OT: Battle Scars

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George Stolz

George Stolz

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Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
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Hospital Master Electrician
Well, I finally had my first workman's comp case. :roll: :mad:

I was trying to straighten a slightly crooked box that I had mounted up against some cabinet backing - I had one screw in the top of the H6 and the box needed to rotate a degree or two to be perfect. I was applying a steady, constant (but firm) pressure on the bottom of the box when it suddenly sprang free, sending my elbow halfway through a steel stud.

We all thought we were seeing bone, but the doctor said it was subcutaneous tissue. I thought the story sounded better "slicing through to the bone." It freaked out the guy I was working with pretty good. (I really couldn't look at it myself.) :D

Five stitches later and I was back on the road (after a sheave of paperwork).

So, anybody got any good stories, while I recover? :D
 
Those steel studs can be nasty. If you lose your balance, or go to fall, the natural tendancy is to grab onto one to stop yourself. Don't do that.

Never had a cavity or a tooth pulled in my life, but I did smash out three teeth in one foul swoop when a drill got bound and smacked me in the jaw. That was especially disappointing.
 
Watched a guy take 20 minutes getting everything just perfect before making a cut on a sheet metal shear and making sure his fingers were free from the shear. He then stepped on the foot switch, the stops came down.....................................................yup, right on his finger. Lost it from the last knuckle.
 
I've seen a few deaths on the job site but I'll leave that for another day.
A few years back my old boss decided to save money so he bought the green cheap 6 Ft. step ladder from the warehouse instead of the sturdy yellow.. I always stand on top of the ladder so the first day I fell off that wobbly piece of crap and landed on the side of the ladder breaking several ribs. I'll never forget what he said to me as I lay there.."walk it off". He refused me workman's comp and made me pay for the doctor's visit myself saying it was my own fault. Good times...good times....
 
I was working on a steel structure building with ceiling height sloping from about 12'-18'. We did some of the work off 10' step and then decided it was too high and too risky. I ran the rest of the conduit with an ext. ladder. I got to my last run and the feet slipped from under me when I shfted my weight. (in hindsight I saw the patch of sand on the slab floor. that and no one holding the feet:rolleyes: ) Thankfully I was next to the outside wall and I bounced off the horizontal beams as I rode the ladder down. I ripped the panel cover off, also. No worse then a nasty 8" scar on my shin when my feet went through the rungs. It would have been serious if I was out in the middle with nothing to slow my decent, as I had been the previous six hours of the day. A day off and easy work for while. It took longer than I thought to get comfortable on on ladder again, Like I said...Thankful.
Next time I will tell of the 3-phase, 150 amp steel switch that got dropped on my finger. That one was a little messier.
 
Oakey said:
I've seen a few deaths on the job site but I'll leave that for another day.
A few years back my old boss decided to save money so he bought the green cheap 6 Ft. step ladder from the warehouse instead of the sturdy yellow.. I always stand on top of the ladder so the first day I fell off that wobbly piece of crap and landed on the side of the ladder breaking several ribs. I'll never forget what he said to me as I lay there.."walk it off". He refused me workman's comp and made me pay for the doctor's visit myself saying it was my own fault. Good times...good times....
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I am thankfull for a good boss. Never know what kind of money might be made elsewhere, but sometimes it just doesn't trade for liking where you are.
 
Wow george. Sorry to hear you got in a fight something and came out second best. Hope all goes well on the rebound.

Thankfully, I've only had one comp case. Unfortunately there was no Mike Holt Forum around back then. However, I did win enough money at the casino (craps) while on comp, and discovered Mike Holt Enterprises, and did the Masters Comprehensive course.Wrote a masters out of the time that would have been "wasted",after completing the course.
 
I was wiring a duplex outdoor light with a bricked up porch. The brick was laid, but the area inside was still open. We had wooden planks for access to the building. I stepped away from the light looking at whether it was hung straight and I stepped into the hole, falling sideways down onto the brick. Cracked a few ribs. I was out of work for over a week. Old guy I was working for didn't offer to help with missed wages, and he didn't want to pay the hospital bill. I was living paycheck to paycheck at the time, and had to borrow money so my wife and daughter (me too) could eat.
 
We relocated a 1/4 mile 3" buried conduit through a field that had sufferer from wind erosion and exposed the conduit. My help had managed to lower half of it in two days. A more experienced backhoe operator and I lowered the other half in 1 day. When I got out of the ditch I was cramping up. Whole body. When wife found me at a convenince store later she said "your going to the hospital" I managed a "yes" and went. Kidneys had shut down. Day & half later they tell me I am diabetic as well. Now at 168 lbs I am considerably less of a man than I used to be.
 
Those steel studs can be real nasty. Years ago doing condo units in Boca Raton Florida I was making a bridge for a box from steel track and I snipped the second side and the stud dropped I never felt a thing.Like a scalpel it opened a 2 in gash in my right thumb knuckle.I looked down and was amazed and turned to the guy next to me and showed him my hand and said, WOW thats so cool look at the muscles:) He almost barfed at it .12 stitches later and back on the job.

The only other time was in 2005 got rear ended twice in 6 weeks.Great drivers we have here in Florida.I found a bumper sticker I have on my vehicle it says.Welcome to the south now go home !!!!!!:)
 
allenwayne said:
The only other time was in 2005 got rear ended twice in 6 weeks.Great drivers we have here in Florida.I found a bumper sticker I have on my vehicle it says.Welcome to the south now go home !!!!!!:)
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Allen, you didn't go home.

Roger
 
Oakey said:
A few years back my old boss decided to save money so he bought the green cheap 6 Ft. step ladder from the warehouse instead of the sturdy yellow..

I always stand on top of the ladder so the first day I fell off that wobbly piece of crap and landed on the side of the ladder breaking several ribs. ..
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And how is that the fault of the ladder? :rolleyes:
 
Then there's the old classic....ripping and stripping at the end of a rough in. I had just installed a brand new blade in my util knife. I was in the middle of splitting the sheath when one of the guys asked me a question. I turned my head to look at him and...well what do you know. I always wondered what the insides of my upper thigh looked like. All the pretty colors! BTW, the massive bleeding was stopped by a maxipad. All the guys laughed at that one but it worked great and it was sterile/clean. The doc said that I was pretty smart to use it. It was in my truck as I had done the grocery shopping in the AM before I went to work. There was no first aid on site. Now not only does my truck have a first aid kit but guess what's in it?:D
 
Steel Studs:mad:

When I felt like not doing Electrical work for a while I helped a friend hang drywall on one of his jobs. While hanging a full sheet over a doorway the sheet slipped and sent my right hand straight down onto the track header! Sliced the palm of my hand on the pinky side right open as my hand sat there till he could free the drywall as it had gotten wedged in pretty good. $30,000+ later and 47 stitches, rebuilt nerves and muscles and no feeling- it was priceless!:-? No insurance, working for cash, would never think of the "S" word for a life long friend, in fact I got him a job with my City. So yeah- metal studs are bad, mkay!

P.s. I'm VERY right handed
 
It's gone into the wild blue yonder (or cyberspace).

Roger
 
When I was a young grasshopper , I was working for a real son of a bitch , didn't last long, anway I was installing a fluroscent fixture one hand on the fixture the other pushing like a ,... well ,son of a bitch, on a drill with a screw balanced on a phlips tip , no slide collar, when much to no ones suprise the screw angled off and my clenched fist slammed into the edge of the fixture. Well let me tell you I thought I was going to be sick ,blood everywhere, I suggested that I should go and have it looked at ,especially since I was getting married in two days , the Boss man thought that was a bit too much to ask. I went regardless, four stiches and a whole lot of swelling. Boss man was only concerned about insurance premiums.
 
electricmanscott said:
And how is that the fault of the ladder? :rolleyes:
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We get safety training about standing on top of office chairs.

One day I was standing on a chair in a skirt (no, I really do wear skirts sometimes ...) and my manager walked by. He told me it was unladylike to stand on a chair in a skirt, so I asked him if it was okay in pants :)

I don't have any battle scars stories since getting out of the welding business. The worst experience was having a spray of molten steel dust in one of my eyes. There were a few small pieces stuck to the white part of my eye, but nothing on the cornea. That's one of the reasons I decided I needed to get my money saved up and head back to college as fast as I could. A few years ago I injured a shoulder at synagogue and had to have an MRI (that would be a "worship compensation case" -- all sins forgiven while recovering from ones injury :D ) and I had to first have my skull X-rayed to see if any weld metal remained in the eye socket from that accident 20 years earlier.
 
blue spark said:
There was no first aid on site. Now not only does my truck have a first aid kit but guess what's in it?:D
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I've used tampons for cleaning and drying the insides of conduit. The convenient string on the end ties nicely to a fishtape.

Feminine hygiene products have all sorts of uses -- I know guys who've used them to field clean guns.
 
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