How close have you got to a Darwin Award?

Many years ago, someone gave me a 177 air rifle.. excitedly I took it into the back yard and standing in front of some steel dustbins, I started taking pot shots at anything that offered itself as a target.. bored I looked for a more defined target that would verify my sharpshooter skills... I found a sofa cushion (just the innards sponge part) which seemed ideal.

I hurriedly marked out a target circle configuration on the sponge.. propped it up about 10 yards away and lined up on the bullseye.. squeezed the trigger and .. ping (a metallic sound heard behind me!). of course I ignored it and lined up again.. and the same ping! Someone was shooting at me! I looked around.. but couldnt see anyone.. Lined up on the target again and a good hard ping again off the metal dustbins.

Thinking about it.. my idiotic mind realized what was going on.. the pellets I was firing were coming right back at me off the cushion! I was lucky not to get hit in the face or worse in the eyes!

Looking at the cushion,, not a hint of where the pellets has hit.. no penetration marks at all. looking at the dustbins.. small but visible dents!

Not only children who indulged in silly horse-play either. Caving-clubs such as mine used to play to some very dubious games on boozy party-nights, but I think some of these games originated in Services barrack-rooms; also the source of the very non-PC "rugby songs" sometimes "sung" lustily in such parties.

Now although those antics, all now in the past and recalled with wry amusement but not too fondly, did sometimes cause trips to the local Casualty Unit, they did not kill anyone.

Unlike...

A former work colleague once told me of a horrible death by horse-play at his first place of work. An apprentice was killed by a fellow trainee sticking a trigger-operated air line nozzle between his legs, not thinking of any possible danger. Despite the couple of layers of fabric, the blast ruptured his intestines.

''''''

As for bullets, one day someone came along to the club workshop with one of those one-foot-cube biscuit-tins - the ex-Woolworths types you'd keep your Primus picnic-stove in. It was full of assorted iron-oxide samples shaped like nuts, bolts and Unknown Parts. We tipped it onto a bench and started rummaging... Luckily one member of the time was a Police Inspector so knew how to send for proper disposal, the some dozen revolver rounds that emerged.

....

There were I believe quite a number of instances of children trapping themselves inside large fridges; but it could also happen in other situations involving adults, by accident rather than misadventure. Therefore I was impressed by the mechanical safety precautions built into a sound-proofed cabinet installed in the laboratory at work.

It was a steel shed about 2 X 2 X 2 metres internally, with insulated walls. Although commissioned from, designed and built by a cold-store manufacturer, we used it for testing unpleasantly loud sound sources, as its insulation gave enormous acoustic attenuation. Its doors though, were all to the cold-room designs.

Its two pairs of double doors with rubber seals all round, were only a few inches apart, and slightly off-set by widths. The outer door had a roller-catch operated by a lever - standard fitting, but also an internal push-handle. Trying to close the outer door would fail if the inner was still open: the offset would re-inforce the obstructing.

The inner door's roller latch was operable from the inside by a large, luminescent, push knob; and pushing that door open also un-latched the outer door and pushed that open - also helped by the offset closure. Even if you could not open these heavy doors enough to escape, the gap would give you air, and let you yell for help.

In practice we never worked alone on anything hazardous in the laboratory; and we never worked inside the box with the door closed. (I would also temporarily obstruct the open doors against closure).

The enclosure also contained a ceiling light and emergency telephone, I think to the Reception office.

All that simple but very effective safety built in to enclosures like cold-stores used in trade premises where there should be no naive children playing around....

I nearly had a scaffold pole through my windscreen once. On playing back the video around 12 inches to the left and I would have been killed.

I used to have a lot of dangerous hobbies until a bad landing during rallying did me some internal mischief that took a long time to repair. I stick with steam engines now, and make sure the water is always well above the nut...

Didn’t happen to me but a fellow cadet, I was a member of our schools CCF and every summer we all went away to summer camp. This particular year we were in the wilds of Norfolk, accommodated in Nissan huts miles away from civilisation, we were preparing to go on a night exercise and had been issued with I think it was 5 of blank rounds for our ancient 303 Lee Enfield rifles. There was one of our number who was always showing off, his party trick was to see how long that he could hold his rifle level with his shoulder with just one arm. His rifle was loaded with his 5 blanks and when his strength gave out the rifle descended to a vertical position and ended up with the muzzle on the toe of his regulation hob nailed army boot which we were all wearing. Unfortunately when holding the rifle up for his demonstration of personal strength he was holding it in the area of the trigger guard, his trigger finger was curled around the trigger, as the muzzle struck his toe his finger caused the trigger to operate and the gun went off, he didn’t have the safety catch applied. Blank cartridges do not have a bullet fitted to the cartridge case but instead inside the case is a dense cardboard wad, this wad was driven through the leather of his boot and was embedded half way through his foot, which was a mess. He was lucky that his stupidity only injured himself it could have been a lot worse . Dave W