Garage Injuries

[Turbo T]

But did you get the spider or is it still lurking out there to strike ???

You bet your ass I did! Hahaha almost burned down the garage last year trying to get one (long story). I am a "live and let live" kind of guy, but I draw the line at things in my house that can kill me if I accidentally disturb them.

Worst injury I personally know of is my buddy Chris (I know I'm cheating, but you have to hear this). Everyone knows the rule, always use jackstands, right? Well a few years back, Chris decides he's going to do something to his driver's side wheel (I forget what) on his Lightning, and jacks the truck up under the K member. No one is home, and his cell phone is about 6ft away (buncha red flags already here). When he goes to put the wheel back on, he jostles the truck, and it slips off the jack and into the intercooler. The brake disc comes down on top of his FOOT!!! Like I said, no one's home, and the cell phone is out of reach, so he bleeds out over the course of 45 minutes or so waiting for his girlfriend to get out of work and come looking for him. Lucky for him, she shows up about an hour later, but she can't get the jack out... so she DRIVES the truck off of his foot. Just thinking about that makes me pucker. I don't know who had it worse, Chris being in pain he was in, or her, having no choice but to cause that kind of pain to someone you love. Anyway, they rush to the hospital, and he gets a metal plate and some screws in his foot, and his parents get the shock of their life coming home to a garage full of blood. Funny now, but not then, and it could've been deadly. Don't think I need to say it at this point, but USE JACK STANDS!!! That "quick little job" is not worth it. Injury stories are funny only if you live through it.

[65elkyprotour]

Last Thanksgiving I did the 40 grit flap disc on an angle grinder through the finger-tip deal. When I went to the hospital the Dr. said "Grinder, was it a meat grinder?" I replied "Well, it didn't start out that way!" I am now thinking about naming my car "The Mangler".

[BobB66SS]

First there's the old standard where the hood on your car gradually creeps down a couple of inches over time (brand new springs!) while you're wrenching under it, and you stand up to a knock on the corner of the hood with your gradually balding head. Every time I get my haircut there's a new scar to be discovered.

Last one really gripes me, PO'd at myself and the parts vendor. My new Flofit seats arrive in their giant boxes, so I open them up to make more room in the garage. The seats as you probably know come unassembled including the recliner mechanism and its ungodly strong watch-type spring. It's two plates about .150" or so thick connected by the spring. I reach into the box to grab the mechanism only to find out the hard way it's in the loaded, spring-wound position like the seatback is in the up position. The thing snaps shut into the seat-folded-forward position like a bear trap on the tips of my middle and ring fingers on my left hand. I have a decent pain tolerance but that is the worst thing I ever felt, I'm sweating ang getting lightheaded and can't think straight. Ended up chucking the thing in my vice and grabbing pliers to pull it open coupled with WD40 as lubricant (all I could reach). Slipped it out with some real tugging. By then the workbench looks like a crime scene and I subtly tell the wife she needs to drive me to a doctor. Couldn't yell for her to help, she'd have toppled over seeing it and then I'd have 2 problems. To top it off she and the ER surgeon have a mutual friend which they proceed to chat about while I sit there bleeding in agony until some interesting language on my part got the doc refocused. 20+ stitches to reattach the mangled stuff, still numb a year later. Never assume a vendor is bright enough to ship stuff the way you would.