One more work on cinder blocks...

A guy I used to work with put his car up on blocks. One of the blocks broke, the car fell and killed him. Ouch!

My brother's friend got underneath a car that was up on a bumper-jack (several years ago) with one of the wheels off. Of course the bumper broke off of the car, the car killed him too. Ouch!

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Sunny PA
79 240D
83 300SD

I was doing some side work on a plastic surgeons house and he got a call from the hospital will I was in the room so I heard him giving instructions to the hospital staff about what to start with. They had the medics bring in a guy who had been working under his boat trailer with the (large) boat on it and it fell on his face. The doctor had to rebuild everything because the only thing that didn't get damaged was the guys brain and with what he did that was not working to good to start with.

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1983 300SD
200000miles

I pulled the alternator off my diesel to replace the voltage regulator and brushes. While on the bench, I blasted it with half a can of electrical / contact cleaner stuff - really soaked it - to clean out years of accumulated munge.

I carefully carry it back to the car, get underneath and lift it up and maneuver it to fit a bolt to hold it, when it dumps about a cup full of unevaporated contact cleaner right into my face/eyes. I dropped that thing, ran into the kitchen and just started spashing water into my eyes, face, nose, everything. Eyes were sore for a couple days, but no lasting effect, thank goodness.

Rgds,
Chris W.
'95 E300D

on the bottom of my car....and got too much on the brush and it dripped and got it on my face. it was one of thos ehot humid sticky sweaty NJ days that makes you tired and clumsy quickly, and without thinking I just took my arm and swiped it like I would sweat on my face.

That turned the drops into a swath of POR 15 across myforehead which took nearly a week to remove with daily scrubbing..

I was working on drum brakes on my old VW. I put the shoes in place and was using a pair of vice grips to stretch the spring to both shoes. The vice grips came off and popped me in the head at my eyebrow - then my face got really warm - 12 stiches to close the gash. After that I put the springs on first and pushed on the lower shoeto pop it in place.

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tgingrich
'83 300TD 282k
'83 300D 239k
'82 300SD 204k
DFW

Rich, glad to hear that "everything came out OK"

So far about the only injuries I've had are the usual busted knuckles, minor burns and scrapes. (Knock on wood....my head) (A few near misses reminds me that my guardian angel may be getting pretty beat up at times.)

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Sam

84 300SD 350K+ miles ( Blue Belle )

Glad to hear your all right! Other then a few busted knuckles and some minor cuts I have been lucky.


I better not hear of a MBshop member putting there car up on cinder blocks, if I do I will drive right over there and knock some sense into you.

If you are to cheap to spend $30 on jack stands use blocks of wood insted.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Junk Yard fun. I was pulling some air cleaner parts from a ,Japsomething that was on the junk yard four steel rims under the frame, as were all of the cars. Not under it thank God! I guess I leaned too hard and the whole car went to the side into the car next to it and it went down as well. As I jumped back, I fell over the #$@# on the ground and busted my ass! Watch out for the junk yards, they are not thinking of YOUR safty!!!!!
Other than that, my wife wants me to stop throwing tools at the shed.

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1985 300D burning WVO using 26 FPHE, half gallon heated fuel filter,glow plug heater,home made injection line heaters. Home made cold air induction. ALDA full out.
2003 F350 7.3(the last of the great motors)
1987 Paint Horse-non running too, just walks!

Luckily these were not mine and some before I even existed.

Original owner, torch work under car, standing in the pit, gas fire. That's back in the old days, so nothing they could do. Took him 3 days to die of the burns. In the same bedroom I will sleep in tonight.

Father walks into house one day after working on widow ladies car in a horrible snowstorm. Had cut himself badly, but was not bleeding, that is until he started to warm up. Still remember standing there in the kitchen staring up at my hulking father in horror as that man cursed and slammed drawers looking for a bandaid. A bandaid!!! Blood was everywhere!!!

Father terminally ill with cancer, they do x-rays. Hmmmm, "Did you ever break your arm?" .... "No".... Well it grew back together. He did nurse it along after smacking it one day when he was torquing down something on a tractor, high torque, slipped off and smacked his forearm.

Other one - not my garage. Torch under trailer, slag, lack of welding helment, slag goes into guys ear, he comes flying up, stands up, it has burned through his outer ear canal and into his mouth, spits it out and drops like a rock. Luckily did not go through eardrum, so he was "fine".

Nice topic, I've only recall the flesh wound variety for me.

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raMBow

1999 E300DT Obsydian Black Metallic, Heated Full Leather Parchment options, E2, K2, 136,000+, best 36.5 mpg - GP's 12-04 & 11-12 Zero Stuck
2010 Honda Odyssey - The BrideMobile - best 26.5
(2) 2005 Honday Accord- (1 -Corporate 1 - Personal) - 110,000 4-cyl 30mpg
2000 VW Golf GLS TDI, Upsolute Chip (sold to Brother, now 300+k on it) 48.5 mpg like clock work
1987 Honda CRX HF - Sold 87,000 always over 50 mpg Max 67 mpg

With all of these stories it really makes me think someone is watching out for us. Either that or the human body is amazingly resilient... or both. It is amazing that there are so many stories, yet very little permanent damage to any of us. Well... certain mistakes you can only make once, as my dad would say, so I suppose those people aren't here to tell their stories.

My worst injury was hands that looked like I got in a fight with a cat after attempting to stuff things under my sagging drivers seat.

Close call: I recently replaced my alternator. Stupidly, I did not disconnect my battery cable. When I went to insert the electrical connector, I was a little fumbly from the awkward position (laying under the car, no jack) and as I went to insert the connector, I didn't notice that the little wire clip on the alternator (which is supposed to hold the electrical connector into the alternator) was in the way. WOW, the electrical connections were bridged by the clip. it was a big spark and it took fractions of a second to burn right through that metal clip and blow the plastic back off of the connector. The remains of the clip were still glowing like a lightbulb a few seconds later when I finally figured out what had happened. I never found the back to the connector. I was surprised once I got it all back together and running that nothing electrical was damaged in the car.

Since everyone else seems to have stepped on a nail, I'll make my story short: when I was a little kid, I didn't believe when told by my dad that a nail would go right through your shoe and into your foot. I decided to test this theory by intentionally stepping on the nail which was sticking out of a board. It turns out I was wrong.

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When I was in High school, my first car was a 1966 Corvair monza shaped pile of rust. I loved that car, but as a teenager I didn't figure out that the brake and the gas pedel were not binary devices. I either had it floored out, or I was in a four wheel slide with the brakes locked up. My insurance rates were outrageous...all the local cops knew me and my car.

As a result, I was working on the car constantly. I shreded the clutch disk on a couple of occasions, broke probably half a dozen pistons....I was constantly having to call someone to tow me home and I kept a tow starp in the trunk. So as a metal shop project (the shop teacher wouldn't let me make those cut down quick steering arms I wanted to do) I decided to make a tow bar. I had it all welded out and drilled and due to the heat it had tweaked a bit. So put in a vice and heated it up with a torch to roughly the temperature of the sun so I could straighten it. Then I flipped it over and put the other side of the a frame in the vice...in the process I put my bare hand right on the secion of square tubing I just heated up previously. It pretty well cooked the inside of my hand. I almost made it to the door of the shop before the pain hit. I've never quite experienced anything like it.


Next a few years later I was riding through dallas on a 1967 BSA Spitfire mark III and one of the exhaust pipes fell off. Anyone who has owned a vintage brit bike understands that this is something you come to expect. Also anyone who has ever driven in Dallas knows that nobody is going to let you over to the shoulder when you break down I was trying to find a spot to get up on the little center concrete thing by the guard rail and I thought I saw an place where the curb was actually road lever from where they had just resurfaced the road and I thought I'd be slick and hit that spot and get off the main hwy. Next thing I knew I was sliding down Interstate 30 with a BSA on top of me. Mind you, this was painful, and my right knee still doesn't work right but then the motor hung wide open and since I had bypassed the kill switch the only way I had to kill the motor was to yank the spark plug wires. Say what you will about Lucas electrics, but it had PLENTY of spark that day.

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1983 300D
1978 BMW R80/7
1997 Jeep TJ

I've heard of a couple of fatal accidents caused by a Bic lighter in a shirt pocket touched off by welding sparks. Steve

Mythbusters did an episode on that...it was busted,IIRC

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1983 300D
1978 BMW R80/7
1997 Jeep TJ

Back when I was younger, safety was a hassle... why worry...

Doing a tune up on a Ford. I was too lazy to shut off the car to pull the vacuum line off the distributer. I yanked real hard, it came off, and my hand went into the fan (old style hard bolted on fan) of the running car. I was real luck to only have some bruises.

I had a friend that owned a garage, 50 years old, was just going under the car a second with the bumper jack, it fell off and killed him. I always use a jack stand and a tire/rim also under the frame.

Sandblasting without goggles, no problem. Just get some sand in your eye.

Ripping out old rusty floorboards from a car while in the rustbelt. Let that metal rip across your palm and guess how long that bleeds... 8-(. I still have the scar.

Well I try to be smarter now. But...

More recently, a good friend of mine and my major gear head friend had a stroke. In his recovery I was pushing him to get more active. We were troubleshooting a hard starting problem on my boat with a big-block chevy. We decided the cable ends on the starter cables needed cleaned and resoldered. I held the cable, solder, and cable end while he held the torch. His shaking hand ran the torch across my thumb. His reaction was ... "ohh, I smelled that". About 4 weeks later my thumb was better.

Please be careful.

Chuck

I don't see Mythbusters very often; some of what I have seen was well done and some I didn't think they proved. From the welding I've done I can believe that a drop of molten steel could melt through plastic and ignite the fuel. Busted or not, better safe than sorry. Steve