An accident, a PRC imported hook and a great luck

Hello!

I had my milling machine mounted on steel bench over a mobile base with wheels that allow vibrations and did not allow for height adjustment in the four corners and therefore could not level it adequately.
So I decided to make a base from angle iron with a rotatable wheel and a screw to adjust the height at each corner.
The, afternoon, today was the timing for me to make the change from one base to another.
I have my workshop in the garage which is at street level and below the house. There I have, screwed to a beam, a small hoist that I've used other times to raise the milling machine.
I did all possible checks before starting the operation and to expedite the operation, I asked my wife who, with the mill in the air under my control, withdraw the old base and try put there the new one.

When my wife took the old mobile base out and then at the time that would insert a new base, the router that was about 10 cm above the floor fell with a crash.
For millimeters the fingers of my wife were not injured by the falling bench plus milling machine on top of it. Weighting around 150Kg.

What happened?
A double hook that I bought three or four years ago and made in the People's Republic of China, 8mm diameter, which was described on the packaging (a card and blister) as supporting 350Kg succumbed.

Is there a moral in the story?
What is the age at which, finally, we gain wisdom?

Following is the picture of the hook which succumbed. It had the shape of an open 8.

Edited By Dias Costa on 05/03/2011 23:57:22

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 06/03/2011 08:06:03