All,
Saturday was one of those exceptional days, beautiful sunrise, clear and calm and actually expected to stay that way. So it was up early and out for a motorcycle ride with a friend, stopping off to meet some other guys for breakfast and to look at (and drool over) their favorite toys (motorcycles, muscle cars and even a couple of bass boats, with BIG motors. After that, it was off to the shop to work on a couple of projects and to make the day as productive as it was beautiful.
Everything was going great! Every board cut straight and true, planer made the saw kerfs disappear, no rough edges and fit-up was just like the plans were laid out. I mean going great, and then in the blink of an eye it all went south. A five horsepower table saw is an awesome tool for cutting material, the problem is, it doesn’t care what material it cuts. So as I said, one moment everything was grand and the next I was wrapping a towel around my friend’s hand and it was off to the Emergency Room. The next three and one-half hours went by painfully slow, we waited for the nurse, we waited for the doctor, finally got some pain medication and x-rays. Then we waited for the orthopedic surgeon to review the x-rays to determine if the finger tip could be saved. Then we waited for the suture man to sew things back together and then to pickup pain medication and antibiotics. Now we’ll wait to see if the tissue responds and heals up healthy so that the orthopedic can go in and place a pin in the end of the remaining bone to give the finger tip rigidity.
As a safety professional I can see many of the things that lead up to the event, poor safety practices, attitude, over-confidence, and guards that were poorly designed and made the work more difficult (thus they are either removed or over-ridden). I can try and say that I did everything to get these issues addressed, arguing, cajoling, actually installing auto feeders and guards on some equipment and modifying it to make it safer and easier to use. BUT now I am left with the nagging doubt as to whether I did enough to keep my best friend from being injured. He’ll survive of that I am sure (tough old bird), but he suffered a needless injury and for what? To save just a second or two in handling material or because we couldn’t take the time to possibly modify the guard to make it more user and equipment friendly. The benefit wasn’t worth the cost, not by a long shot.
At work we have the leverage of policies and procedures, as well as OSHA standards and DOE orders to help drive issues to resolution. We don’t have those same tools when dealing with family and friends, what we have then is our earnest concern, respect and honest desire that those we hold close not be senselessly injured. By all means use those tools and any more you can think of to help them help themselves, they may even thank you for it someday, as if thanks were really required.
Mike C.