A grisly question

Darwin Awards?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jayman\";p=\"82567)</div>

To tie this in to another thread....

so...these guys never read the manual?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco\";p=\"82636)</div>

Evan:

Fortunately, most folks around here already keep one or even several of them in the car. Even old sleeping bags in winter, you never know if the car will conk or you'll get stuck in a blizzard at -40 somewhere in BFE.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco\";p=\"82636)</div>

When I took my Advanced First Aid class at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, many years ago, the instructor also warned us to use the mouth guard for another very good reason: sometimes during CPR, especially if there are other injuries like to the head, the patient can puke up on you.

The instructor told us a tale of one time when he came upon a bad car crash, didn't have a mouth shield, and had to perform The Kiss Of Life. The patient puked up pizza and beer.

Correction: *partially* digested pizza and beer. ukeright:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco\";p=\"82636)</div>

If you don't need them sterile, and can't tolerate Latex, you can usually pick up a box of 100 pair PVC Exam Gloves (Powdered or non) at a health supply store for under $8.

I use them all the time at the hobby farm. If I'm taking something greasy apart to clean it, I use PVC gloves to avoid solvent and old grease. When I reassemble I like to use Loctite Nickle Grade antiseize compound, and I really hate getting that icky stuff on my hands.

Or when I change the fuel filter in my diesel tractor, I really hate getting that oily stinky stuff on my hands. Call me a wuss, but the PVC gloves are so much easier. I might go through 2-3 pairs during some of my adventures at the hobby farm.

Oh, and the one time I thought my cat was ill, and had to take his temperature from the usual orifice. There is no way in h*** I was going anywhere near that orifice without the gloves on! As it turned out, it was a hairball and once he puked it up I used the gloves to clean up the nasty mess.

Jay

 

Re: Darwin Awards?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva\";p=\"82664)</div>

You'd be surprised.

The Industrial Process Control field (Chemicals, petrochemicals, manufacturing, etc) is inherently dangerous. OSHA can mandate all the shielding they want, but in the end it boils down to how safe the individual is.

All it takes is a momentary lapse in concentration or judgement, and the person is dead or seriously injured. I've seen crush injuries from slow moving presses, simply because the operator wasn't paying attention.

The guy who lost his arm in the auger was rushing so he neglected to lock out the auger power in the MCC. I'm not sure why he was rushing as he was PAID BY THE HOUR! :roll:

All he did was poke the red Stop button on the J/S station. Since the J/S is only a momentary pulse and not a latching contact, the process computer logic assumed it was safe to try to start it up again.

I ended up being asked to modify the logic to treat any momentary Stop request as an Emergency Shutdown Request for that area. So now if an operator or maintenance tech happens to notice something only slightly amiss, poking the red button immediately kills the entire process and the emergency siren begins to wail.

So everybody now ignores the emergency siren. Good result, hmmm?

I personally fear things like table saws. They work so fast that by the time you even feel anything, your hand is already laying on the ground. So I have a lot of healthy respect for things like that.

Though for sheer volume of tragedy, and maybe Evan can back me up on this, it's hard to beat farming accidents. Usually you have some 10-14 year old kid trying to hook up a PTO shaft to a tractor and they have to "tease" the PTO engagement to get the splines to align. One slip, and a long sleeve jacket or shirt, and they're wrapped around the PTO shaft.

If you don't pay attention around dangerous things, you shouldn't be surprised if something bad happens.

 

The most important thing you could have in your serious accident first aid kit is the Cyanide pills you have in your first aid kit at home.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco\";p=\"82418)</div>

You’re the expert in the field . . . maybe you can tell us what you consider to be the most gruesome medical procedure/phenomena.

My guess would be Partial Birth Abortions.
[Before I am roasted: I am neither Pro-Life or Pro-Choice. I believe in a woman’s right to chose . . . up to a certain point.]

The most gruesome event I ever witnessed first hand: I watched and heard the upper half of a large guy literally vanish into a Navy S-3 Viking’s fanjet engine while turning at high power . . . the lower half fell to the Aircraft Carrier Flight Deck and twitched. I then proceeded to join several other people in a spontaneous barf fest. ukeleft: ukeright:ukeleft: ukeright:

[Yes, we are in FHOP . . . but an appetite is not guaranteed.]

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Frank Hudon\";p=\"82700)</div>

Frank:

Especially for that goof at work who thinks it is cute to spray water on you while you're using the welder to gouge.

Jay

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy\";p=\"82757)</div>

Patrick:

Like when the baby is actually delivered, all healthy and wiggly and squirmy, and they stick that stainless steel rod through its brain to Pith it? Yeah, that's classy ...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sufferin' Prius Envy\";p=\"82757)</div>

It happens ....

Fanjets are rated for birdstrikes, I believe up to large chicken size. If they ingest anything larger, like a Goose or half a human, the precision finely balanced fanblades make contact with the case and the rotating mass quickly destroys itself.

I'm not sure about the S-3, but most modern high-bypass fanjets used on Airbus and Boeing 747-400, 777, etc, are rated to fully contain separated fanblades. They use a kevlar blanket around the case to capture and contain the fragments.

Otherwise you'd get high velocity chunks of titanium exiting the assembly and hitting the wing. There is the risk of fuel explosion or loss of hydraulic systems. That's why that United Airlines DC-10 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa around 16 years ago.

Though in that case it wasn't a fan blade that separated, the actual fan hub had a crack and came apart. The front fan assembly, along with a lot of other parts from that fanjet, left the aircraft and landed in a cornfield. The shrapnel cut all the hydraulic lines, the crew lost control of the aircraft.

Jay

 

Speaking of farm accidents (I grew up in Wisconsin and worked on the family dairy farm each summer during my childhood) nobody mentioned how nasty it would be to get gored by a bull.

I work in biomedical science (pharmacology, biochemistry, molecular biology), a relatively safe field if you know what the hell you're doing and you wear gloves and such. Much less of the immediately grisly stuff such as arms being cut off and such, but the incidence of cancer and other unpleasant ends is much higher in people of my discipline. It's ironic as most people who are out to cure cancer end up putting oncogenes into retroviruses (I'm not getting too detailed here, let's say infecting yourself with one of these would be very bad) and sure enough, infecting themselves along the way... then 10 years down the line the gene starts to express, and poof, 4 months to live. That's what happens when you engineer the nastiest, most aggressive oncogenic mutation and try to work with it.

I work on regulation of muscle contraction and not cancer (whew)... my small list of personal risks include getting caustic chemicals on my arms or glass fragments in my fingers (did it the other day and my hands still hurt). And of course the occasional removal of all nose hair when walking into a room where someone is using concentrated hydrochloric acid.

My husband worries me occasionally when he talks about a car that nearly got knocked off a lift with him under it or other scary stories from the shop. His employer buys him life insurance which is a good safety precaution but I would hate to think of ever having to use it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee\";p=\"82814)</div>

It's very *very* nasty.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee\";p=\"82814)</div>

I've done some process control work for pharmaceuticals and was surprised at the scary dangerous stuff they work with. Labels like "teratogenic" come to mind. No thanks.

A lot of the strong acids used to sterilize have very serious health impacts. Dealing with things like HCL and Inhibited HCL (AKA Murhib, HCL with a zinc suspension) should not be taken lightly.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee\";p=\"82814)</div>

Hmmm caustic burns. I'm sure you've read up on the long-term effects, right? Watch out for any unusual moles sprouting up.

Glass fragments are actually very dangerous. Telecom workers who cleave fiber optics (The "real" fiber optic not that plastic stuff) are always getting infections from glass shavings and glass fibers.

If you think a glass frag is bad going in, wait until it works its way back out.

Or you can be working under a lift and have a car fall on top of you and squash you flat.

 

jayman: don't worry yourself about teratogens. teratogenicity affects the developing fetus.

not to say it's not a good idea to steer clear of any of that stuff, but we're talking serious birth defects more than anything in this category. you know, armless kids and such. usually they affect a critical developmental process and those of us who are already past the complexities of forming brains and arms and eyes and such aren't so easily affected.

I work with glasswool, getting those things in your hands is like getting pricked by a cactus and you can usually fish the glass out right away. still hurts a lot. and of course we take all the necessary precautions with all chemicals. i am actually thinking of heading to the doctor next week to investigate a strange mark on my arm. they drill it into your head when you work anywhere near a cancer lab.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee\";p=\"82949)</div>

Yep, I'm unlikely to have a fetus inside me anytime soon. The scary labels (Teratogenic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, regular biohazard flowers too, etc) really put me off so I've turned down contracts where I'm expected to spend a lot of time in an environment like that.

As far as the glass wool, any chance of aspiration? You'll never guess what happens when you aspirate glass wool.

 

nope, that's definitely not an issue. i'm sure the effects are quite painful.

another big hazard here- radiation. fortunately we use weak stuff (32P) and not the hardcore stuff.

and finally, the strange thing on my arm was a piece of plastic that somehow got lodged in there and caused discoloration and inflammation. must have ran into something and not noticed it. at least it's not serious.

seems i've turned the topic away from industrial scary accidents to more insidious things. so to return to that area- i had a friend who fell off a roof on a construction site, hit 3 beams on the way down (shattered his arm), landed on his back (broke that too) and would have died except his head landed on something soft. fortunately he recovered and doesn't do construction anymore.

 

I haven't had to work with ionizing radiation sources.

In the industrial field, radiation sources are used to measure slurry density among other things. It's a Cesium source in a lead capsule with an electric shutter to open the source.

I never trusted the radioactive meters and would always insist on having a geiger counter and dosimeter with me. In theory, with the shutter closed you're perfectly safe.

And the only practical way to get any meaningful radiation exposure would be to press yourself up against the source for prolonged periods. But, since you can't see, smell, or taste radiation (Unless at a level so high you're immediately cooked), you can never be too sure.

I don't envy you in the lab environment. You'd never catch me in there due to all the different nasty concoctions of reagents, solvents, and other things. I once saw a guy accidently freeze his finger with liquid nitrogen when he was trying to fiddle with a Particle Size Analyzer.

Yeah, embedded plastics will also cause a nasty infection. The difference between glass frags and plastic frags? The plastic frags usually don't work their way out of your skin, you need to have them removed pronto.

Construction accidents are interesting. You always see these sloppy workers directly exposing themselves to harm on a construction site. I'm always amazed that you don't see 3-4 people tagged and bagged at the end of each shift.