Workplace injuries

[bloocrab]

Originally Posted by Rmarsh

...Makes my injury sound like a day at the beach....

Big difference there Bob, ....YOU experienced yours, I only witnessed mine. Funny how your pain probably subsided during your youth...and now as you've aged, it's raising its ugly head again....and it ain't going away. Makes pounding the sand that much harder, especially on the hips...be thankful that you've taken care of your body over the years.


Your spliced wooden jack pole story reminded me of something...no injuries, just comical. My BIL owns a painting company...I picked up some extra work with him one summer. He's not one to maintain equipment, so he too had similar spliced staging. We're painting a 3-story tenement house in FR, staging is already up. I notice the spliced jack poles, doesn't look solid enough for me, so I question it. He laughs and tells me not to worry. I climb to the top and get started...not long into the job, I feel some movement...my thoughts go directly to the spliced poles,...my head starts playing games with me and now I'm concerned... he notices my concern as I've stopped painting and starts yelling from the ground below. I'm still not feeling the love, so he decides to climb up to meet me. Once on the same plank, he starts explaining that I have nothing to worry about....so much so, that he starts physically jumping on the plank.. ..."see, I told you" he says....meanwhile, his jumping is making it worse for me, I move over and grab the jack pole for dear life...this throws the weight distribution off and now his timing is off with how the plank is bouncing (he is jumping hard)...he's getting air-borne and trying to stop, meanwhile the paint can goes air-borne, hits the plank sideways and falls off the plank, it not only gets paint on windows, trims, etc...but also on the cars below. ...gotta love a show off!

I give tons of credit to guys who spend most days above 2 stories/roofs/etc... definitely not a job for me. I don't have a fear of heights, only of falling...LOL, put me in a bucket truck and I'll paint all day...take me 10x as long too.

[Rmarsh]

Originally Posted by bloocrab

Big difference there Bob, ....YOU experienced yours, I only witnessed mine. Funny how your pain probably subsided during your youth...and now as you've aged, it's raising its ugly head again....and it ain't going away. Makes pounding the sand that much harder, especially on the hips...be thankful that you've taken care of your body over the years.


Your spliced wooden jack pole story reminded me of something...no injuries, just comical. My BIL owns a painting company...I picked up some extra work with him one summer. He's not one to maintain equipment, so he too had similar spliced staging. We're painting a 3-story tenement house in FR, staging is already up. I notice the spliced jack poles, doesn't look solid enough for me, so I question it. He laughs and tells me not to worry.

Gilly.... your scenario is alot like my situation was.

We were installing a gable end attic fan at the highest point of a two story building....once the staging was jacked up as high as it would go....against the brace....I could see the jack pole bending badly right near the splice. I expressed my concern to my much more experienced boss, and told him I thought we should add another brace...something I already had learned to do as a rookie sidewaller. He scoffed at my suggestion and said.." We'll be done in ten minutes....forget about it" Well... well ...five minutes later as I stepped onto the staging from the ladder...I suddenly felt nothing was there as the whole thing came crashing down. I hit the concrete below on all fours....with my head against the ground I saw a staging plank just miss my noggin then various tools and a can of paint. I managed to crawl about ten feet away and rolled onto my back......I looked up and saw my boss hanging from the roof....he was hollering for someone to get a ladder. My younger brother 15 years old had been hired to clean up old roofing shingles from the bushes around the building as we had re roofed the previous week.....he managed to lift the heavy ladder but it crashed through a second floor window instead. My boss managed to drop onto a portico roof not far below him. People were coming out of the building now to see the commotion. Police came... then the ambulance. Ruined my whole summer

[Hookedagain]

Originally Posted by Rmarsh

Gilly.... your scenario is alot like my situation was.

We were installing a gable end attic fan at the highest point of a two story building....once the staging was jacked up as high as it would go....against the brace....I could see the jack pole bending badly right near the splice. I expressed my concern to my much more experienced boss, and told him I thought we should add another brace...something I already had learned to do as a rookie sidewaller. He scoffed at my suggestion and said.." We'll be done in ten minutes....forget about it" Well... well ...five minutes later as I stepped onto the staging from the ladder...I suddenly felt nothing was there as the whole thing came crashing down. I hit the concrete below on all fours....with my head against the ground I saw a staging plank just miss my noggin then various tools and a can of paint. I managed to crawl about ten feet away and rolled onto my back......I looked up and saw my boss hanging from the roof....he was hollering for someone to get a ladder. My younger brother 15 years old had been hired to clean up old roofing shingles from the bushes around the building as we had re roofed the previous week.....he managed to lift the heavy ladder but it crashed through a second floor window instead. My boss managed to drop onto a portico roof not far below him. People were coming out of the building now to see the commotion. Police came... then the ambulance. Ruined my whole summer

GEEZ!! I hope you were alright after that fall. Falling definitely sucks. I was climbing a vertical ladder on the side of a building in Providence and misjudged a step, down I went! The fall wasn't very high, maybe 10'-12' or so. The problem was when I fell I caught my right knee on one of the rungs. Is I laid on the ground assessing my injuries I realized i couldn't bend my leg. I reached down and felt my knee cap was ups few inches higher than it should be. I used the handle of my hammer and pushed it back in place. Definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced!! As we share all these stories, makes me think of all the ones we don't hear about. I'm sure the guys who work for OSHA have some stories.

[Rmarsh]

Originally Posted by Hookedagain

I laid on the ground assessing my injuries I realized i couldn't bend my leg. I reached down and felt my knee cap was ups few inches higher than it should be. I used the handle of my hammer and pushed it back in place. Definitely the worst pain.

Hooked... Assessing the extent of the injury is typical and not easy to judge in the moment. I had the wind knocked out of me and couldnt breathe normally for a few minutes...I felt the need to move away from were all the tools and stuff were falling so crawled a few feet away and rolled over. No way I could get up or even move after that....Just watched as my boss dangled from the roof....my kid brother putting the ladder through the window......people coming out wondering what the hell was going on. Paint.... blood....tools all over the nice tile paved terrace.

When they finally loaded me in.....I could hear the ambulance guys talking to the emergency room about my injuries. When I got settled in at the hospital they gave me a phone to call my mom.
Poor mom....with eight children she went through so much of this kind of stuff.

[nightfighter]

Yeah, no.... I don't even want to type anything here....