GENTLEMEN...a serious word about safety this year...

Dan, I'm afraid that the clue is in the brittle 'snap off' nature and indeed name of the blade . Hacksaws too don't like being pushed on much.

General tool safety:
Safety courses always emphasises which way the tool edge and your body bits will ' go' when something breaks, jams, sticks snaps or slips. This could be thw workpiece moving unexpectedly too ( so clamp it and dont wear slippy shoes on a slippy floor etc)

Which is why of course we don't wave loose hair or garments around routers, apply pressure to blunt chisels or those pointing at our other hand, put fingers infront of powertools, nor do we over-extend 'snapoff' blades and then apply them to sticky materials like polyethylene breadboards and then wiggle 'em, lever 'em and apply lots of pressure into the path of the likely snapped off, retained bit of embedded blade.

Unfortunately you have just learn all this by trial and error. The famous university of life.. Either way works.

Glad it is a timely and not protracted warning, and well done on the Heads Up. I think you should apply ' a' quantity of quality whisky internally to guard against possible infection, cheer up the patient and encourage 'alls well with the world' again !

I could tell you some good nailgun stories but possibly later eh?
 
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Thank you all for your kind and wise thoughts. Although to be honest, reading some of them had my head swimming again...horrid nauseous feeling which threatens a black-out.

Is that the same as what afflicted the student-surgeons in the opening titles of Quincy, M.E.? Sorry there's no Youtube link.
 
Feeling faint etc. at seeing blood, especially ones own, is not at all uncommon, and some individuals can be extreme. In the case of a friend he cannot bear listening to any conversation involving gory subjects, and the first time he had his blood pressure measured he fainted! Recently he has developed angina, and been advised he needs to have a Coronary Angiogram. He fainted again when the nurse started explaining to him what was involved. If it turns out he needs stenting or a CABG it will be tricky.

Fortunately I have never been affected which is just as well, although "Dr Ellingham" seems to manage OK - just. :D

I have avoided Stanley knife accidents, but twice snipped through a finger (and a thick glove) with secateurs and also got a finger tip in the hedge trimmer. :eek:

It is surprising how little initial pain sensation there is with a clean cut.
 
Leighb said:
Feeling faint etc. at seeing blood, especially ones own, is not at all uncommon, and some individuals can be extreme.
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It is a strange and unpredictable phenomenon. When I had my accident I was in a great deal of pain but remained perfectly OK throughout, took photos of the damage, etc. During a hospital visit some weeks later I was in the plaster room when a guy was brought in with two broken kneecaps. He was perfectly cheery and I didn't see his damage at all but it affected me a lot and I had to request a glass of water and a lie-down.

Years ago at work we were rounded up to watch a video on inspecting oneself for testicular cancer. One individual fainted in the lecture theatre.
 
vyv_cox said:
It is a strange and unpredictable phenomenon. When I had my accident I was in a great deal of pain but remained perfectly OK throughout, took photos of the damage, etc. During a hospital visit some weeks later I was in the plaster room when a guy was brought in with two broken kneecaps. He was perfectly cheery and I didn't see his damage at all but it affected me a lot and I had to request a glass of water and a lie-down.

Years ago at work we were rounded up to watch a video on inspecting oneself for testicular cancer. One individual fainted in the lecture theatre.
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Fainting is indeed a strange and poorly understood phenomenon. I faint in a rather extreme manner at long intervals without any obvious provocation; the doctors have been unable to identify any particular trigger, and since the last episode (which took place on Capricious, giving PeteCooper and another friend palpitations!) I have been on medication to prevent my heart from slowing abruptly. So far it has been effective!
 
Your fainting due to sudden slowing of the heart beat (Bradycardia) is an entirely different mechanism from a "normal" faint. In the latter one of the characteristics is an excessively rapid pulse, and a sharp drop in BP, usually accompanied by pallor. It is this latter type that causes faints due to the sight of blood or other assaults on your sensibilities.
 
A slow pulse is pretty normal for fainting. Although often harmless, a rapid pulse would lead one to think of other causes such as loss of blood or a cardiac anomaly such as atrial flutter. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Fainting/Pages/Causes.aspx

The trouble with accidents is that they happen before you have time to reverse the clock. My last boatyard injury involve no more than tripping over something that I should have seen. The commonest cause of injury with sharp tools is failure to fix the workpiece.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
Fainting is indeed a strange and poorly understood phenomenon. I faint in a rather extreme manner at long intervals without any obvious provocation; the doctors have been unable to identify any particular trigger, and since the last episode (which took place on Capricious, giving PeteCooper and another friend palpitations!) I have been on medication to prevent my heart from slowing abruptly. So far it has been effective!
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And you still have a CAA medical?
 
I don't have a problem viewing the open wound but if I was to watch the actual cutting then you would probably end up picking me off the floor. Both the kids were ceaserian births with me present. I had to look away till the cut was done then I was fine.
 
dancrane said:
Tonight I was using my new Stanley blades to cut a tough plastic chopping-board into chocks, to replace the crumbly ply ones which enable variable mast-rake positions.

A tough job needing lots of pressure...so when the blade broke, it stuck fast in the plastic (while my hand still holding the knife, thumped past the broken blade, down onto the carpet below) and I received a horrible, deep, gaping 2" slash to the back of the wrist.

Surprisingly little blood and it hardly hurt at all, but I very nearly blacked-out, looking at it. The paramedics were excellent and referred me to a special all-night mobile doctor who did a superb job without me having to go to hospital, so I now have a neat row of stitches in my forearm, which aren't apparently affecting use of my hand.

I realise this was a deeply stupid thing to have done - for God's sake, chopping boards are meant to resist cutting, so it was obviously a hacksaw-job. And equally I realise that with appropriate Health & Safety 'goggles and gauntlets', I needn't have been injured significantly at all...(and I predict a Jaws-style procession of tales about much, much worse injuries, appearing here shortly)...

...but I now see how easily & unpredictably, awful wounds occur. So please, during this pre-season build-up, play it safe however tempting it may be to cut corners...

...it's REALLY not worth the risk of shocking injuries.



Have a nice day. And God bless the NHS. :)
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Ooh nasty. Bad luck. Glad to hear it was just superficial (although obv a big wound) and you missed your extensor tendons and retinaculum, damage there takes ages to sort out. Best wishes for a quick recovery.
 
Been plucking up courage to post this - still go very wobbly when I think of it. Right, here goes:-

The ex trapped her finger end in the hinge side of an outside-passage door (protecting child from the slam caused by strong wind). On hearing the screem I raced to her aid to see half-an-inch of the end of her finger nipped clean off and still in the door frame. That was bad enough.

VERY quick 20 min drive to A&E with copious red-stuff emerging.

Doctor took one look at it, said he'd have to clean, TRIM and stitch what was left of finger. A quick jab of local.
The clean bit was ok (for me) but the trim bit was done with what looked like large nail-clippers - he snipped away at the splintered bone.

Sorry folks, I ended up at 45 degrees hanging onto the instrument trolley before sagging to the floor.
 
Robert Wilson said:
Sorry folks, I ended up at 45 degrees hanging onto the instrument trolley before sagging to the floor.
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No need to be ashamed. Our son has been diabetic most of his life, thus needles and blood are part of his life. He still managed to pass out when having a small cyst taken off his chest.
 
Blades snapping under pressure is a well-known problem with knives like this. The idea answer is to use a really sharp blade and let it do the work instead of being tempted to put pressure on a slightly dull blade. However we are all tempted at one time or another to just push a bit harder so Irwin have come up with another partial answer: bi-metal blades which bend a bit more and are less brittle. See http://www.irwin.com/tools/browse/utility-knives-blades/bi-metal-utility-blades.

No connection with Irwin other than as a satisfied customer. Other bi-metal blades may be available.

Hope your hand heals quickly, Dan, and thanks for the reminder.
 
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