My favourite:
"(30-year-old female) PT SAT ON A FUNNY STOOL FOR FIVE HOURS WHILE USING THE COMPUTER AND DEV ELOPED SEVERE LOWER BACK PAIN STRAINED BACK"
I've never heard anyone call it a funny stool before.
Yanks floored by nail guns, computers and baseballs
We're very much obliged to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, which has produced a handy online guide detailing just what kind of damage our accident-prone American cousins managed to sustain between 1991 and 2008. The data is gathered by the "National Electronic Injury Surveillance System" (NEISS) and represents a " …
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Monday 18th January 2010 12:25 GMT Matt Bryant
I must be getting old, but.....
I owned an excellent Hilti nailgun in the mid-eighties (I still have it gathering dust somewhere in the garage), and it was virtually impossible to shoot oneself by accident with it. Firstly, it had a trigger disconnect, which meant after every shot you had to release the trigger AND the contact guard AND re-apply pressure on the contact guard before the trigger would engage it would fire again. Secondly, it had a contact guard and you had to push with quite a weight onto the target surface (I used to literally lean my full bodyweight on it!) to depress the guard far enough for it to fire. "Bumping" simply wasn't possible, you had to put that much pressure on the contact guard. Has nailgun design gone that far backwards that saftey design features from a twenty-plus year-old design have been removed? The Hilti wasn't cheap, is it that the market is flooded with cheap designs and better legislation needs to put in around trigger desings to remove cheaper and dangerous designs from the market?
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Monday 18th January 2010 13:17 GMT JeffShortland
You're not getting old, people are getting dumber..
Actually, I used to do alot of contracting work with my old man, still do in fact, and they used alot of Hilti gear (both airnailers and ramsets). Never underestimate an employee on how clever they can be at being stupid. I've seen people fire airguns through brand new windows, and you'll look over to see that they've got it up in the air. you spend the rest of the day trying to figure out HOW they managed to fire off something with so many saftey's, but frankly.. they just do. Maybe they'll sit it on their foot (still hooked into the air line), to change a nail roll, they'll somehow manage to push down on it with the safe's off, set the clip, and pull up with the trigger.
honestly, even with bumping being possible, it still takes all kinds of stupid, and poor practice to get hurt.
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Monday 18th January 2010 13:24 GMT adnim
@Matt Bryant:I must be getting old but...
Thats all very well and good, and Hilti should be commended. But there will still be those who look down the business end whilst simultaneously pressing the trigger, pushing back any contact guard and saying "What the fsk is wrong with this". Perhaps even using the head to push back the contact guard.
A solution maybe to label everything, tag every single object in the US with an impossible to miss warning label. Alternatively remove the warning labels from everything, let's not interfere with evolution eh?
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Monday 18th January 2010 15:38 GMT Steve X
safety first...
When I started work, 20-odd years ago, we had an obligatory heath & safety talk. I still remember being shown the photo of some polycarbonate safety goggles with a Hilti nail stuck dead centre in one lens, the point protruding about 1/8 inch though it, allegedly the result of a nail rebounding off a concrete floor. The victim had a colossal black eye for weeks, from the impact of the goggles against his face.
We were all invited to ponder on what would have happened if he hadn't been wearing the safety glasses.
To this day I can never can work with machinery without my goggles. Lesson learned...
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Monday 18th January 2010 14:36 GMT Christoph
Don't be too sure
"we are living in a world where a bloke can shove a coathanger in his cock. Compared to that, nothing should be a surprise."
I invite you to consider a quote from the forum that Adrian Jooste mentions further down-thread.
This is an actual, genuine quote about an actual genuine case.
"self-administered hydrofluoric acid enema"
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Monday 18th January 2010 23:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
bah! Nanny State... grumble grumble
"...is it that the market is flooded with cheap designs and better legislation needs to put in around trigger desings to remove cheaper and dangerous designs from the market?"
If a nail gun takes more work to operate than a hammer; folks will:
1. Find a nail gun that doesn't.
2. Remove or disable the safety features.
3. Use a hammer.
I suspect that option #2 has been employed in one or more of the cases mentioned. And no, I don't really want the gov. to protect me from myself. The tort / civil liability system in place now is bad enough.
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Monday 18th January 2010 13:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Youth of today
> 19 YOM HIT HIS COMPUTER 4-5 TIMES SUSTAINING A FRACTURED HAND
what is the world coming to ... in my day you could fracture your hand with a single hit ... then again it would have been a teletype that you were hitting back in the days where you could hit your keyboard and you would come off worse!
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Monday 18th January 2010 23:54 GMT jake
@Bassey
Cheese doesn't come in a tin. Artificial processed cheese-like substance comes in a tin. Sometimes manually smeared, sometimes dispensed with a pump, and sometimes in an aerosol dispensed varietal. Regardless, it's narsty. I don't know anyone who actually enjoys the stuff.
Signed: A. Yank
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Monday 18th January 2010 16:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Bar of soap?
"oh and surely soap and water would have been a better choice"
Nooooo! Back decades ago, while I was going to school, one of the people in the dorm tried that. She finally showed up at the campus health clinic blowing bubbles from where bubbles shouldn't be blown from! The original report is that she claimed she'd been in the shower and slipped, landing on a bar of soap. Later, it evolved that her boyfriend had uttered the phrase "You're nasty" immediately before grabbing a bar of soap! Whoopsie!
"Name withheld"
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Tuesday 19th January 2010 11:38 GMT Roby
willies
Just try a simple search for penis. :(
(18-year-old male) "HAND *** TO PENIS" - I'm just wondering what the missing work is to make this an injury
(11-year-old male) "STATES HE ACCIDENTLY HIT HIMSELF IN GROIN WITH BACKPACK FULL OF BOOKS AT HOME"
(15-year-old male) "PT HAD A PENCI L IN POCKET WHILE PLAYING BASKETBALL & FELL CAUSING PENCIL TO CUT PENIS"
I think this could be the same guy, with his elaborate sports excuses:
(15-year-old male) "RASH ON PENIS-HEAT EXPOSURE WHILE PLAYING FOOTBAL-@ SCHOOL"
(27-year-old male) "REPORTS ACCIDENTALLY WHILE LIGHT A CIGGRETTED THIS MORNING THE LIGHTER CAUGHT BOXES [boxers] ON FIRE ... PENIS>>BURN"
"47YOM WAS HOME BENDING A *** POLE OF A TENT ,TENT POLE SLIPPED WENT THROUGH PANTS STRIKING PENIS"
(19-year-old male) "PT WAS GETTING OUT OF SHOWER AND AND WAS CLEANING IT AND SPILLED BLEACH ONTO PENIS" - it could happen to any of us. Perhaps it was very dirty
(35-year-old male) "PT WAS AT HOME, GETTING HOT COFFEE OUT OF A DRIP COFFEE MAKER AND PUT I T IN A CUP WHEN IT SPILLED CAUSING PARTIAL THICKNESS" - ooh arousing.
To be honest, sometimes the simple ones are the most believable, you don't need an elaborate excuse:
(29-year-old male) "FELL OFF TOILET"
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Monday 18th January 2010 18:28 GMT JaitcH
America automates everything
American industry (they still have one unlike Britain) tries like crazy to convert the home owner/D-I-Y enthusiast into a domesticated trades person.
In the past few years they have introduced some quite lethal nailing devices.
I was in a Buffalo, New York handyman superstore and located the nailgun I had but not the strips of nails.
On inquiring of a helper I was told that staples, nails, etc that fit power tools are kept with the bullets (for guns) as an employer had been struck by a projectile from a power tool that was being 'checked out' by a prospective buyer.
You want a hammer? We have a power hammer you might like!
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Tuesday 19th January 2010 00:46 GMT ElReg!comments!Pierre
Automatic hammer
Well it takes some skill to use a hammer properly _and _ with reasonable speed. Probably the simpler-yet-most-misused tool ever. The nailgun is easier -and safer- to use. I still prefer the good ol' hammer myself.
And wood pieces are held together with pegs and/or mortise and tenon, not large ugly frigging nails anyway. Nails are only (borderly) acceptable in the teensy weensie headless variety for small ornamental pieces. But barely.
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Tuesday 19th January 2010 00:46 GMT jake
IT related injury ...
A friend of mine reached behind a large bank of relay racks and managed to get his Rolex watchband across the 48V supply ... The resulting loud "CRACK!" and fans spinning down, coupled with the smell of roasting/burning pork, were rather disturbing. To say nothing of the screaming. I managed to calm him down & get him to the ER ... Xrays showed little balls of gold melted into his wrist behind the 3rd degree charring. The surgeons later told him he was lucky to still have full use of his hand. Today, 25 years later, the scarring is still impressive, despite skin grafts. He got a new band for the watch, and now wears it on his other wrist. It still works.
And people wonder why I always take off my wedding ring when working on electrical stuff. Yes, that includes the cars, trucks, boats etc.
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Tuesday 19th January 2010 13:54 GMT Nick Pettefar
Spectacle
A German doctor who spent some time in a British A&E dept. told me the oddest incident was when he helped to remove a pair of glasses from inside a woman's bladder. Several times he was involved in removing still-buzzing vibrator's from men's bowels.
Seriously, if you want fun and fascination, A&E staff are the people to talk to. Also cynicism, fatigue and depression...
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
