Thread: Dangerous accident

Originally Posted by morrisman

Sadly, I have to report a nasty accident that has taken the life of a nice guy I met a few times.

He was using a grinder of some type in his home workshop environment , and his overalls caught on fire from the sparks .

He sustained bad burns up to his armpits, he was put into a induced coma in hospital . He underwent skin grafts for two weeks but died yesterday from complications .

Be careful everyone .

Mike

Wow, bad karma. Sorry to hear that.

Just shows that cotton based overalls can still go up.

I was stick welding a few weeks back making the stand for the Schaublin and saw this glow in the visor and discovered the whole bottom shirt tail of my Yakka shirt which was hanging outside my dacks was on fire and going up fast.

Luckily caught it in time, patted it out, looked a bit the worst for wear, but shook me up a bit.

You expect that with synthetics but not so much with cotton.

Sh#t happens damn quick at times. You can never be too careful.

Rob

thx Mike, rather tragic. Hopefully this post will keep many of us aware

Yes sorry to hear we all have encountered serious accidents in industry.The other thing to watch with work clothes is dusty ones.Makes little smoulders big ones with air assisting.
We all strive to make our own workplace safe and we all have cut corners some get away with it sometimes not.
Speaking with a medico friend not long ago was the demand for micro surgeons had grown exponentially since the diy market opened up giving cheap power tools to the unwashed multitude.This doctor said his surgeon friend will quit his practice if angle grinders ever get banned.
REmember my late old man used to say you go to work with 10 up 10 down make sure you come home with them and dont send some poor bloke home to his mum with missing digits. Cheers.J.

Yes, very sad and tragic. No doubt he has friends & family that are left behind.

Simon

Very sorry to hear that, my thoughts go out to his family and friends. I did once manage to burn a 3" hole in my overalls when using a 9" grinder, I did have other gear on underneath so all was ok. I do remember things getting warm.

Regards
Bruce

Originally Posted by simonl

Yes, very sad and tragic. No doubt he has friends & family that are left behind.

Simon

Blimey, I have set my shirt armpit on fire several times and melted numerous holes in synthetic tracky tops with and angle grinder - I will need to be more careful.
I do have a serious leather apron nut it doesn't cover sleeves or armpits.

Ive set an apron on fire at work once. To make it worse, id worn it doing a whole heap of woodwork for the weeks previous and the pockets were full of sawdust. The sawdust soaks up the oil from the metalworking too...nice and flammable. I managed to get it off quicksmart and stomped it down good and proper, but it did give me a bloody good fright.

Sympathies to the family, it would be a horrible experience.

Thanks for posting this Mike, very sorry to hear about your friend.

Regards
Ray

Sorry to learn of this Mike.
Workshops can be dangerous places.
Thanks for alerting us to the ever present dangers.
regards
Bruce

Sorry to hear of this accident. I imagine that like most of us, he was working alone and had no one on hand that could help him. We tend to forget that such things CAN happen to us. Be vigilant and be careful everyone.

My thoughts are with his family and friends.

K.

I always have a bucket of water with a rag in it in the shed when I'm working. Has proven to be very helpful on a number of occasions.
bollie7

Same here, but it's for cooling down parts I'm grinding, welding etc.

Comes in handy to put out the odd fire.

Stick welding is the worst culprit, quite a few oily rags have gone up over the years.

Trouble with clothing is that there's so much polyester in cotton stuff that even overalls are not safe - and hard to get off in a hurry. Denim may be a better bet in liu of leather.

I generally wear the Yakka stuff.

Rob

Very sad to hear. It is a reminder to us all. Were they cotton overalls? I used to have a pair of synthetic overall that were given to me. After seeing how easily they got holed from welding they were banished from the shed. I wear Hard Yakka but then it is supplied by work in such quantities that I am able to order non hi-vis for home use. My cotton overalls would be hard to ignite. That is why I have them although it is a long time since I have worn them. They are full weight cotton. For me it is cotton or leather only. My nylon jacket is hung up on a nail.

Dean

What about Duck fabric. I have a couple of pairs of overalls made out of this tough "Duck" fabric. I wonder if that is better than plain cotton?