Safety at home

Yesterday, my neighbour was admitted to hospital with a severed artery in his thigh. A simple accident, he was using a big cold chisel and heavy club hammer to punch a hole through a stone wall. A shard of the chisel head (a triangular piece about 12mm ) detached itself and flew off like shrapnel, embedding itself 40 mm deep, through the thigh muscle and severing his main artery. On arrival at the local hospital, he had to wait for 5 hours for a specialist surgeon to arrive to repair the vascular damage. There was a risk of also severing some of the major nerves apparently.

Moral :- Keep the heads of your cold chisels free from ragged heads, wear goggles and enjoy your hobbies.
BobH

Blimey, sounds like he's been quite lucky.........Its usually the innocuous little jobs that get you.

My mates wife gets out of hospital today after having surgery to remove the end of her finger, infected bone from a spell she got in a month ago while sanding skirting board.

Last year my brother nearly lost an eye after getting a tiny piece of wood imbedded in it whilst using electric hedge trimmers in the garden.....he fells trees for a living with a blooming great chain saw !

At tech college in Leeds as an apprentice, one of the lecturers wore an eye patch, lost his eye at 18 using a cold chisel, so we had it ingrained into us that mushroom heads were a big no no.

Hope your pal makes a full recovery

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 08/07/2016 18:44:45

Edited By Alan Waddington 2 on 08/07/2016 18:45:04

That's a timely warning, Bob !!

Buy good chisels, and keep them neat.

Wear appropriate P.P.E. however tedious.

MichaelG.

Your story brought back bad memories for my wife Bob. Many years ago my father-in-law was using a metal sanding disc on a power drill (back in the days when everything was a power drill accessory). He let go of the trigger and turned round, catching his wrist on the still-spinning disk, severing tendons and the artery. Luckily there was somebody else there to apply a tourniquet, especially as the ambulance driver couldn't find his house. He survived, but had limited movement in that hand for the rest of his life.

Moral: - Turned off and stopped are two very different things.

Brian

It's easy to not notice the chisel head mushrooming and splitting over time. In a previous job I once insisted somebody stopped a job and got cold chisel dressed before continuing with work - the moaning about my intervention was extensive, but your report suggests I was correct to highlight the hazard.

A quick touch on a grinder from time to time is relatively little effort to preserve your faculties.

.

At the age of 10 I had a piece of metal come off a wood splitting wedge, some years later I felt a lump in my leg and worked out a piece of jagged steel about 5mm cube.

Clive

I shall check my cold chisels and grind as necessary. They have been done in the past but I fear they have been neglected. I pays to touch up the cutting edge as well!

Neil

At college people used chisels for lopping off bits of plate metal that a hacksaw couldn't reach, i never liked the idea of using them though and prefered taking as much as i could with a saw then filing it flat, despite the fact it took longer, i just didnt like the idea of big bits of metal flying off in random directions.

Michael W

My late father was a stone mason and when i look back at the mushroom heads on his old chisels it makes me shudder!!

Hi, in my old job that I had ten years ago, you'd get a verbal warning if you were seen using a cold chisel with even the slightest hint of the head mushrooming. The dangers are very real for using tools in this condition and they should always be addressed promptly.

Regards Nick.

My S-I-L was using a hammer and a piece splintered of the head like Speedy Builder's. He had to go to hospital by ambulance and was treated like a VIP, because it was like a bullet wound, all sorts of Docs came to have a look. He is patched up and more or less fixed. The shard of metal is still in his groin and causes him some discomfort, intermittently.

Frank