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A Near Tragedy

4K views 51 replies 29 participants last post by  TopamaxSurvivor 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Gloves, long sleeves, jewelry and long hair are all verboten in my shop around operating machinery. Here is another example of why. Near Tragedy A year or so ago, another young lady was not so lucky. She was strangled when her hair was caught in a metal lathe.
 
#27 ·
I know and I'm not closing my ears to that. Thanks for clarifying some thoughts. I think, safety should apply to everyone working around dangerous machines. From teachers to students. We just hope for the best result regarding the investigation of the said incident.
 
#28 ·
It was yrs. ago, but my woodshop class instructor gave safety tests and had signs near the machines reminding us of safety procedures. But, as was said, all teens think they are bullet-proof. ultimately safety is everybody's duty, not just the teacher's. Without further info, we really don't know if the student was careless or poorly trained. either way, it sure is a shame it happened. I hope she will heal completely. Can't figure out why he didn't contact medical help afterwards. Now-a-days tho, some schools have eliminated on-site nurses..
 
#29 ·
Thanks to all that have posted on this topic.
My intention wasn't to fix blame for this incident, but to remind that loose ANYTHING around machinery is inviting injury, or worse.
Lets all be safe out there.
 
#32 · (Edited by Moderator)
It just takes one split second and things go very bad….. Even the best teacher out there can not prevent anything like this happening. How many times we as seasoned professionals get caught off guard and 99.9% it is still our own fault. I remember our shop teacher before we went out and started he would make darn sure everyone was quiet, look to your right,left,front,back. Take your rings off, roll up those sleeves, tie those shoes ect ect….. He got us in the frame of mind….. Even had a few who were just not cut out for shop class but they really enjoyed it, they chose to work in the tool room handing out tools and keeping inventory or cleaning floors. If someone razzed them, guess what you were doing their job.

It is accidents like these that have prevented other schools from having shop class as most of us know it. When it does happen we want to string up someone for it and make them pay dearly.

I never met a shop teacher who was not more concerned someone getting injured or thought of safety as a past time. Ask one what they fear the most about teaching. Safety is taught but it has to be executed by the individual to be effective just like everything else in this life. Thank God the young lady was not more seriously injured. Calls should have been made reguardless.

How can anyone be held totally responsible for more than one person when you can not watch their every move? I learned more from shop class than just building a cedar chest. I learned that I would make mistakes, but had the ability to correct them. Not everything is perfect that we must work at it to make it to our choosing and in the end I alone was responsible for the outcome.

Just my 2 cents worth. Oh Thank you Mr. Burch and Mr. Porter for teaching me this….....
 
#33 ·
Being a student at the "sculpture department" of the academy of art in SF, I have seen so many potentially dangerous scenarios in the metal shop, jewelry rooms, wood shop, and even the clay and glaze rooms (toxic chemicals). I often feel that the teachers are not paying enough attention. It is certainly tough to keep an eye on 15 or more students at a time, while still trying to teach. But it would help a lot if teachers would be a lot more strict from the first day on, and even send students home if they don't show up properly dressed etc.

It takes a lot of responsibility to have complete newbies operate a table saw, a gas forge, belt sanders, handle toxic chemicals. If it was my school, every first session would have to be on safety, and I would quiz on it and not let failing students touch anything until they get it…
 
#35 · (Edited by Moderator)
I openly wonder whose responsibility it is when others observe first-hand instances of unsafe behavior.

Is it OK to NOT say anything about such unsafe behavior…
  • to the peer doing the unsafe behavior?
  • to the instructor in a student shop environment?
  • to the manager in ANY industrial shop environment?

Does the silence of other students, in a school shop environment, eliminate any and all of their personal responsibility for others "safe" behavior? Or to the safeness of the shop environment?
 
#36 ·
Mike,
I have not been standing around watching, hoping for a flashy accident. I did go up to the students and reminded them to wear a dust mask, to put on the safety glasses etc. when I noticed an unsafe behavior.

However, it is not my job to do this, it's the school's responsibility to educate the students and teachers about safety.
 
#37 · (Edited by Moderator)
"...I did go up to the students and reminded them to wear a dust mask, to put on the safety glasses etc. when I noticed an unsafe behavior…."

Good. I am glad to hear that you took action.

"...However, it is not my job to do this, it's the school's responsibility to educate the students and teachers about safety…."

Why get all defensive about this and insist on pointing fingers? I do not recall anyone denying that teachers have a responsibility. I know of NO comments where a teacher said as you just did, "... it is not my job to do this…"

In summation, the safety of others, IN ANY SITUATION, is everyone's "job" and to state or think otherwise, I just find is just plain offensive and wrong. I am not trying to bait you or anyone else on this matter, as the questions were actually meant to be redundant. The obvious answer is that we are all responsible. However some out here may need to wake up to that fact. It is a basic human responsibility, take care of your fellow man/woman.

And what I find as the sad part about all of this is that governments have had to pass LAWS that "require" people to stop and render aid, all because of attitudes like "...it is not my job to do this…" Let's all be safe out there in the shop/world, and let's all take responsibility to remind others of this as well.
 
#38 ·
"… it is not my job to do this…"

Of course students should always take care of their peers when they see a dangerous situation arising, but please think about the fact that I and all other students are complete "newbies", and teachers or the school cannot hold students responsible for any safety issues that they don't understand yet.

We are in school to learn, and if we are not taught how to work safely, we won't be able to help others to do so (except by using common sense).

Common sense works well e.g. when a student tries to make a "free-hand" cut on the table saw. But when we are introduced to things like chemicals that produce fumes, we most likely don't know anything about the dangers of inhaling those. This is where I am pointing fingers-the school needs to require teachers to teach us about these types of dangers. About the dangers that we students are not aware of, simple due to lack of knowledge.
 
#39 ·
Long Post…
When I was a High School Senior, I was taking an after-school course in Land Surveying at my High School. The instructor, Paul Bott, was also the Wood Shop teacher at the school. I think of him in looking back as a very good teacher who got the message through to us students. Although I understand that such is often not a good way for things to be in a classroom, the members of that class actually looked upon him as a friend and mentor rather than in the usual way one sees "Teachers".

So when one day he was surly and obviously quite upset about something, we students were concerned. So a group of us got up from our drafting tables and gathered around him insisting he "fess up" and get his problems off his shoulders. So he relented and called the rest of the students to gather around so he could tell us all what the issue was.

During his regular teaching day, I believe it was 3rd or 4th period for woodshop, a student was seriously injured. He told us that a couple of students were talking to each other about unrelated matters while working with adjacent power equipment. He told us he had observed this and hollered across the shop at the students to stop talking to each other and pay attention to what they were doing. After acknowledging his commands, they went back to what they had been doing. As he headed across the shop towards them, he yelled at them again. The one using the planer had his head turned toward the other student as he fed his machine a fairly large board. Then the sound of the machine suddenly changed and the shop was sprayed with red instead of sawdust. His hands had fed into the planer and were taken off to above the wrists. He pulled back the stumps and held them up in front of his eyes before collapsing to the floor. Mr Bott performed 1st aid as he had learned while serving as a Combat Medic in Vietnam. He sent a couple of students to get help and asked others to clear out the rest of the students. Once the ambulance attendants got the student out of there, the Principal had asked him not to go back in the shop pending the investigation. It was some time before things were back to normal with Mr. Bott.

In that case, I feel that while I was not there to observe what actually happened, considering how Mr. Bott handled safety when the Surveying class was out in the field, that he was quite probably quite good at handling safety in the woodshop too. Since at that time I had 10 years experience as a Technical and Safety Inspector at Sports Car Road Races, which I do now at OffRoad races, and was also responsible for crash investigations at the races, I feel I was uniquely qualified to judge his concern for safety.

My evaluation of that incident was that it was probably one of the student, while having been schooled in safety and proper operation procedures with that machine, was simply not paying attention to what he was doing and paid the consequences. I hope that the school and Mr. Bott were NOT held responsible for that incident.

In this incident with the girl and her hair, perhaps the teacher COULD have done more to make sure the student was obeying the safety rules, ultimate responsibility must lie with the student since she acknowledged that she knew she was violating safety rules regarding hair. I doubt the injury was severe enough to warrant calling 911, but the student in this case should definitely have been sent right away for evaluation by trained medical personnel. Since her mother apparently works for the school district, she should have been notified immediately and relieved of her work to take her daughter for medical examination.
 
#42 ·
Not to be in-sensitive…but lesson learned I hope! Two years ago I put three of my fingers too close to a table saw blade…I got away with a deep nick in each one! I now have very loooong pusher sticks! LOL :) I knew better and still did something dumb. One of my class-mates in high school did the long hair-drill press dance also. It removed part of his scalp. We all had long hair in the 70's, we carried rubber bands for pony-tails after that incident. It happened right in front of me actually. I was scared for that kid, I do remember that very clearly. Hope this gal heals okay and returns to normal, it could have been a severed finger or even worse. If we are going to be around these machines, watches, rings, necklaces, long hair must be removed and tucked in before
starting to work. Simply a must do Kids!

Aaron
 
#43 ·
It could easily have been much worse. Good thing her hair gave away. A kid a year ahead of me in high school got caught in a post hole digger. When he didn't come for lunch, his dad went to check. There was nothing left but a few bloody rags!
 
#44 ·
It has been 25 years since I started teaching. I have had two incidents in my shop that required medical attention outside of a bandaid or a pair of tweezers. I was one of the incidents. I was cutting a piece of 1/4" plywood about 12" square to fit a drawer bottom for a kid during class, and, for some reason, the board kicked back and drug my right index finger over the saw blade. I have played this one over in my mind about a thousand times, and I am still not sure why it kicked back. I truly believe that it was an accident, and I reinstalled the splitter and it NEVER comes off unless the crosscut sled or dado head is being used.

The other incident involved one of my better students dragging his thumb over the cutterhead on the jointer. Fortunately, other than some flesh and some pride, it didn't take anything else off. He had failed to use a push block (like he had been taught, trained and tested over) and admitted to screwing up as I was wrapping his hand up to take him to the office.

No matter how much safety is taught and reinforced (daily, in my situation), sometimes kids let it slide. Have I been lucky that nothing more has happened? Maybe… but I like to think that part of that is because of my diligence. And no matter how keen a teachers' observational skills, how rigorous the safety training, how smart, stupid, responsbile or careless a student is, sometimes, stuff happens.

Was the teacher wrong in this situation? There are very few people that know. I'd guess that, after 29 years, the guy probably has a pretty good handle on the situation. I don't think WE we ever know the truth or will be presented both sides of this story. I'd say there was some fault by all.
 
#45 · (Edited by Moderator)
Working with power tools of any sort can be quite dangerous and we all need to be careful of what we do. I often make a living as a metal fabricator. There are lots of things I work with in that which could alter my life permanently.

I'd say the teacher Uncle Salty above has done quite well to have only 2 incidents in 25 years of teaching shop. Since the mid 70s, I've been to the emergency room 3x myself for "Industrial Accidents".

Once was for a power tool incident. It wasn't woodworking, but the equipment involved does get used for woodworking. It was a belt sander. 2" x 72" "Square Wheel". I was prepping bronze casting pieces to weld them together to assemble an 8' high x 6' wide sculpture of "The Burning Bush" for a Jewish Synagogue. The pieces needed to get a "brushed finish" lengthwise on all sides, then the joint areas needed to be chamfered about 5/16" all around both sides of the joint for the weld. then the welds would later be ground and the finish matched. So in chamfering one of the pieces with 36 grit on the belt sander, the 20-some pound piece slipped off the belt and my right thumb jammed in with all the force I was applying. The nail was obliterated back to the knuckle. To date, that was the most painful injury I've ever experienced. It grew back almost undetectable though.

The other 2 times were for stitches in cuts in exactly the identical spot between the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. Both times were with the same wood chisel.

In the late 70s, I worked for a cabinet shop. I was an installer, so didn't normally work inside the shop. One time, I was held up waiting for cabinets to be made as the shop was behind in production. So to make things happen, I was told the only way I could get the cabinets in the next 2 weeks was if I came into the shop and built them myself. Working in construction, there were plenty of injuries on the job. but when I went into that shop, I learned that every employee who had been doing that job for 5 years or more was missing digits from one or both hands. It was bizarre at break time the 1st day when the gang of 30-or so employees were sitting around outside on stacks of lumber munching on burritos and whatever. One of the older employees and I were talking about the subject of missing digits and he raised his voice and asked for a show of fingers. Gave me the willies working in there and I was glad when I was done with the set of cabinets and out of there! Not my idea of a safe shop.
 
#46 · (Edited by Moderator)
You know Richard, after going back and re-reading your post in #39, I just could not get the "planer" incident out of my mind. Just about a week ago I nearly had a very similar accident on my Lunchbox planer. I was final-sizing four 52" legs to 1 1/2" by sending them though the planer butted next to each other, rotating and sending them through again. Part way through this process I got a bit careless. In feeding, I was holding them butted next to each other and on the outfeed I was also grabbing them to keep them together as well. My momentary lapse of concentration led to my left "feed" arm/hand moving so close to the planer as to "just" start to pinch my fingers, causing me to quickly jerk my hand away. Had my fingers not been as vertical as they were, I probably would have had my hand pulled into the blades.

At the time, I didn't think much of that close call. NOW, after reading your #39 post, I realize just how easy it is to screw up! My "best practices" on the planer are now being modified, immediately. Geez…
 
#47 ·
Wow Mike. Close call, there.
Most of my planing is @ 3/4" or less. I gotta remember your story for those thicker pieces.
Come to think of it, I built a sled for the planer just for those thinner cuts. But, I've been using it for almost all of my cuts recently. The surface is covered with 60 grit cloth backed sandpaper, so I can lay a piece on and feed it through by pushing the sled instead of the work. That serves to keep the fingers away from the opening. Hadn't thought of that.
 
#48 ·
Last year a local teenage boy in electrical shop class took a dare (for a can of Mountain Doo) and clipped alligator clips across his nipples with 120 volts. INSTANT HEART ATTACK.

Shop teacher gave him CPR and saved his life.

Parents sued the school district.

Teacher was fired.

And we wonder why America is failing?
 
#49 ·
I think there is too little information available at this time to have an opinion. If the girl was walking around with her hair down for the entire class or even for every class then the teacher holds a lot of the blame. If she had it up and for a moment let it down when the accident happened then she holds a lot of the blame.

A shop teacher has a tough job. I couldn't imagine being responsible for a bunch of teenagers in a wood shop. I think back to some of the stuff I did before I "knew better" and I'm a little surprised I made it out without any major injuries.

It's a sad story. I hope she recovers.
 
#50 ·
ssnvet,

I am familiar with that event. I read that the parents sued the teacher, a master electrician with 12 years of teaching experience, as well. I read that he resigned. Of course, he may have been encouraged by the school district to resign. Or it may have disturbed him so much he resigned, I saw a Construction teacher do that after an accident.

I have been trying to find the result of the lawsuit as well. If you know of the result, I would like to hear it.

I play a news station video about that event when I present safety training to teachers . It shows cell phone video of the student electrocuting himself, an police interview of the teacher and the student. After seeing all of that report, I definitely don't have enough information to decide if the teacher had any fault in the event.

My guess is the student wanted to show how tough he was by attaching the clips to his nipples; boys tend to like to show how strong they are. Having taught "shop" for 34 years, my guess is that he was not planning for electricity to be applied to the leads. But that is just a guess on my part.
 
#51 ·
@ssnvet: _…"Teacher was fired. And we wonder why America is failing?..."

Surely you are not inferring that the shop teacher was the one to put this kid to the "dare" are you? Your final statement sure sounds like you are. Please explain, as I hope that this was just a mis-step.
 
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