Did something dumb today.

[kantuckid]

I reluctantly join this club.
......

Good! It takes some of the heat off of me. ;D
Lest we all forget, this thread is intended to confess our mistakes and near misses so that others might learn and not make the same mistakes.

My boxers have the top of the pee hole slot torn apart. : 
If that's not warning enough that life with tools is fret with danger, I may need to hang up my tools? 
It was not a casual mistake either as I was carefully trying for some sort of "joist pocket perfection", of sorts.
When I walked in the house yesterday ~ 4:30, dirty and sweaty, Wife asks me what I did to myself today. I showed her my left underneath forearm where I'd somehow manage to draw blood several places while wearing a heavy sweatshirt. Logs are not real user friendly up on a ladder? 
Unplugging' breaker boxing a tool is inherent in my nature as in industry I carried my own padlock in my toolbox to stay alive. I will not even change the cutting depth on a skil saw if plugged in.  

[kantuckid]

This might already be way up this list.  About 2 years ago I wasn't quite so lucky with my angle grinder.  Perfect storm of stupid decisions.  I was working in tight quarters such that I couldn't have the guard on the head (probably wouldn't have helped) nor the second handle.  The next bad decision was to cut with it pulling the head into the cut rather than out of the cut.  I was cutting about waist high or maybe a little higher.  I can't remember if I was holding with two hands or just one.  It grabbed and in less than a blink of the eye, it hit my knee with such force I thought I broke something.  Man, that really, really hurt.  My jeans had a 5 or 6 inch tear/cut about mid-thigh.  I peeked in side and not a scratch.  But boy did my knee hurt.

I continued cutting after I picked up my still spinning grinder (switch not paddle) and changed the blade.  Man, my knee hurt.  So I looked again and well below the jeans hole there was a gaping gash but no blood.  The disk must have cauterized it!

The ER doc didn't like my suggestions to cut the ragged edge off the wound so it would heal cleaner.  In hind sight, she wanted to have it heal from the inside out but that took almost a month.

As an industrial millwright mechanic, we often dressed welds made by union welders. My larger point is that I had this thing happen and in my past I was a pro with an angle grinder for hours and hours. Yet it happened lately. Fact is my Milwaukee is a small grinder with a handy paddle switch not the maneaters I've used many times. 11,000 rpm's matter I guess?  

[firefighter ontheside]

Yesterday the boys and I took the canoe to a local lake to paddle around for a while.  I hauled it on the flatbed truck such that one end was up on the headache rack and the other end was just on the tail end of the bed.  I got up on the truck to pick up the end off of the rack.  My 15 year old was on the ground with the other end.  I lifted up the end and started walking back toward the tail of the bed and promptly stepped into the hole in the middle of the bed where the gooseneck hitch it.  I did not get hurt, but thought I was going to as I felt like I fell for ever.  Luckily my foot landed on top of the hitch which is about 6" below the bed.  I really need to make a cover for that hole.

[sawguy21]

There is a similar hole in my truck bed, I haven't stepped in it.....yet. Sometimes I feel if there is a way to hurt myself I will find and exploit it.

[SawyerTed]

Not sure how "dumb" this was but it sure does hurt.

 

I decided to spend some time in my deer stand today.  Well, it is raining acorns!  

Have you ever had an acorn hit the top of your head?  How about one hitting that little button on top of a ball cap?  

It brought tears to my eyes!

[firefighter ontheside]

I would definitely avoid hunting under a bur oak.

[SawyerTed]

This is a beautiful white oak and it would make several saw logs!

[Old Greenhorn]

Well Ted I don't think it was dumb. A learning experience perhaps, but not dumb. We had a bumper crop last year and just walking out to the mailbox was painful. Yes, I did get one right on the button of my cap and it did, indeed, hurt like the dickens. I took to walking across the lawn out of harms way. This year they have not started yet. 
 I will say that when we had the ice storm last winter and I insisted on going out to clear tree off our garage roof before the ice was gone, was truly dumb. I had a hard hat on and when that ice hit, hard and often, it really got one's attention and often hurt. Every time a breeze came up I would cringe. I would try, but be driven inside, day after day, until it finally melted 5 days later.

[Hilltop366]

The first thing I do with a new ball cap is remove the button, my brother taught me that. Things still hurt but not as nearly as bad as with that stupid button.

[Nebraska]

I tried to break my collar bone this evening cutting  3/8" rebar with my big bolt cutter.   :  I had set the rebar in the trench against a barn foundation and needed to cut about 4 ft off. So why not brace the opposite handle against the foundation and push.(got kicked in the hand by a calf two weeks ago and  greensticked a bone.  I was getting by with 1 1/2 hands not much grip yet)..Well it let go all of a sudden and I wasn't quite ready and  forward I went .....My shoulder stopped me on a temporary  stud. Just because I was too lazy to pick the rebar out of the trench and set it on the ground and cut it the right way... It's just a little sore, could've been worse.  I think the little button on top of the ball cap  may have hurt worse than hitting the shoulder, as the scab from the last installment of running it into a low obstacle is about gone...

[Old Greenhorn]

I tried to break my collar bone this evening cutting  3/8" rebar with my big bolt cutter.....

All I had to read was that first sentence and I nearly spit beer through my nose (thank you). I knew that there was no way this would turn out well. Although I have never used 3/8 rebar, all my attempts to cut it ended in, um, learning experiences. I chipped jaws on bolt cutters enough times that I should have learned. Only use abrasive cutoffs these days unless there is an actual rebar shear on hand, which of course, never happens.
 Green sticks don't heal in a week, but you know this better than I and at your age your were pretty dang lucky to get a greenstick, I thought that only happened in pediatric cases?
 Anyway, I'm glad there was no damage of consequence except to your pride and the federal requirements for you to report it here.
 Heal up before you break something new.

[bigblockyeti]

(got kicked in the hand by a calf two weeks ago and  greensticked a bone.  I was getting by with 1 1/2 hands not much grip yet).

For me anyway, I think the best way to recover from that injury would be with plenty of veal!

[kantuckid]

There is a similar hole in my truck bed, I haven't stepped in it.....yet. Sometimes I feel if there is a way to hurt myself I will find and exploit it.

While building my home in 1979 I was walking the top of the foundation and stepped on the termite shield of roll aluminum that covered the basement windows, as if it was gonna hold my body. I fell flat backwards with my spine hitting the concrete block edge of the window opening. The windows were in place and crappy alu versions that one collapsing under my weight. I have never forgotten my mind wondering if I'd created a quadriplegic that day. I was in my mid 30's and healed fast but it's also part of my lengthly back report and maybe one reason I now wake up in the early hours when my iburpofens wear off. Stupidity has no bounds for me as I've already had my "9 lives" me thinks? :D 
Veal I can do without. 

[Nebraska]

 

 

Yeah those bolt cutters were 30 yards closer than my battery powered angle grinder....   Another couple weeks and the hand will be better.   At least it's not calving season.

[Old Greenhorn]

Still looks painful.

[doc henderson]

Nebraska, you crack me... you up...  ...  ...  

[doc henderson]

i got an electric (Sawzall type motor frame)  over hydraulic rebar cutter, from HF.  no longer available.  they were prob. too good a tool  easy to get into the tough spots.

[firefighter ontheside]

Yeah, I've never heard the term greenstick with anyone but a young child either.

[Nebraska]

Young at heart I suppose  ;) .....well the calf actually cracked me up.... I still feel I won in the end, as he's now a steer.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well maybe Nebraska is younger than we all thought? :D
 Truthfully I thought back on my training and they taught us that green sticks were more common in PEDs, so that would mean they occur in adults, just at a lower frequency.

 Payback is a birch!

[doc henderson]

kids' bones are less brittle, they flex and break on one side, but do not go all the way through.

[Southside]

That image from your own machine Nebraska?

[Nebraska]

I reserve the right to avoid self incrimination.  

[Old Greenhorn]

As you should.
 Besides, we all know the answer anyway. If I had a lift in my shop I would not take my car to the mechanic to 'check out that funny noise underneath'.

[kantuckid]

I reserve the right to avoid self incrimination.  

I've always wondered if Vets take the critter pills-feel free not to answer my question... ;D