[TheForge] Tim Ryan

[dann at wctatel.net]

No matter how much we know, and even if we live and preach  safety, it can
still happen to almost any of us.

The story about my father-in-law had a final chapter...  about the point
he had planned to retire  from the machine shop... he messed up his left
hand. That was toward the end of his shift. He said it wasn't even
carelessness.  He had the machine shut off, and was adjusting the stock
feeding bar  after loosening some bolts..  his pry-bar slipped on the well
oiled surface and it crushed his fingers.

Guess  it was about 20 years ago, but my oldest son was still a teen ager.
He had finished mowing hay, and was lifting the sickle on the our old
JohnDeer Model 37 mower. Some how he got one of his  fingers front side of
the sickle bar.  Of course the hay sickle in the cutting bar moved.  It
pretty cleanly sliced off a finger just below the joint. The surgeon  was
able to re-attach it, pin the bone back together, but the finger suffers
some in cold weather.

A few years later, my number 3 son had shut off the table saw, but didn't
wait for the blade to stop moving before he started moving the piece of
wood that he had just cut. The board touched the blade again.. and it
sucked that hand into it. He kept all his fingers, but it did a good job
chewing up the meat on a few fingers, and barked up his hand a bit.

There is,  and was, nothing stupid or clumsey about any of these stories. 
Each suffered from just trying to get on to the next thing as quickly as
possible.

Dann Johnson
Thompson, Iowa