Could have been worse. A lot worse.
Posted on 06/11/2008 7:17:34 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
George Chandler’s not sure how it happened. Maybe he stood up at the wrong time, or maybe his friend lost his balance.
What he knows for sure is that one minute he was installing lattice for his wife’s trailing wisteria, and the next minute he had a two-inch nail from a nail gun embedded in his skull.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
Jack hammer.
...just kidding.
But when they filled the hole with putty and used the orbital sander on it, it REALLY HURT A LOT!
"He was scheduled for surgery when his doctor entered his room early and announced he was going to remove the nail using a sterilized screwdriver and claw hammer from the maintenance department."
Sounds like Bob Vila's doing a little moonlighting.
The washington post version of this article said a ‘common claw hammer.’
This is why I wait until my wife is home to hold my beer before climbing ladders or firing up the table saw.
A very dangerous maneuver removing a nail like that. Could create voids in the cerebral lining which could be breeding ground for gray bacteria. We usually just use a nail set and putty the hole.
Just think, his friend could have removed it and saved him all that hospital money.
Could have been worse. A lot worse.
One of the maintenance guys at a facility I worked at ran over a screwdriver with the lawnmower...it shot clear through the side of his boot, through his foot and out the other side! The handle was sticking out one side of his boot, the phillips head point out the other.
My favorite line of the article, ‘ “He asked me if I saw where it (the nail) went,” Chandler said, “and I said, ‘I’m not sure, but I felt something on my head.” ‘
I also saw the story on FNC’s news scroll.
“I’ve got a spike in my head! A spike in my head! A spike in my head! I can say it, why can’t you?”
Autoclave the heck out of that hammer, and it's probably the best tool for the job.
Wonder if he put a chunk of wood under the head of the claw hammer so as not to leave (another) dent in the guy's skull?
felt like just ‘a little sting’...
He followed up with “blah blah blabbity blah, I’m definitely voting for Lincoln.” Then walked out of the hospital on all fours.
FTA:
“Kern, 59, was on a ladder nailing up boards for the lattice, and Chandler was below. The hose connecting the air gun to the air compressor on the ground got tangled in a child’s toy, Kern said. The nail gun fired as Kern tried to unsnarl it.”
As I posted on another FR thread about this incident, I call BS on this account of how the nail gun fired. There had to be some bypassing of the safety devices for this to happen. Since these guys were doing the work as individuals on one of their homes, OSHA is not going to get involved but we can rest assured that there were numerous safety violations here.
Could easily happen as stated. Finger on the trigger while whipping the hose, trying to uncoil it from toy. I’ve seen dumber moves.
This isn't all that uncommon. There are a surprising number of AD incidents both with the compressed air nailguns and the primer-fired ones. Fine Homebuilding magazine periodically publishes charming X-ray photographs as a warning to the negligent.
I treat 'em like a firearm, use range rules when handling a nail gun and you and your buddies won't get hurt.
(We just had our deck rebuilt, people were falling through it and it was just too big a job for hubby and me in our spare time. We did build the screen and gate from the deck to the breezeway, decided against wrought iron because of the price -- it took us almost as long to do that as it took six guys to build the deck. But it is perfect, which is not the case with the deck. I have worked it over, pulling bent nails and filling holes and resetting one step, but given that they were paid by the job it's quite understandable. We had all the time in the world and nobody was paying us!)
But the way those guys handled their tools made me cringe!
I bet that it was still cheaper than conventional surgery, though, given the OR time, two nurses, and all the prep.
If the doc was willing, I'd say charge me for the surgical pine and let's skip the OR.
Assuming I'd be working with somebody stupid enough to plonk a nail through my head . . . .
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