Seems like there have been a lot of stories here over the years about dumb things that each of us have done. Guess it was my turn yesterday.
I decided to take advantage of a couple of days off where good weather was predicted. I needed to work on re-shingling my front porch roof.
So I tore into the shingles only to find that there had been a leak, and there was some rotten plywood and fascia in places. So I pried up the stuff and tossed it down on the ground. I figured I’d get the nails out later when I was on the ground again. I NEVER do that – ALWAYS take them out as soon as I pull a piece up. But I did it “just this once”.
You can probably figure out the rest of it pretty easily. I forgot about the stuff on the ground. Got down to get some more lumber and stepped on something with a nail sticking out of it.
I’ve done that several times in the past, but it’s never hurt too much. This time it REALLY hurt. Ended up going to the doc to get a tetnus shot. He put me on antibiotics as a precaution. Told DW he prescribed bed rest and household chores……………….(-:
This morning my foot is swollen pretty bad. I borrowed a cane, and feel like an 80 year old man walking around with it.
My Sons were around when I did it. Hopefully it made enough of an impression on them that thy’ll remember it.
Men are Like mini skirts
If your not careful they’ll creep up your legs.
Replies
Boss, I hope you feel better soon. Canes can be useful- they give you a much longer reach to whack someone laughing about your " dumb moves ".
About 25 years ago, I was doing some Formica work and needed to clean the extra glue off the trim bit halfway thru routing the edges. I neglected to unplug the router, so while I was peeling off glue with the router tucked under my arm, I hit the switch and took a relatively small chunk off my thumb. I now unplug everything to work on them.
Over the years I've made a number of stupid mistakes. Fortunately, none of them have been all that serious, and ( so far ) I haven't done any of them twice.
>> Told DW he prescribed bed rest and blow jobs.
And she said, "I should reward him for being stupid???"
"And she said, "I should reward him for being stupid???""
That's not QUITE how it went. I just didn't figure I should post what she actually said.....................(-:My car is like my Wife, if it ain't yours don't touch it
Ron
I've decieded that a married man needs BJ's close to every day to stay healthy...when you make dumb mistakes like you did the BJ's must stop for one full week...Its a wake up call bro....PS..This thread will most definatly be deleated by Monday night.
Youre more crude and rude than me if thats at all possible........ Doncha jus' luv it? ; )~
Be ready to go right back to sleep witha smile on yer face
andyMy life is my practice!
http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
let me geuss, it was something with deep cultural roots like,
"Little boy Bl;ue
Go blow your horn,
The sheep's in the meadow...".
Excellence is its own reward!
whenever i've done something stupid and hurt mysdelf as a result its always been because i've been trying to save a few minutes.
always call myself a stupid idiot etc.... afterwards.
beleive me you are not alone.
hope it heals soon
good luck on the bed rest etc...
when after a time tonto and the lone ranger had been together as hero and sidekick for quite awhile they happened on a situation where they were surrounded by hostile indigenous peoples. the lone ranger surmising that this might be their last hurrah turns to his old friend and says " well tonto old kimosabe, it looks like we've had it". tonto gives him a dry look and says "what you mean "we" white man?"
Sorry about your foot. But at least it was your foot. This summer I did the same thing, only my daughter had the misfortune of impaling her foot on my laziness. Luckily she had an uptodate shot and didn't need to go that route. She kind freaked from the shoe full of blood, though. Man, I felt REAL bad.
Good luck and hope the swelling subsides.
you mean like dropping yer bostich 1/4 crown stapler an breakin off the nose safty? an just maybe stuffin it back with a staple leg and then wonderin if it'll still shoot? an MAYBE kind hit the trigger and kinda put a staple in yer index finger?
Keep this in mind about puncture wounds; a tetanus shot does not prevent you from getting a bacterial infection other than tetanus. Other types of bacteria are present in the soil and in your shoes and socks. Very wicked bacteria known as Pseudonomas can be found in most teenagers' shoes (because they were the same stinky,sweaty shoes everyday. At least the boys do). The most important thing to make sure of is that no foreign material is left in the wound. Sometimes it's overkill, but the puncture should be explored or at least inspected very closely to make sure there is no retained material. If it is decided that the puncture should be explored, and it is too painful, inquire if the doc can do a posterior tibial nerve block rather than local infiltration which hurts like a b*tch. Be especially concerned about punctures at the ball of the foot. It's hard to penetrate the shoe and skin on the bottom of the foot without the nail going into the connective tissue (fascia,flexor tendons, joints, and/or bones), and these are less resistant to infection and harder to treat.
Appreciate the concern. My wife is an RN and comes equipped with at least one and often two comlete First Aid kits of her own making. She had the daughter fully treated before calling the DR. Daughter doesn't take pain well, and she was screaming as the DW cleaned out the hole (located in the web between two toes.) Probably should have run her to the ER anyway, they might have given her a local. But the ER in that part of Maine was well over an hour away.
I never met a tool I didn't like!
A friend was working on a roofing job.......roofing nailers were fairly new then. One of them was nailing the sheeting to the facia........
Attached his p&^%$ to the roof. Nailed that sucker home.
Edited 1/3/2004 8:40:19 PM ET by Learningjim
Ouch!
Talk about getting too attached to your work!.
Excellence is its own reward!
Hurts just to read about it.
Don't feel bad. Everyone I know who has been on a jobs ite has stepped on a nail at least once and most were nails that they had delayed or forgotten to pull. Cruel but poetic justice that. Everyone get a little homework and regular 'refreshers' in the art of pain.
Get well. Follow the doctors advice. Take all of the antibiotic. Good luck with the DW's part of the treatment regime.
Just being the worrier here but I would give the doctor a call. Not to scary you but deep puncture wounds are notorious for getting infected as they are nearly impossible to clean completely.
The foot swelling, particularly if it is red, hot, tender or increasingly painful, is not a good sign. Your doctor might want to drain any infection or at least monitor it closely. If you get an infection in close proximity to a bone or connective tissues the body can have trouble getting blood and its internal defenses to the site because there are so few blood vessels in these areas. This greatly increases the likelihood of an infection becoming well established and spreading.
If you have any streaks going up the leg or a fever do not pass go, do not collect $200 go directly to the emergency room as this is a sign of an infection spreading. I worked in a hospital and good people not wanting to bother the doctor or being stoic in the face of increasing pain was a common theme that often lead to great difficulties. Being a wimp, at least on these issues, has advantages.
Please be careful on this count. I don't want to have to drag you out to the back forty and shoot you like a crippled horse. Not that I mind the shooting. I just hate to leave a job half done and I hate digging.
"ust being the worrier here but I would give the doctor a call. Not to scary you but deep puncture wounds are notorious for getting infected as they are nearly impossible to clean completely."
The doc said basically the same things you did. I've been trying to stay off of it and keep it elevated. But no sign of fever or red streaks yet.
"I don't want to have to drag you out to the back forty and shoot you like a crippled horse. Not that I mind the shooting. I just hate to leave a job half done and I hate digging."
Hey now - I was with ya up to that point.
You don't know where I live, do ya ???If you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out.
I don't want to have to drag you out to the back forty and shoot you like a crippled horse. Not that I mind the shooting. I just hate to leave a job half done and I hate digging.
That was outstanding !~ May I keep that ?
Tim Mooney
i heard some years ago the # 1 jobsite accident was a twisted ankle on a block/debris. i have terrible ankles to begin with, lots of abuse, so i really have to watch where i go or i twist the ankle, and usually fall. i am quite excellent at taking the fall i must say, anyway thats what saves me from nails in the feet, worrying about the ankles. my preschool daughter already knows not to walk on the wood, as long as you don't step on wood you can't get a nail-in most cases anyway but thats what i teach her.
my big problem is using my fingers for cushion blocks, and there again it is overconfidence. the best way to avoid that is not to put your hands/fingers where they can be struck. get in a tight spot and swing a blow and have the handle hit something unintended and the head doesn't strike where you think it will.
my wife's favorite is the time i wanted to remove a rotted piece of plywood sheating off of the open raftered patio cover at our old house. i figured i'd just stand on the patio with about a 5' 2x4 and whack it upwards with a big roofing hatchet to drive the nailed down ply off of the rafters (rather than just use a pry bar and cats paw like an intelligent person). well, on about the third or fourth swing i missed- the 2x4 but not my forehead. i wore the waffle mark for about a week. the loml still laughs her fanny off at the mention of that one.
m
What gets us to laughing at old goofups is the night I ran full smack on into the sliding glass door. I had gone to take out the trash to the alley and I guess she closed the door behind me to keep the car in.
I only got three or four steps away when I saw how beautiful the moon was rising over the horizon. I dropped the bags where they were and turned to run back in to call her out to see.
I was calling her name and never saw that the door was closed 'till I flattened my face on it. She was standing right on the other side to see my expression. I swear, I bounced right off that thing and back for eight feet or so, watching the glass flop back and forth in the frame. No idea why it never broke..
Excellence is its own reward!
I guess she closed the door behind me to keep the car in. .... so, does your car escape very often????? And do you always keep it in the house??? :^)
kat.
Excellence is its own reward!
Ya know, it is so good that those storm doors are a high caliber safety glass.
Years back I was working with a moving company and had to run out of the house to the truck cab to retrieve some paperwork.
Of course it was raining.
I had put the paperwork under my shirt to keep it dry and went running back to the house like I was carrying a football.
Of course they had closed the clear full length storm door and I had water droplets on my glasses.
Running at a good speed I cleared the steps in a single bound and went face first into that door.
It didn't break. I don't know why it didn't break 'cause I hit that thing hard enough where it should have.
Man, those weren't the days.
I guess we three make a special close fraternity..
Excellence is its own reward!
I swear, I bounced right off that thing and back for eight feet or so, watching the glass flop back and forth in the frame. No idea why it never broke.
Local container outfit has a drive-in dump-off service for small quantities of junk and debris. We changed out a big slider for a customer once and he wanted us to dump the old one. I had no use for it so we pulled the doors out of it, knocked the frame apart, and shoved it into the pickup. The set up at the dump is that they have a big dirt ramp you drive up, then back up to a sort of artificial cliff at the bottom of which they stick a 40' container. You just push the junk out of your truck over the cliff and down twenty feet into the container.
Shoved out the first door. The container was empty, so it hit bottom hard, landing on a corner. Sucker didn't break. I was impressed.
Shoved out the second door. It landed on a corner too--right in the middle of the pane of the first one, now lying there flat on the floor of the container. Neither of them broke.
I don't worry so much anymore about those things breaking when we have to carry them around....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
PS--I've walked right into the one in my house, too. DW had closed it when I wasn't paying attention because she got cold while I was barbecuing some ribs. Broke my glasses and dang near my nose. Almost dropped the plate of ribs, too!
Edited 1/5/2004 12:26:04 AM ET by Dinosaur
On the other hand...
I was on a condo job trimming exteriors back in '81.
One new guy accidentally hit the window glass with his hammer and gotr himself pretty shook up, thinking he might have broken it. His working partner told him not to worry. And then proceeded to demonstrate how hard glass is to break. He also hit one.
Impressed with his object lesson, he hit another.
I suggested that was enough teaching on his part.
He felt compelled to continue, walking down the wall hitting one after another, each one successively harder until he earned his walking papers when he suprised himself with how many shards a large pane can make....
Excellence is its own reward!
Now that's a dumb thing....Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
you don't know what your limits are until you exceed them, and your buddy found out that day just what the limit was!
He wasn't MY buddy, especially after pulling that stunt.
.
Excellence is its own reward!
In the "OLD DAYS" stepping on the rusty nail would make you get Lockjaw. Has anyone gotten lockjaw before?
I know some I'd WISH IT on..
"What gets us to laughing at old goofups is the night I ran full smack on into the sliding glass door. I had gone to take out the trash to the alley and I guess she closed the door behind me to keep the car in. I only got three or four steps away when I saw how beautiful the moon was rising over the horizon. I dropped the bags where they were and turned to run back in to call her out to see.
I was calling her name and never saw that the door was closed 'till I flattened my face on it. She was standing right on the other side to see my expression. I swear, I bounced right off that thing and back for eight feet or so, watching the glass flop back and forth in the frame. No idea why it never broke."
I walked into a plate glass window myself thirty years ago, in the lobby of my brother's apartment building. The glass was really really clean, and as I ran down the stairs I thought it was a door propped open instead of a fixed window. Unfortunately for me, it WASN'T safety glass and I blasted right through the thing.
That was the loudest noise I ever heard.
For a few seconds I thought I was OK, until I noticed the blood pumping out of my forehead onto the sidewalk three feet in front of me...it was pretty exciting there for a while.
Reminds me, I was triming out a place once when I broke a mirror.
I move fairly fast - or used to anyway. I was doing baseboards and went into the bathroom to get the measure of the long piece behind the door. I stepped into the room, swung the door shut quick, and knelt down while whipping out my tape - all in one fell swoop.
Somebody had leaned a large mirro against the wall there (for safe keeping) without telling me. The suction caused by quickly shutting the door pulled it away from the wall and it hit the top of my head just as I was getting in place. Right where the button is on ball caps, you know?
That thing shattered into a thousand slivers, all stacked in a pyramid leaning to the top of my head from the floor. I didn't dare move until the owner came along and rescued me. nary a cut..
Excellence is its own reward!
just a few years ago i was using a small propane torch while working on some plastic and a little managed to goop on to the lip of the torch- totally lost in what i was doing, without even thinking (obviously!) i just wiped it off with my finger. then i was thinking real fast, "WHAT A STUPID F*&$%#& THING TO DO!!!" luckily i had a new big glass of ice water sitting right next to me on the workbench and i plunged my finger into it. it didn't even blister.
m
Years ago, while I was still working with my brother and father, we were building an addition. We had sheathed the roof, and my dad asked my brother to cut out the plywood where the skylight was framed. Right after that, we papered in the roof, and while working our way up the roof, my brother went right thru the hole he had just made. He caught himself before he went too far. My dad got mad at me because I was laughing so hard that I couldn't even help my brother back onto the roof.
Some memories are a lot more fun than others.
i just learned today that when you drop your roofing nailer off a 10' ladder do not look down to see where it's going to land. it hit the dirt upside down and shot a nail straight back at me.luckily it stuck in a a pc of scaffolding instead of my forehead! i had to question myself why i wanted to see where it fell,nothing i could do about no matter what.larry
That's one of those natural reactions, like always trying to grab any tool you drop. Especially bad policy with soldering irons.
-- J.S.
Dumb things we do...like not bothering to put the shield back on the angle grinder when changing over to a 4" chain-saw wheel.
If you're that dumb, then at least don't be dumb enough to look up when the GC calls you from the ground while you're leaning over the edge of the roof trying to grind down the subfascia so the fascia will lie well....
I speak from experience: thumbs don't like chainsaw wheels (took a year for feeling to come back to normal in that part of the thumb, and I'm lucky it ever did, duh!)
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
Suddenly, I am remembering when I was shopping for a new slamhammer twenty some years ago. Th e old style were pretty heavy and clunky so when bostich and Arrow came out with the slim ones, they looked appealing.
I picked one up in the store, right out of the box and hefted it to feel the action and balance of the tool. I slammed it against the palm of my left hand.
Lots of people in the store turned their heads to see what the guy in the back of the tool section was screaming about. that Arrow puppy was loaded!.
Excellence is its own reward!
stupidity is too!
I don't suppose anybody else has ever driven a staple from a slamhammer into the back of your thumb? Twice?
Edited 1/3/2004 10:41:22 PM ET by piffin
I don't suppose anybody else has ever driven a staple from a slamhammer into the back of your thumb? Twice?
No...but the week before I shoved my right thumb into the chainsaw wheel, I'd just about destroyed my left one by hitting it full tilt with my brand-new Fat Head waffle-faced framer. So I spent the next two or three weeks peeling the plastic backing off Elastoplast bandage tape with my teeth. Talk about a rough week....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
That sucks. Hope it goes down over night.
When my dad was a kid he was playing with his dads cigar lighter in his car. Pulled it out of the little slot red hot and kids being kids he had to taste it. Stuck it right on the end of his tongue. So you aint the dumbest guy in the worls I guess. Of course he was just a kid at the time.
Who Dares Wins.
I had an inquisitive brother who had to discover what was hiding in the light sockeet that made the bulb glow. When he stuck his thumb up in there, he found himself sitting on the floor seeing stars..
Excellence is its own reward!
wow i thoguht i was teh clutzy one. I am not gonna tell you about when i stepped ona nail nor when i shot myself inteh arm with a framing nailer or teh foot witha roofing nailer or the hand with a slaphammer(yes i did that to at 13). I may well have done all those things in my life but the best is.........
walking through a finished job being lived in doing the end of the punchlist and stepped on a dang toothpick. yesh thats right a tooth pick. had about 1/4 inch sticking out could see the point in the top of my foot but didn't come through. That hurt worse than any of them i can think of doing. btw.....was sock footed because house was done and i had been outside awhile. now no matter where i go i always keep the "clean" shoes handy.
oooh yeah i wont mention teh ladder fall and broken ribs either
An inch to short. That's the story of my life !
bstcrpntr --- I hope to grow into this name.
OK, Your secret's safe with me.
Nobody would believe it anyways. We all know you can't break ribs by falling off a ladder.
Those toothpick injuries are way too common though. I'll bet everyone here has had a toothpick sticking out of some part of his body at some point or another.
;).
Excellence is its own reward!
Sure I have steped on a couple of nails in my time, but I can do you one better. I was working in a mill shop and had a 2" drywall screw go right through the sole of my boot. Dont know how it happend because It wasnt attatched to any thing, so I asked one of the guys to grab a cordless screwgun to get it out. Guess what he forgot to do! Yup, the gun was still in frd.
Brother did the same thing . Foot swelled up to the size of a football . He nearly lost it and would have but had surgery. Did close to the same thing to my hand . Had surgery. We have strict rules over nails in lumber as you can imagine. Oh, I fell on them .
Tim Mooney
I learned to always secure scaffolding, I was working on taking out a staircase in an enclosed porch as well as framing the wall to strengthen it. There was one last piece of 2x6 that needed to be put into place, it was a cut a little to long and would not fit square, so I had the scaffold on the top of the ladder with no clamp and the other end resting on the second floor. Thought it was only one piece, no big deal, one minute and I will be done, WRONG, As I tugged on the 2x6 to pull it out it slowly, the scaffold moved off the ladder and on the last tug the scaffold fell off the top of the ladder. Then I proceeded to fall almost two stories down to the basement. My body position at the time positioned me to fall back first and I landed two stories down on the stairs that lead to the basement. It was ugly, After the trip to the hospital, via ambulance cause I could not breathe, and them making sure I was not dead, I still have back problems everyday. Safety first.
How's the foot doing? Swelling going down and pain dissipating? Hope everything is going well.
The foot is better, thanks. The swelling is down and I'm not sucking down tylenol anymore.
Tomorrow I'll probably go without the cane.
Hopefully I'll be back up on the roof Saturday.My palm reader says tarrot cards are a crock