A New Way to Injure Yourself

Years ago I was warned not to pick my nose while driving, due to the possible consequences in the event of an accident! the thought makes me cringe.

On a first aid course a few years ago the experienced ambulance driver warned against sucking hard boiled sweets whilst driving; the reason being that in the event of an abrupt halt, the person stays strapped in but the sweet carries on knocking out the teeth!

It really put me off!

Brian

My favourite claim to stupidity involved a 14lb sledge hammer and a washing line. Unfortunately, I only remembered the washing line when I was face down on the lawn with a bruise on the back of my head. Didn't do that again

My dear departed father, a builder, placed his sledge hammer at head height on a part build wall. It pivoted on its axis and knocked him out clean. If you can imagind an egg stuck onto the side of your head this is what the resulting swelling looked like - never seen anything like it.

The car driving comment above put me in mind of a video I saw once of an airbag deployment test in the 1970's where the crash test dummy was mocked up smoking a straight stem pipe.

Stem of said pipe actually punched through a 3 mm thick aluminum hard palate in the dummy's head and pierced about 30 mm into the cranial cavity. Would have been a hell of a day for him if that happened to a real human pipe smoker.

With any of the .22 autos I've seen and used, that would have to mean he'd left the safety off on a loaded chamber.

Hi Mick, this chap was an excellent gunsmith and was commercially trained by one of the big Companies in London.

Ended up in Nairobi while I was there and we became good friends being able to use each others shooting and hunting areas. He worked for Shaw and Hunter the gunshop and Outfitter in Nairobi. He did in fact shoot himself a second time with a small derringer type Black powder muzzle loading pistol. He was holding it loaded in his hand and somehow it went off and the ball went through the ball of his thumb. They had to cut it open to get the unburnt black powder out of the wound. He was in a way very lucky as it could have destroyed his hand.

He did end up leaving Kenya owing lots of taxes and built a boat, launched it and ended up in Indonesia, Then going to the USA and lecturing on Gunsmithing at a Uni in Colorado. The last I heard of him was him making 2/3 scale airplanes, things like Fiesler Storch etc.Having not heard from him for 20 years I assume he has died.

Edited By Clive Hartland on 01/12/2017 11:23:04

Amazing how we never seem to learn, or do we just become bigger chancers as we get older?
Recently returned from a fairly abortive trip to France where not a lot got done due to breaking that golden rule of 'keeping one's digits behind the cutting edge',

Repairing a rotary joddling tool to get a broken drive dowel out of the roller, was trying to drill out the broken stump but the roller kept turning in the vice, so grabbed it with my left hand and commenced drilling, the drill broke and the remaining 30mm stump of a 6mm drill bit still under power in the drill, slammed straight through my left index finger between the two big knuckles, needless to say the language was well ripe, strangely enough didn't feel too bad until I came to get the busted bit out of the drill chuck and saw all the blood and snot gathered in the flutes where it had reamed out my finger,

Shan't do that again .......... hopefully!

John

Edited By RJW on 01/12/2017 11:32:42

Hi Jeff,your story reminds me of a local motorcyclist who had a BMW , quite a rarity over here 30 plus years ago. The fact that he always had a pipe in his mouth always made me wonder about the safety aspect , but the amusing bit was that on rainy days, it was always upside down !

Hi John, the "old timer" fishermen in Newfoundland Canada were known for upside down pipes in bad weather too. No air bags in a fishing dory to worry about, but the 30 foot waves, well.........

One such ex fisherman explained to me the other benefit of using upside down pipes: "When ya loights da match fer da pipe b'y, da foire goes up not down my son"

I too caught the washing line whilst using a sledge hammer ,it knocked me out for a while.Chopping out a hole off a ladder, once finished I stopped for tea forgetting that I had left the chisel on the top stabber I moved the ladder the chisel balanced for a few yards and then hit my head which dazed me,I was lucky it fell flat.

Frank

Now that jogged my memory, we had a clothes post in the back garden with a wind vane atop of it. The pulley rope snapped and we needed to lower the pole to fit a new piece. The bolts through the post were rusted and needed hammering to get them to move, yes, the vibration shifted the weather vane which fell off and hit me on the head, I blacked out for a few seconds but did not fall down!