Coronavirus

[mad_pete]

1 hour ago, ThreeSheds said:

So is it you assertion that anything other than a minor task can not be carried out safely?

Not wishing to sound holier than thou, but realistically, if I thought that any task i was about to undertake could not be carried out safely, I would not do it...

There is safely and absolutely no chance of injury and they are not the same thing. This is a numbers game across everybody.

Many people think they are doing things safely, not everybody is right.  (Either wrong assumptions or just unlucky).

I’ve been messing about under the Land Rover and got some small  metal in the eye that was a trip to the hospital. Now is not the time for that.

Pretty sure (almost) no one wakes up and thinks, ah yes I have that job to do today that will means I will have to go to A & E afterwards and yet still see people on there and not just because they are accompanying Nige 🙂
 

[smallfry]

There is always a chance of injury in absolutely everything to do. All accidents were preventable if only we had the benefit of "hindsight" before the event. Often you can see it coming but carry on anyway.

Even lying in bed is not safe. As an example, a few years ago, Father in Law (gone now) was in bed, and went to pull the duvet up. Hand slipped off, and he gouged himself in the eye with his thumb. Had to have a cornea transplant as a result.

[mad_pete]

Well exactly but some things are more likely than others so it’s just a question of keep it all extra safe at the moment and yes some unexpected stuff will still happen but we should keep that at a minimum.

[Gazzar]

38 minutes ago, mad_pete said:

Well exactly but some things are more likely than others so it’s just a question of keep it all extra safe at the moment and yes some unexpected stuff will still happen but we should keep that at a minimum.

 

 You are 100% right.

Just be careful, stop, get a cup of tea, then think about what you are doing.

That's all.

An extra axle stand, grab the face shield when grinding, wear the gloves. Keep the bystanders clear.

Stop and think. That's all.

 

 

[mad_pete]

59 minutes ago, Gazzar said:

 You are 100% right.

Just be careful, stop, get a cup of tea, then think about what you are doing.

That's all.

An extra axle stand, grab the face shield when grinding, wear the gloves. Keep the bystanders clear.

Stop and think. That's all.

 

 

And also do this all other times as well.
Your eyesight and other important bits are worth saving outside of pandemics too. 🙂

Really the question is at the moment do I really need to be picking up a grinder right now ?

[Gazzar]

Having said all the above, I've just bought a chain saw.

[Gazzar]

It was in the shop I was doing my food shopping in, at a decent price. So no extra travel or risk.

[Bowie69]

Go on, one more excuse  

[Gazzar]

And I needed the battery for my impact wrench.

 

Plus I needed to take the car or for a run, the battery gets low after 5 days being idle.

 

And, actually, we were out of food!!! Down to our last toilet roll, which was going stale.

 

[Eightpot]

There's some really good stuff in the roll on skip next to my workshop - trying to resist the normal urge to climb in as it looks much like the Star Wars waste compactor .. 😬

[Gazzar]

I feel your pain. 

 

[Nonimouse]

Once upon a time, whilst pruning shrubs in the garden, I broke my nose and stabbed myself in the face with my secateurs...  A lifetime of vegetation management, more tickets for big scary machines of death than is necessary and I do a 'Nigel'.  All I was doing was pulling a cut branch out of the shrub, it stuck, I yanked hard, it snapped my hand, containing the secateurs flew back into my face....  I have a frequent flyer points card at A&E....😔

[Bowie69]

It's OK, I managed to headbutt my RRC's read bumper recovery point, while doing a nut up on the tank guard.....

Spanner slipped, I lunged forward, and smack, right on the eyebrow.

Fair bit of blood, A&E and steristrips made good.

I could have avoided it just by positioning myself slightly differently, or lying down rather being sat up and overextending my reach.

Seemed pretty innocuous at the time  

Another time, I ran out of nitrile gloves, and had to use some old latex ones. If you hadn't noticed, latex just isn't as grippy as nitrile.... I was moving a 20x20 length of angle to cut the next length off, and my hand slipped off the steel, and slapped the index finger into the running 1mm slitting disc.

Cue another visit to A&E, wound scrubbed out with felt like a brillo pad without pain relief (doesn't work so well on fingers) , lots of blood, subsequent antibiotics after a few days due to infection, and finally sorted.

This is over many years, so I am not a Nige,  But I say it to show how easy it is to slip up.

😁

[Eightpot]

I knocked myself out recently and woke up with a 3" gash that had to be stitched after simply walking out of my pit under a Range Rover and not noticing the tow bar drop plate.

Another silly injury was jumping down from a roof rack, getting my ring stuck on a bolt and pulling most of my finger off 🤮

Yep, it's time to be cautious...

 

[Nonimouse]

So in reality we are all Nigel in some way

[Arjan]

Hmmm.... That is perhaps worrying......😀

[ThreeSheds]

48 minutes ago, Eightpot said:

jumping down from a roof rack, getting my ring stuck on a bolt and pulling most of my finger off 🤮

made me cringe until I realised it was on your finger...

[mickeyw]

I notice that JeffR hasn't been seen in quite a while, otherwise I'd have expected him to be adding to these tales of gore.

Hope he's OK. I recall he wasn't in the best of health.

[smallfry]

2 hours ago, ThreeSheds said:

made me cringe until I realised it was on your finger...

Me too 😂 I wonder what they would have made of it at the hospital, had it been what we were thinking 😬

Years ago I was levering a tyre off a rim, and using a mallet to help get it off. Tyre lever slipped and hit me on the top lip. I didn't even see it coming ! Blood everywhere and I had an instant hare hip right up to me nose. Thought I might have lost teeth, but no. Trip to A&E and four stitches by very nice student nurses.

While I was waiting, a guy came in after a scaffolding accident. His lower leg was wrapped in a blood soaked towel which was leaking on the floor, he was also in a lot of pain. I was called in to be seen to, but I said that they should sort him out first. Yes, they said. One of the staff went and got a washing up bowl for him to put his foot into ……………..

[Eightpot]

2 hours ago, smallfry said:

Me too 😂 I wonder what they would have made of it at the hospital, had it been what we were thinking 😬

 

Unfortunately I did it in the desert in the far south of Morocco - after hiding the mess in a tea towel I drove 2 hours to a small settlement and got the local doctor to open up his blood stained 'surgery', when he saw my hand he actually wretched up and said to go to Zagora hospital 2 hours further on as he didn't want to touch it!  When I got there there was a national hospital staff strike but a volunteer trainee offered to fix it in return for a carton of fags!  Got a nice big shot of morphine and to be fair the guy did a tidy job of attaching everything back together considering - his stitching's better than my welding. 

[Escape]

An unfortunate side effect of the social distancing is that it actually increases risk, as you're more likely to be working alone. Risk will increase, as there's no one around to warn or caution you and you're bound to tackle stuff on your own instead of waiting for a mate. And if something does go wrong, there's no one close by to help you out straight away or to convince/force you to go to A&E. I'd never do that on my own accord until it was already too late...

A couple of years ago, I was almost knocked unconscious when a propshaft slid of a temporary stay while I was working under the car. I got away without needing stitches, but since then I do make sure the key isn't in the inside lock etc, so people are able to enter in an emergency.

Keep busy, but stay safe and take care!

Filip

[FridgeFreezer]

It's rather extreme but some remote sites I worked at had a "dead man's switch" on the alarm, every so often it would start chirping and you had to go over and press a button to confirm you were still alive.

[mad_pete]

why are you “bound to tackle stuff on your own rather than waiting for a mate ?”   
Just don’t do the job now - most Land Rover jobs take years anyway - just let them wait a couple more months. If it is a critical job (it isn’t) then phone a mate while you do it or WhatsApp from your phone.

We have plans in place that describe who lives and who dies in the event there is a shortage of ventilators. 

 People need to wake up and take this very seriously and not be doing jobs they don’t need to be doing. All you need to do is sit on the sofa for 3 weeks to save lives. 

[Escape]

1 hour ago, mad_pete said:

why are you “bound to tackle stuff on your own rather than waiting for a mate ?”  

Because it's human nature. A lot of us don't want to just sit idle and try to make some use of the time we now get. Such as cleaning or tidying the house/garage/workshop, doing garden work or getting on with long standing projects. And while we will take all possible safety measures, chances are you'll run in to something that is easier and/or safer with a mate. Not intentionally looking for risk, far from it, but there's always the possibility and in the current situation I think it's more likely than under normal circumstances.

Filip

[ballcock]

1 hour ago, mad_pete said:

why are you “bound to tackle stuff on your own rather than waiting for a mate ?”   
Just don’t do the job now - most Land Rover jobs take years anyway - just let them wait a couple more months. If it is a critical job (it isn’t) then phone a mate while you do it or WhatsApp from your phone.

We have plans in place that describe who lives and who dies in the event there is a shortage of ventilators. 

 People need to wake up and take this very seriously and not be doing jobs they don’t need to be doing. All you need to do is sit on the sofa for 3 weeks to save lives. 

3 weeks then the next 3 weeks then the next. we don't know how long this will go on for. I will try to make the most of my time doing something constructive whilst trying to minimise risk.