There has to be a word for this...

[brushcutter]

Somebody help me figure this out. What would be a single word that defines the following?

The exact instant, in which you realize you're doing something that is inherently catastrophically dangerous, and that realization coincides precisely with the occurrence of said catastrophe.

For example: yesterday, I decided to burn (you can already tell this ain't gonna end well) some leaves, which were piled on some scrap left over from work we had done on the house. I have a trail rake that I built for my quad, and had used it to push the leaves onto the pile of construction debris, which worked well, except for the fact that pushing the leaves also PACKS the leaves, which in turn don't burn well. So it was that after the initial burn over, I had a pile of heavily smoldering debris. I decided to use a squirrel cage blower to expedite the burning process. Things progressed flawlessly and considerable headway was made in a short time.

Around 3:30 the wife(who is a teacher) and kids returned home from school, and instead of parking in the usual spot, stopped some distance from there and all got out of her car. I thought I heard them call for me and looked but saw no one, and turned back to my project, at which time I heard my son call me again. I looked to see him motioning for me to come, saying "there's some kind on weird bird or something in front of the house". So I pointed the blower skyward and went to see, and what I saw was surprising: a male Ringnecked PHEASANT. Now to some of you this wouldn't be a big deal, but living in western central Louisiana it is very rare to see one.In fact I'm almost 50 and this was my first.

So you can imagine that when I returned to my burn project I was a little distracted. I repositioned the blower and in doing so managed to get several leaves sucked into it. Some of them didn't go through and were sticking out through the vanes and being distracted, wondering how it was a Pheasant came to be in my front yard I reached into the front of the blower to clear the leaves and allow it to blow at full force again...
BAD IDEA!!!

[Noel Woods]

Epiphany

[brushcutter]

You know I thought about that one, but it just didn't seem to take in the pain aspect of the situation. To put things into perspective: you know it's got to be bad if there's blood on your glasses when the stars clear out!
Maybe ... EEEYYOWWWpiphany!

[Jeff t-boss]

All curse words aside;..........how about "sign"? Please tell us that you DO still have all your fingers.

[Toynut]

A pre-stubifying moment!

Something to be experienced by carpenters on occasion (the ones that have to hold up two hands to order 4 beers for the table)!






On a more serious not, I sincerely hope this doesn't turn out to be another "wood chipper accident" story.

[brushcutter]

Yeah I've still got all my fingers, but I am reminded of what a good friends' Dad told him when he started his first hitch on an offshore drilling platform:

Son, don't ever let a man with no fingers tell you where to put your hands!

[LarryW]

Im glad your ok.

I have a similar story about a co worker about a month ago. He was using his lawn vacuum attachment with the trailer attached to the lawn mower and the shoot got plugged. Right then his daughter came out to talk to him and after they where done(being distracted) he stuck his hand in the mower deck while running. Lost his pinky and all movement to his ring finger. Next day my youngest son lost the tip of his finger in a door at home. It was re attached and healed good but he might have trigger finger.(wont straighten out). Then later that week I heard a friends dad cut off 2 fingers in a table saw. Bad week for fingers I guess. Glad your ok. Dont matter how safe you are, stuff happens. You get used to working with dangerous stuff and forget the dangers with them.

[brushcutter]

Wow, what a week that was , hope everybody is, and will be, OK.

That lawnmower incident is very close to one a local doctors son once told me about one of his dads patients(no names were given). So... this well respected business owner was cutting his lawn and being inclined to think that his mower was not cutting properly(and apparently being less than 100% focused on the dangers of his actions) he stuck his hand under the deck to see if the blades were sharp! The son never did say if they were, but I don't guess they had to be to mangle a perfectly good hand.

You just never can be careful enough!

[Roger S]

We're lucky if we have all our fingers, the way some of us live. I have all mine, and have respect for my table saw especially! One of my stories.. was working on my harley sportster electric start, the primary cover off, troubleshooting the starter drive action. I pushed on the fork between the solonoid and drive. Any thoughts yet? It engaged the contacts and the drive engaged, and my index finger got ran through between the drive and ring gear I was about 20 then, and the gear tooth pattern is about gone, from where it was sewn together.

Think! Don't work when rushed/distracted/tired, or mad. Listen to that inner vioce that warns you just before the accident happens.

[brushcutter]

[QUOTE=Roger S;Think! Don't work when rushed/distracted/tired, or mad. Listen to that inner voice that warns you just before the accident happens.[/QUOTE]

If I remember right my inner voice was telling me how good that pheasant would taste about that time... Maybe I was focused but my inner voice was just hungry...who knows

[lewis]

Since we are sharing stories...here goes. This is sad but funny.

A lady whom i worked with years ago had just moved here from New York and was new to the lawn thing...mowing, weed eating and such. She had lived in a apartment in New York and never had a lawn so did not know what was under a lawnmower deck that actually did the cutting. Mind you this lady was a worker and wanted to keep her first time yard in Home and Garden shape and this happened several years prior to her coming to work at our plant.

She was mowing the yard with her flip-flops on one day which she had done many times. Now she also had never had a dog either and the little Pomeranian was running about in the yard playing. She was pulling the lawnmower back up a small bank and some how had lifted the back of the deck.....as things go her foot slipped and yes, it went under the rear deck of the mower.

She felt her foot receive a impact and something fell out from under the mover! Trying to figure this whole thing out she immediately shut the mower off and was looking at her foot which was numb and bleeding. She figured out what flew out of the mower was her big toe...now at the exact moment the dog saw it also.

He ran over snapped up the toe and ran a good distance away and would not return the toe. She was frantic and could not run after the dog and had to watch as the dog ate her toe. One she was at the Hospital the doctors were inquiring to the where abouts of the toe so it could be re-attached. She became upset at the laughter in the E.R. when she told her story.

We, the whole break area were listening to her tell her story(all other conversions stopped and all ears were tuned to Dora) and were dying laughing, now the laughing only started when the portion of the story started about the dog. When we gained our composure she politely removed her shoe and sock and showed us....yes the toe was gone.

Now, if this was not the truth it was on her but since she has retired many years ago i have heard this story from many people that were close friends. She was a sweetheart and a good person who had never had children but adopted at last count i had heard 8 orphan children. So i am thinking she was telling the truth

Occurrences like this is why the mowers have the guards on the back now.

Tragedy with humor.

[6X6]

Well, if we're bringing up stories on others, my neighbor has put an open end wrench thru his had trying to unplug a snow-blower chute while it was running.

My big fear is mis-communication or confusion when doing dangerous work.
(Like having someone heckling me while dropping a 60+ foot oak. It ended without injury or damage ) Or having someone else answer for you when they shouldn't. (Thumb between hook and forklift while winching it up on trailer, hurt and swollen, not broken) Or those who just want to plow thru everything, (someone I WILL NOT EVER move/lift anything heavy with ever again, even if it's to help someone else, nearly cost me fingers, toes, high blood pressure....)