Your contingency

Your now feeling a horribly shocked after a power tool accident.

What do I do now? Ask yourself. What is your contingency?


You've sliced your hand open,
you've cut open your leg,
you've drilled through your finger,
timber schrapnel in your eye,
caught your shirt in the disk sander
the router mangled your hand......... the list go's on.

Scenario....

Are you going to faint?

Have you got 1st aid in your shed? Can you quickly administer? Do you know how?

Can you get back to the house? Can you dial ooo ?

Is someone else home? Can you make it to the neighbours place?

Are they home? Can you drive? Know where the keys are? Should you drive?

Fortunately I've only knicked my finger recently at work and I was whisked into a car and driven away to seek attention. All good.

But your at home now! Who will help you? What do you do? Are you lucid?

What do you do now?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgum

But your at home now! Who will help you? What do you do? Are you lucid.

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My workshop is underneath the house. If someone is home all I have to do is walk up the stairs.

If no one else is home I have a small first aid box in the workshop and a telephone to ring 000.

Peter.

I keep my mobile out on the bench and have a first aid kit, but fainting, hadn't thought of that. Oh well, my contingency for that?... I better get started on a casket in the next few weeks:wink::D

Cheers
Michael

Peter? Can you now get up those stairs after an injury? Shock kicking in?
Who will hear you calling out?

Mid C? Can u dial if you've ripped open your hand?

I used to come to work on Sat and do my own thing. I was only allowed to use machines if another person was there. Good thinking. I'm glad too.

:2tsup:

Lets see:
1) whenever possible, have someone else around the work area, even if they are just socialising.

2) small 1st aid kit for minor injuries

3)mobile phone in pocket

4) stagger/crawl up driveway & collapse on roadway - either someone will call an ambulance or I'll get run over big time - either way I can stop worrying :o

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgum

Mid C? Can u dial if you've ripped open your hand?


:2tsup:

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Did I get a promotion?
Cheerful begger aren't ye:)

Cheers
Michael

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgum

Peter? Can you now get up those stairs after an injury? Shock kicking in?
Who will hear you calling out?

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Depends on the seriousnous of the injury I suppose, which hopefully will not be bad as I am careful in using all the appropriate safety devices when I'm operating machinery. Always have and always will but accidents can happen.

As to shock, I don't think I would be affected. I once shot a 3" nail from my nail gun into my kneecap when it riccocheet from some hardwood I was nailing. Had to crawl back a few feet to get the nail pliers to pull it out. As it wasn't bleeding and only went into some carteledge I put my tools away and took the afternoon of, never even went to the doctor. :D

Even the times I had car accidents I took charge and borrowed other cars and drove home.


Peter.

Mid C. Gotta be cheerful. :U I'm not a pesimist

Seriously. Go from one bad moment to another.

If one contingency doesn't work, what nxt? You can't call ghostbusters! :roll:

What was your last accident if any? Describe how you attended the injury.


:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgum

I was only allowed to use machines if another person was there.
:2tsup:

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That is the rule at the Men's shed where I do volunteer duty.


Peter.

Peter? Take charge. Be alert. And you did!

If that nail was a direct shot I wouldn't have ripped it out. Owwwwwwch! Lucky you.

22 yrs ago I chopped off a finger tip. Grown back since. Little press coming down with a round pad to bear down on a timber peice, holding it in place as I drilled horizontally.
I nearly fainted. No one around till a few mins later. I'm not one for huge amounts of blood viewing or childbirth. Cuts and scratches are ok with me.

What else would you do?

:2tsup:

Dont us blokes just wrap the damage up in the nearest dirty old rag and get back to it :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rgum

Peter? Take charge. Be alert. And you did!

If that nail was a direct shot I wouldn't have ripped it out. Owwwwwwch! Lucky you.

:2tsup:

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No I had jeans on and it scrunched up the material and the end was caught in the fabric, lucky I suppose.


Peter.

Dazz? Yep.

I cut myself a few times. Had some bandages and rags near my work bench. Did as you did. Just got on with it.
Bit of saliva stops the bleeding. :C

What about serious injury? At home!

:U

i will no longer use the tabel saw when i am home alone.

i feel pretty confident in using all the rest as i have only done bad damage once each on the router table, bandsaw, chainsaw.

i work under the house so normaly someone hears the screem.

if im home alone i am on my own its a bit of a hike to the next house and the main road.

i take the cordless phone down with me when i remember. but even having a phone in the shop isnt safe. The phone was the cause of tha bandsaw injury.

you know what they say about workers blaming tehre tools so ill just blame the phone.

i never think about saftey when working alone a long way from someones house. except teh one day i got bit by a snake and had to walk 300m up a hill and drive 800m to the house then climb up the stairs and bang on the door.

it didnt take long to be in at teh hospital once i got tehre thow.

Bloody hell Carl. All that to get a bite seen too? Glad your here. :)

Gawwd. :o

So you see what I mean. Things may not go smoothly.

:)

oh i wasnt home i was doing a whippersnipping job on a poroperty over the hill. we dont have tiger snakes over this side.

and just for the record things never go smoothly

The only time I've had to be bandaged up was at work when I dropped a 40ishkg block of timber on two fingers, crushing them. For a moment I actually thought, "Should I bother the boss or keep working." I decided to interrupt the boss from his lucas milling and he patched my fingers up. I then kept working:rolleyes:

At school I've stabbed my hands with chisels a few times. Wrap it in a rag and don't tell the teacher is my motto:wink:

The worst woodworking injury I've had may have been when I cut my finger on the schools bandsaw. Thought it to deep to not tell the teacher this time.

Usually If I get a splinter or cut I just keep on working

Mmm... I shortened my left middle finger a good bit on the jointer years ago. I was at work on a sunday. All the other sheds were empty, so I just stood there for a minute or two looking at the gore because my hands were too shaky to operate the tiny keys on the mobile. Finally I realised there was a drug dealer selling speed around the back of my shed and got him to call the ambulance for me... he took off pretty quick when the cops came too:U.

Since then I try to work only when there are other people I can get hold of quickly and I am hyper conscious of safety, prevention being the best cure.

If you do enough wood work your chances of an injury will be quite high because it's impossible to hedge against every contingency. The two main risk groups I think, though, are the young and inexperienced (no shame in that) and the old and complacent. Getting to the point where you think you know your tools so well that you can take the guards off or tape up double triggers... well you've kind of got what's coming.

Berlin

Like many, I work alone in my shed most of the time. I have a first-aid kit and I'm a dab hand with tweezers (well a sharpened nail, anyway) and band-aids (read: duct tape :-), but beyond that I rely heavily on providence for any serious injuries.

If I can drag myself to the house, I'll be OK. If not, well Mort will have seriously gouged eye-sockets and do the rest of his rounds with a waddle after trying to harvest this little black soul!

I do appreciate an able visitor who can assist, someone who knows their way around a shed and machinery, but can't put off my work until such a person just happens to drop in. Although, being an inherently lazy buggar, I try. :wink:

Enthusiastic unskilled visitors are much more common, but they increase the risks and reduce productivity as I spend more time shepherding them around than actually working. (Although I do enjoy the chance to swap BS. :D)

It'd be nice if I had a regular visitor of the first type who was also a 1st-aider, but it'd also be nice if I won Div1 Tattslotto. Besides, then the question becomes "what happens if the 1st-aider has a serious accident?" I seriously doubt they'd appreciate my tender ministrations... (Sharp nail and duct tape won't do? How about the back of an axe-head just there between the eyes? :rolleyes:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

It'd be nice if I had a regular visitor of the first type who was also a 1st-aider, but it'd also be nice if I won Div1 Tattslotto. Besides, then the question becomes "what happens if the 1st-aider has a serious accident?" I seriously doubt they'd appreciate my tender ministrations... (Sharp nail and duct tape won't do? How about the back of an axe-head just there between the eyes? :rolleyes:)

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na mate ya gotta use teh front:2tsup:

supa glue is great for sealing wounds also.

I have thought of this alot. Most of the time, I'm in my shop alone and no one is near if something goes bad. My cell phone has spotty reception at best there.
So if something happens and it's minor I can handle it, have done so before.
If something major happens I've decided I've got 3 options.
1- Deal with it myself.
2- Get lucky and someone stops by.
3- Die.

That's the way it is in my world.

ron

I normally email TBO every twenty minutes or so - even if it's only to say something stupid like "you're quiet!". That way TBO knows I'm OK. If she doesn't hear from me for half an hour, she makes a point of emailing me.

I spend quite a bit of time in bed, so I sometimes don't respond to these emails from TBO and if I don't respond within a further fifteen minutes, she will phone me to see if I'm in bed and OK, or if something else has occurred. If I don't answer the phone, TBO immediately calls the Ambos/Police.

Now that I've got my new shed, everything has moved up a gear. I let TBO know my proposed itinerary for the day and if I'm out in the shed, then I have to call TBO on the cordless every fifteen to twenty minutes and let the phone ring twice before hanging up.

If I have to go to bed, I call and let her know and conversely, I'll call her to let her know if I'm getting up again etc. etc. It's a PITA (more so for TBO), but it's kept me out of the pine box to-date and it reduces TBO's concern and stress while she's at work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Woodwould

It's a PITA (more so for TBO), but it's kept me out of the pine box to-date and it reduces TBO's concern and stress while she's at work.

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If that works for you and allows you to do some work in your shed then it's great.


Peter.

Guess I'm lucky. My shed is our garage that opens a meter or so from a street with very light traffic but lots of foot traffic. I make a point of smiling at everyone that passes. So as long as I can manage to crawl out to the street, someone will come along in a minute, and hopefully remembered that I smiled at them.

And, like Blanche Dubois, I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.

But usually have the mobile phone with me as well, and am only a few minutes from Royal North Shore hospital. Urban living does have some advantages (besides walking down the street to a host of great shops and restaurants).

Tex