lean to the side while sitting in the open floor.

No one else was around to help or laugh but that sure did hurt!

Few years later I'm on a remodel. While trying to get wire from A to B around places Dave can't reach I take out my handy-dandy 6' flex bit. Determined to make this run I run that flex bit past 3 sets of blocking and a top cap. The bit gets stuck! Crap! Dave pulls out the hammer. Hammer Time! Using the claw to inch the bit out. Working over my head the claw slips off the flex bit and doubles back and hits me in the head. While still standing and seeing stars the blood starts gushing and now I'm just disgusted. The other installer drives me to the ER for stitches.

Just for the record to show how stubborn(or stupid)I am, both were finished. Pain and all.

Dave


This message was edited by DavidatAVX on 05/01/04 16:25.

Best one I can remember.

Several years back my son worked for me during the summer months. We're at a job doing a central vac system install, and using a very serious 1/2" right angle drill with a 2 1/2" self feed bit. A slightly dull bit at that.

Son is up on the top of a 6 foot step ladder, in basement, drilling overhead, since there was no room to drill from above (which would make some sense).

Anyway, the bit bites solid and becomes more of a ceiling fan sort of thing, than a drill.

He starts spinning around and around, with the drill, and the ladder gets flipped out from under him as he continues to rotate in the air.


He's rotating around and around, yelling "make it stop" at the top of his lungs. I"m dying with laughter.

Finally came to a halt when the cord wrapped around him enough to pull the plug.....then I put the ladder back....lol

hasnt happened to me yet, but i have seen several people get the ole center channel speaker on the cranium, especially when speaker sits on top of stupid Sony rptv's and someone working behind, nealt down.

This message was edited by freddyfreeload on 05/01/04 17:10.

I was drilling a hole with a holehog and a 1" auger bit close to a fireplace to run an RGB for a plasma when the bit popped through the other side and the drill starts going forward faster than I could move my hand out of the way. It ended up pinching my hand between the drill and a bracket on the fireplace and was stuck until I reversed it. Ended up with 12 stitches on the skin on the back of my hand and 2 stitches in 3 of my finger ligaments that were severed halfway through. Nearby coworkers thought it was funny my hand was stuck until they saw the blood rushing. Weird thing was that it didn't hurt too much.

Wouldnt it suck if you had pinned yourself to the house by drilling a hole through your hand,
and your battery dies at the same time, with nobody else home!!!

Was going to post, but just can't top a vibrator to the head. Were they C cells or D cells?

Does it really matter?

Wow! Great stories guys. All of this has drudged the dark corners of my mind for more stories.

Okay, here is my worst painful incident. I was 19 years old and working for a company installing fireplaces. Nice summer day and we have to install a 48" firebox(weighs about 385 lbs.). Get the beast of the truck and start up the walkboards into the house. One of those jobs where the front door is about 8 feet off the grade. Dumbass framers forgot to nail the walkboard down. About 2/3 way up the angle were some concrete blocks used to support the walkboard. Well, myself and this guy that made Gomer Pyle look like Einstein start up the board. I am walking backwards and can feel the board starting to 'shimy' under my feet. Quick spin of the world and I am out cold. Open my eyes a few minutes later to find my right arm is pinned up to the shoulder by the firebox and just to left of my head is a concrete block holding down a 2x4 full of nails.I think I have gotten off lucky at this point. I mentally examined myself for injuries, none so far, Im gold. Well two of the guys on the job help get the firebox off me, about a minute after the fall, and I start to get up. Gomer is laughing his ass off. One of the siding guys up on the scafolding yells to me to take it easy, I yell back that I am okay, he yells back "Check your left knee, I dont think you're okay.". I situp and see that I have a beutiful torn gash(about 4 inches long and 7/8 inch deep) just above my left kneecap. Ugh. I can see the 'white meat' in the wound and realize maybe Im not as okay as I thought. Here comes the blood and lots of it. I hobble to the van and tear open the first aid kit. The guy I am working with is screaming at me to get my ass in gear and that he has had bigger scratches on the head of his d*ck. I give him the finger. I start doctoring the wound, ended up with a roll of gauze, 15 napikns, half of a roll of toilet paper and @ 12' of aluminum tape, to seal the wound. Went and installed the fireplace at this time. GC wants to know why I am not going to the doc's office and can I please stop bleeding on his job site.
I refer him to my crew leader. Lots of harsh words, I am getting dizzy, I hear "Get up on the roof and get a measurement for the rain pan, so we can get your p***sy a** to the doctor". I do as I am told. Job finished, an hour has passed. I bet you think I went to the doctor now, nope. Had to go to guys bank first, then to the shop to get approval to go to the doctor. Three hours have passed and even I can see that my color is a bit pale. Finally get to the Industrial Emergency Medicine. Guy I am with drops me at the door and tells me he is going for lunch. Security guard helps me down the hall, leaving a blood trail behind, on to the elevator we go, up 2 floors and as I step off the elevator, brilliant nurse stands up and (in a raised voice) " You're bleeding!" WOW! You figured that out all on your own. Best part was watching 2 nurses almost pass out from the site of the really open wound. I ended up cleaning the wound myself, by this point I couldnt feel anything anyway, doc comes in and, again brilliantly, observes that I need stitches. Worst part was doc shooting me with a little anisthetic. Jackass bent, yes really bent, the needle as he stuck me. I hit him. It hurt, what would you have done? Claimed that he needed to 'get me good and numb'. Mild threats and he stitched me without anisthetic. By now 'lunch' is over and I am supposed to go home and rest. Not the thought pattern of Gomer though, went and installed 2 more fireboxes that day, tore 4 of the 13 stitches out on the first job. Two more on the next job. Thankfully we can buy butterfly stitches at the local pharmacy. Still have problems with that leg from time to time. Gotta love working with hard asses.

I have many more but I may have already gotten long winded.

Next.

This message was edited by avgenius1 on 05/02/04 16:26.

I think I would tell Gomer to kiss my a**. Im goin to the doctor .

I have 2.

I was running into my van - literally running - and jumped into the side door of my van. I didnt quite duck enough and caught my head on the latch. I stopped instantly and fell flat on my back, laying on the sidewalk. I took me 5 minutes to get up. I felt dumb but havent done it again.

As for cediakings story. I was fixing someone elses screwups and needed a cd to test the system (didnt feel like trekking to the truck) So I asked the lady of the house if she had one. She told to look in a very specific box in her son's room. In the box was a vibrator, a 10" blue chrome dildo, massage dust and other paraphenalia. I almost died - especially considering his fiance was hot as hell but appeared prude as hell too. That may have been my funniest moment.

Got one that is pretty embarrassing... Customer was very courteous in placing a "little giant ladder", (you guys have undoubtably heard of these) outside the house in an extension ladder formation at a near 45 degree angle. I thought that I would attempt to move it to a safer angle and in doing so the ladder began to get top heavy and fall backwards... behind me was exspensive pottery and in front of me a 10x10 window, what to do since my hands were doing little to persuade the ladder to return to the side of the house I used the next best thing...my head. I squarely head-butted the ladder on the step and manged to work it back on to the house with no injury to the house. I was a bit dizzy for the next 15 minutes as I climbed on to the roof and caught the OTA antenna with my nice work shirt and ripped it. Thought that the ordeal was over only to find that I had a lump that was quickly turning purple that the lady of the house was quick to point out when I returned to ground level. The next three days was the beginning of an experiment of arranging the hair to cover the bump and some pills for the strained muscle in my neck.

My wife stopped by the job one day with my bouncing baby boy. I was busy raising him to the ceiling and lowering him to my chest as we went from room to room. That always elicited giggles and smiles! Unfortunately, I walked into a room with a nine foot ceiling and a ceiling fan, and it was summer time. Thwap thwap thwap thwap thwap thwap on the back of his head! My poor kid should have been made ward of the court at that very moment. I only bring it up because he's 21 now, and he visits this forum from time to time. I'm not sure I'd like to hear his version of this story.

I was 17 and excited to begin my career in the custom field. On one of my first rough-ins I was unreeling a 50' extension cord off one of those handy ext. cord reels. Like I said before I was excited, I was really whipping that cord off thge reel when the 18" tail at the end swung around and nailed me square in the face. The lead installer was laughing so hard I couldn't help but to laugh through my pain. The same lead installer who used to do search and sniff missions for the "pink Flashlights".