The I Didn't Die Thread
#1
04-10-2016, 10:37 PM
The I Didn't Die Thread
It was suggested by bargeman that we should have a thread for bleeding blunder stories, and since they're some of my favorite stories because they're useful for those with stronger survival instincts, here 'tis.
I've been lucky and attribute it to my childhood spent watching my father make the bloody blunders, none of which did him any serious harm but some of which were very costly. So here's my thread starter:
It was December of 1966 and my father had stored a mayonnaise jar half full of gasoline that he'd been using as solvent on a fire block between two wall studs in the garage. The weather warmed up, the glass cracked due to gas pressure, and the gasoline leaked out. My mother smelled the fumes and went to investigate, saw the trickle of gas heading toward the lowest point of the floor, and set about cleaning it up... without extinguishing the pilot light of the water heater which was, coincidentally, sitting right in that depression in the concrete floor.
The fire department saved the house, but the attached garage was a complete loss. Our family had little in there, but one of my dad's brothers had just closed a bar so we had vending machines and bar equipment and inventory stored in there, along with dad's best friend's brand new boat that had never been in the water. And no insurance, which wouldn't have done any good for my uncle or dad's friend because they weren't residents so their property wouldn't have been covered anyway.
The strangest part of it all was random neighbors climbing through the windows of a burning house to loot the joint, which one wouldn't necessarily expect of a bunch of folks in a suburban middle class neighborhood full of houses just three years old. They had to send more cops to keep the idiots back so the firemen could focus on putting out the fire rather than hauling neighbors out of the house.
My father made other dramatic and bloody blunders over the years, but that was the most expensive of them all. While it was unwittingly rotten of him to make me witness them and fear that my father was dying before my eyes, it did have the effect of making me safety conscious.
Friends and neighbors, be careful with flammable liquids!
I've been lucky and attribute it to my childhood spent watching my father make the bloody blunders, none of which did him any serious harm but some of which were very costly. So here's my thread starter:
It was December of 1966 and my father had stored a mayonnaise jar half full of gasoline that he'd been using as solvent on a fire block between two wall studs in the garage. The weather warmed up, the glass cracked due to gas pressure, and the gasoline leaked out. My mother smelled the fumes and went to investigate, saw the trickle of gas heading toward the lowest point of the floor, and set about cleaning it up... without extinguishing the pilot light of the water heater which was, coincidentally, sitting right in that depression in the concrete floor.
The fire department saved the house, but the attached garage was a complete loss. Our family had little in there, but one of my dad's brothers had just closed a bar so we had vending machines and bar equipment and inventory stored in there, along with dad's best friend's brand new boat that had never been in the water. And no insurance, which wouldn't have done any good for my uncle or dad's friend because they weren't residents so their property wouldn't have been covered anyway.
The strangest part of it all was random neighbors climbing through the windows of a burning house to loot the joint, which one wouldn't necessarily expect of a bunch of folks in a suburban middle class neighborhood full of houses just three years old. They had to send more cops to keep the idiots back so the firemen could focus on putting out the fire rather than hauling neighbors out of the house.
My father made other dramatic and bloody blunders over the years, but that was the most expensive of them all. While it was unwittingly rotten of him to make me witness them and fear that my father was dying before my eyes, it did have the effect of making me safety conscious.
Friends and neighbors, be careful with flammable liquids!
Last edited by UnregisteredUser; 04-10-2016 at 10:41 PM.
#2
04-11-2016, 04:46 AM
Many years ago, my cousin and my younger brother somehow managed to con someone out of a defunct minibike. They proceeded to take it apart and clean everything with a 5 quart bucket with some gasoline in it.
They started getting a little loopy from the gas fumes and decided to take the project out into the driveway. The job proceeded pretty well and they reassembled the engine to the frame.
Once it was bolted in securely it was only natural for them to try to start it. Amazingly enough it fired right up. The exhaust pipe was directed toward the rear wheel where the ice cream bucket and gas soaked rags just happened to be sitting.
It naturally ignited. My brother grabbed an old coat to try and smother the flames but my cousin decided to kick the flaming bucket away,... right into the garage.
There was still an old sand box, from years earlier, right near the garage so they both grabbed shovels and put sand on the flames.
No fire department involvement but they had problems sitting for a day or two.
They started getting a little loopy from the gas fumes and decided to take the project out into the driveway. The job proceeded pretty well and they reassembled the engine to the frame.
Once it was bolted in securely it was only natural for them to try to start it. Amazingly enough it fired right up. The exhaust pipe was directed toward the rear wheel where the ice cream bucket and gas soaked rags just happened to be sitting.
It naturally ignited. My brother grabbed an old coat to try and smother the flames but my cousin decided to kick the flaming bucket away,... right into the garage.
There was still an old sand box, from years earlier, right near the garage so they both grabbed shovels and put sand on the flames.
No fire department involvement but they had problems sitting for a day or two.
Last edited by tired old man; 04-11-2016 at 04:48 AM.
#3
04-11-2016, 10:13 AM
One fine winters day, my wifes van decided it needed some work.... So, roll it into the garage, close up the doors, fire up the torpedo heater, let the place warm some, and then, get at it.
After an hour or so of working on the van, I was incredibly tired, and didn't quite understand why..... I have MS, so, fatigue is a problem anyway... figgered I would just cruise into the house, sit and relax for a bit, then come back out..... Went in, and in just a few minutes I felt a LOT better...... Wondered about that for all of 30 seconds..... Went back out to the garage, cracked one of the big doors open about 4 inches, so I could get some air-flow.... and finished the job without trouble. Seems my garage is rather well sealed/insulated.
After an hour or so of working on the van, I was incredibly tired, and didn't quite understand why..... I have MS, so, fatigue is a problem anyway... figgered I would just cruise into the house, sit and relax for a bit, then come back out..... Went in, and in just a few minutes I felt a LOT better...... Wondered about that for all of 30 seconds..... Went back out to the garage, cracked one of the big doors open about 4 inches, so I could get some air-flow.... and finished the job without trouble. Seems my garage is rather well sealed/insulated.
#4
04-11-2016, 12:53 PM
https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...28&oe=572B1775
This is not my pressure cooker it is just a picture I found on the internet. My uncle did have a similar experience with his pressure cooker many years ago though.
On the lid of his pressure cooker is a little plug that is supposed to fail if things go wrong. His failed so he just put a bolt about the right size in there and continued cooking.
It blew the lid up into the ceiling but it did not stick like in the picture. No one was in the kitchen when it blew but it still managed to scare the crap out of both him and grandma.
A friend was running up a batch of venison that he was going to make into cold pack beef stuff. He turned the burner on under the pressure cooker and went to the toilet. On his way back something on TV caught his interest and the next thing he knew the pressure cooker had capped off.
Lastly my niece used the wrong pressure weight on her pressure cooker and blew that part into the ceiling of her kitchen.
I do own two pressure cookers myself. One is only around a gallon in size and the other is around 5 gallon in size.
I have never blown either of mine up and have started using the big one on the burner on the gas grill outside when I do use it.
This is not my pressure cooker it is just a picture I found on the internet. My uncle did have a similar experience with his pressure cooker many years ago though.
On the lid of his pressure cooker is a little plug that is supposed to fail if things go wrong. His failed so he just put a bolt about the right size in there and continued cooking.
It blew the lid up into the ceiling but it did not stick like in the picture. No one was in the kitchen when it blew but it still managed to scare the crap out of both him and grandma.
A friend was running up a batch of venison that he was going to make into cold pack beef stuff. He turned the burner on under the pressure cooker and went to the toilet. On his way back something on TV caught his interest and the next thing he knew the pressure cooker had capped off.
Lastly my niece used the wrong pressure weight on her pressure cooker and blew that part into the ceiling of her kitchen.
I do own two pressure cookers myself. One is only around a gallon in size and the other is around 5 gallon in size.
I have never blown either of mine up and have started using the big one on the burner on the gas grill outside when I do use it.
#5
04-11-2016, 01:01 PM
I don't have any near death experiences but was at work one day working on a propane forklift. If any of you have experience with propane after a while you don't smell it. A co worker says check if you have spark, I know it had spark but just to prove it i put a plug on the valve cover and cranked it. Then POOF the entire engine bay ignites in flame! Luckily none of us where close enough to get burned. After we got it put out the insulation sure was black.
#6
04-11-2016, 06:40 PM
Chucking in one of my own that wasn't a maintenance blunder:
I'd just thrown out the second ex-wife, and knowing that she wouldn't pay any child support until the court ordered it I had to move out of the house and into an apartment, so had to store what wouldn't fit into the apartment at my parents' place. I was temporarily assigned to the (San Francisco) Bay Area, and the old people had recently retired to their place over near Yosemite, so it was just far enough away that I wanted to get it all done in one go so rented an open utility trailer. The heaviest thing in it was my '77 Gold Wing, cinched down tight to keep the bike's suspension from destabilizing things.
I guess I should have been a little smarter'n that and got something solid under the bike's frame... Just as I crested Altamont Pass I encountered just the right bump to start an adrenaline rush. The trailer started whipping, and I ended up using all four lanes of the highway to keep from rolling the rig while all four of my 11.5" wide Goodyear Wrangler MT's screamed and boiled smoke. I decelerated slowly, but had to jump the throttle a couple or three times to pull the joint straight when the trailer got way too far out of line. Then the headlights and instrument lights flickered a couple of times and went dark, and smoke from the electrical fire under the hood entered the cabin. Lots of it.
After what seemed like half of a lifetime spent keeping the wheels down and between the fog lines I managed to get stopped on the shoulder. I snatched up my pig light (Maglite billy club), jumped out, threw up the hood to see the engine wiring harness glowing orange, flaming in places, and throwing smoke, so raced through the passenger side door to get into the back and retrieve my ratcheting side-terminal battery cable wrench. I managed to bang my pig light hard enough to break the lamp filament, thanks to Murphy's Law, so I found the wrench by feel and got the battery disconnected.
I discovered that in the violent thrashing of the Jeep the engine harness was being sawed across the back of the brake vacuum booster by the engine rocking on the motor mounts. And they were almost new motor mounts, too, having been in place for less than a year -- not torn, just stressed to hell and back. Between my first look and getting the cable disconnected, the melting/fusing of the harness had progressed to within inches of the bulkhead connector, and it seems that if I hadn't been able to get the battery disconnected I'd have ended up just standing there watching my Cherokee burn down.
Any other time I'd have had enough material on board to do a proper job of rebuilding the wiring harness, but I'd removed all of my field kit for the weekend of hauling. As I surveyed the carnage a CHP officer pulled up, and upon seeing the recently molten copper mess offered to call out a wrecker for me. I told him that I'd just fix it where it sits, to which he replied, "I've been out here almost thirty years and have never seen anyone drive away from an electrical fire". I suggested that he hang around so he could see it for the first time.
It took almost three hours of cannibalizing non-essential wiring out of the thing and working with a tiny flashlight held in my mouth out in the cold and wind, and with the service manual back home in the garage I had to do quite a lot of discovery with a multimeter to find the correct conductors for each function, but I got it done. The CHP officer had stopped by three or four more times, each time a little more insistent that he should call out a tow truck to get us off of the shoulder of the highway, and I was happy to see him arrive again just as I closed the hood. He walked up and asked, "Giving up?".
"Nope, leaving". He looked incredulous, so I reached in through the window, started the engine, and turned on the lights. The look of surprise on his face was just shy of priceless. He said he'd follow me along for a few miles to make sure the fix was good, which he did, but of course the fix was good -- who better than a field engineer for a gig like that?
Ever since then I've kept whatever tool was required to disconnect the battery cables stashed right near the battery. At present it's a half-inch wrench in a mini flashlight scabbard zip-tied to the handle attachment point of the battery itself. If I ever have an electrical fire in the Ram I'll know right where to access that wrench without delay -- just open the hood and there it is, a couple of inches from the positive terminal of the battery.
I highly recommend getting the right tool to live very near the battery as one of those things you can do before the emergency occurs to make recovery less impossible. Along with keeping a fire extinguisher within easy reach of the driver, of course.
I'd just thrown out the second ex-wife, and knowing that she wouldn't pay any child support until the court ordered it I had to move out of the house and into an apartment, so had to store what wouldn't fit into the apartment at my parents' place. I was temporarily assigned to the (San Francisco) Bay Area, and the old people had recently retired to their place over near Yosemite, so it was just far enough away that I wanted to get it all done in one go so rented an open utility trailer. The heaviest thing in it was my '77 Gold Wing, cinched down tight to keep the bike's suspension from destabilizing things.
I guess I should have been a little smarter'n that and got something solid under the bike's frame... Just as I crested Altamont Pass I encountered just the right bump to start an adrenaline rush. The trailer started whipping, and I ended up using all four lanes of the highway to keep from rolling the rig while all four of my 11.5" wide Goodyear Wrangler MT's screamed and boiled smoke. I decelerated slowly, but had to jump the throttle a couple or three times to pull the joint straight when the trailer got way too far out of line. Then the headlights and instrument lights flickered a couple of times and went dark, and smoke from the electrical fire under the hood entered the cabin. Lots of it.
After what seemed like half of a lifetime spent keeping the wheels down and between the fog lines I managed to get stopped on the shoulder. I snatched up my pig light (Maglite billy club), jumped out, threw up the hood to see the engine wiring harness glowing orange, flaming in places, and throwing smoke, so raced through the passenger side door to get into the back and retrieve my ratcheting side-terminal battery cable wrench. I managed to bang my pig light hard enough to break the lamp filament, thanks to Murphy's Law, so I found the wrench by feel and got the battery disconnected.
I discovered that in the violent thrashing of the Jeep the engine harness was being sawed across the back of the brake vacuum booster by the engine rocking on the motor mounts. And they were almost new motor mounts, too, having been in place for less than a year -- not torn, just stressed to hell and back. Between my first look and getting the cable disconnected, the melting/fusing of the harness had progressed to within inches of the bulkhead connector, and it seems that if I hadn't been able to get the battery disconnected I'd have ended up just standing there watching my Cherokee burn down.
Any other time I'd have had enough material on board to do a proper job of rebuilding the wiring harness, but I'd removed all of my field kit for the weekend of hauling. As I surveyed the carnage a CHP officer pulled up, and upon seeing the recently molten copper mess offered to call out a wrecker for me. I told him that I'd just fix it where it sits, to which he replied, "I've been out here almost thirty years and have never seen anyone drive away from an electrical fire". I suggested that he hang around so he could see it for the first time.
It took almost three hours of cannibalizing non-essential wiring out of the thing and working with a tiny flashlight held in my mouth out in the cold and wind, and with the service manual back home in the garage I had to do quite a lot of discovery with a multimeter to find the correct conductors for each function, but I got it done. The CHP officer had stopped by three or four more times, each time a little more insistent that he should call out a tow truck to get us off of the shoulder of the highway, and I was happy to see him arrive again just as I closed the hood. He walked up and asked, "Giving up?".
"Nope, leaving". He looked incredulous, so I reached in through the window, started the engine, and turned on the lights. The look of surprise on his face was just shy of priceless. He said he'd follow me along for a few miles to make sure the fix was good, which he did, but of course the fix was good -- who better than a field engineer for a gig like that?Ever since then I've kept whatever tool was required to disconnect the battery cables stashed right near the battery. At present it's a half-inch wrench in a mini flashlight scabbard zip-tied to the handle attachment point of the battery itself. If I ever have an electrical fire in the Ram I'll know right where to access that wrench without delay -- just open the hood and there it is, a couple of inches from the positive terminal of the battery.
I highly recommend getting the right tool to live very near the battery as one of those things you can do before the emergency occurs to make recovery less impossible. Along with keeping a fire extinguisher within easy reach of the driver, of course.
#7
04-12-2016, 08:24 AM
Record Breaker
I don't have any near death experiences but was at work one day working on a propane forklift. If any of you have experience with propane after a while you don't smell it. A co worker says check if you have spark, I know it had spark but just to prove it i put a plug on the valve cover and cranked it. Then POOF the entire engine bay ignites in flame! Luckily none of us where close enough to get burned. After we got it put out the insulation sure was black.
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Usually because they have idiots like this driving them.
#9
04-12-2016, 03:02 PM
Just recently I was driving my truck to work at 5:30 in the morning when a plug exploded thx to carbon buildup. Left it there, hitched with Dad to work, came home and my little brother brought me back to the truck. Fixed it on the side of the road, left my brothers car in a nearby town, then drove my truck 2.5hrs from home to a Disturbed concert in Sioux Falls, SD because I have cruise and he doesn't. Get to Sioux Falls, do the concert thing, and decided to hit a nearby gas station (2 blocks) to get something to drink to keep us up on the drive back. Right before getting into the gas station truck is making a grinding sound and steering a little funny in the front end and brake pedal went from normal to the floor to normal again. Started limping it back to the concert lot and the entire truck was swaying. Pulled into an empty parking lot and pulled both front wheels off one at a time. Driverside nothing was apparent. Passenger side nothing was apparent either until I tried to spin the wheel. DID NOT want to spin. Since I had just done a brake job I thought maybe I messed up bleeding the brakes and warped a rotor. Limped it back a block to the concert where there was luckily a hotel. Stayed the night and took a taxi in the morning to Oreillys and picked up everything to do a brake rotor job in the parking lot. Pull the wheel off and as I'm unbolting the caliper I noticed something I didn't in the dark...the yokes on the axle shaft looked like they'd been grinding. Stuck my head back inside and found all the little bearings from the hub stuck between the knuckle and the yoke. Called a shop who recommended a tow company. Getting it on the truck and halfway up the ramp that wheel went from vertical to 45degrees. Turns out the ujoint locked up at a slight angle and started doing an elliptical and blew out the hub. I'm lucky I didn't lose a wheel going down the interstate and in South Dakota the speed limit is 80. Shop had to cut off the yokes, have em rewelded and balanced at a driveline shop and hub replaced to the tune of $750 after being discounted because the cute lady at the shop felt bad for us lol. Shop informed me the other hub was going to need done soon because it had play as well as a ball joint but it would get us home should nothing else fail. Made it home and got the other stuff replaced.
#10
04-12-2016, 05:32 PM
I operated a stand up high lift fork truck for several years too. The place I worked was a 24x7 shop and most of the guys had to do the rotating swing thing but my department only worked 5 days most of the time, so we had regular shifts and no rotating at all.
Some of the guys on days and second must have come in drunk or stoned {that is my opinion not provable fact} They would ram the lower legs of the racks and bend them very severely. One operator damaged the racks so badly they collapsed.
That had a domino effect and took down two more sets of racks. It was a nightmare sorting and cleaning up that mess. I never damaged the rack legs myself.
One night I was putting a lot of inventory in the rack an I admit I was a bit tired. I got careless and let my heal stick out the back of the fork lift and managed to smash my heal between the forklift and the rack.
The in house EMS team wanted to cut my boot off. I did not want that, They were the OSHA approved steel toe safety boots with the metatarsal protectors, I had just bought them and they were very expensive. Besides I had been on the ambulance squad for many years and knew that no matter how much my foot hurt now it would be much worse after the boot was off especially if it was actually broken.
I convinced them to get a big tub and put ice in it and I would put my foot, boot and all, in that until the ambulance arrived. Once at the hospital the doc congratulated me for convincing them to leave the boot on. He said it had probably saved me a lot of trauma and was better than the ace bandage the EMS guys wanted to put on my foot. The X-ray showed that the bone was intact though it was determined to be crushed and bruised pretty badly.
Soaking the boot and all in ice had kept the swelling down and once he had given me a shot of Demerol I took the boot off no problem.
It took close to 6 months to heal to where I could walk without a limp. I still have a bruised area on that heal though. I made a pair of armored heal protectors for my boots out of 1/4" steel that I had the heat treat guys run through the oven.
My supervisor liked them so much he had a set made for all the stand up fork truck operators.
Some of the guys on days and second must have come in drunk or stoned {that is my opinion not provable fact} They would ram the lower legs of the racks and bend them very severely. One operator damaged the racks so badly they collapsed.
That had a domino effect and took down two more sets of racks. It was a nightmare sorting and cleaning up that mess. I never damaged the rack legs myself.
One night I was putting a lot of inventory in the rack an I admit I was a bit tired. I got careless and let my heal stick out the back of the fork lift and managed to smash my heal between the forklift and the rack.
The in house EMS team wanted to cut my boot off. I did not want that, They were the OSHA approved steel toe safety boots with the metatarsal protectors, I had just bought them and they were very expensive. Besides I had been on the ambulance squad for many years and knew that no matter how much my foot hurt now it would be much worse after the boot was off especially if it was actually broken.
I convinced them to get a big tub and put ice in it and I would put my foot, boot and all, in that until the ambulance arrived. Once at the hospital the doc congratulated me for convincing them to leave the boot on. He said it had probably saved me a lot of trauma and was better than the ace bandage the EMS guys wanted to put on my foot. The X-ray showed that the bone was intact though it was determined to be crushed and bruised pretty badly.
Soaking the boot and all in ice had kept the swelling down and once he had given me a shot of Demerol I took the boot off no problem.
It took close to 6 months to heal to where I could walk without a limp. I still have a bruised area on that heal though. I made a pair of armored heal protectors for my boots out of 1/4" steel that I had the heat treat guys run through the oven.
My supervisor liked them so much he had a set made for all the stand up fork truck operators.
Last edited by tired old man; 04-12-2016 at 05:50 PM.