Ever Have One Of Those , "Oh F@#%, I'm Dead Moments?"

[shikano53]

Yesterday while sitting in the garage enjoying a bowl of Happy Brown Boogie, once I was finished, I decided to hang my bike up for the season. My wife and I hang our bikes upside down from the garage ceiling. Mine hangs directly over my main work bench but I need the extension ladder to hang it up.
I extended the ladder to 14 feet. I knew the moment I got up on the ladder it didn’t feel right and I should have stopped. With my head brushing the ceiling, and holding my upside down bike in my right arm trying to get the front wheel on the front hook, I felt the ladder go. There was nothing I could do but fall. I fell 13 feet. What really saved me was the things I hit on my way to the concrete. The first thing I hit was my shop vise. I slide off it and slammed into my now upside down bicycle on the bottom rail of the bike and slide along the chain before it dumped me on the concrete. So the primary areas of concern is my Right wrist, right side which feels like a cracked rib, and my left knee. Unfortunately it happened on a Friday and I’m not going to the hospital. The hospitals are overflowing and crowded with people waiting to get checked for Covid and I’m not going there. I guess I’ll just wait until Monday and if I can go to my walk in clinic they can maybe send me to the x-ray clinic and in so doing by passing the hospital and at least let them have x-ray those areas. In the meantime I am pretty much holed up and trying to just stay as still as I can so as not to aggravate each area.
My adventure from yesterday. Weather is beginning to change toward winter and whether we have snow before Halloween is anyone’s guess.
I'm generally very careful and my kids and wife make fun of my safety protocols. Yesterday I skipped a shit of them because I was stupid.

 

[ashdigger]

Sounds like you got lucky. I hope the hospital visit works out.

I’ve had several brushes death. My job is very dangerous but the one that sticks out is this one.

I was investigating a fire in Northern Nevada, and I generally work alone which was the case this time. It was a double wide that was over a “basement”. Nearest structure was roughly five miles away. I fell through the floor and landed in the basement. Because of structural collapse the exit out of the basement was blocked. It ended up taking me four hours to work my way out of the basement. It was dark and I was exhausted. Luckily I only strained my elbow and had some pretty ugly cuts, but I walked away.

Not the first or last time I’ve been injured doing my thing.

 

[Country Bladesmith]

Glad you didn’t die!
I’ve had a few of those times where I took a deep breath and did a “body parts inventory” real quick. Not too many where I thought I was about to bite the dust though.

 

[lochinvar]

Hope all goes well. You have to watch ladders, they were designed by a lawyer named Murphy while he swung black cats into mirrors.

 

[bullet08]

Glad you are alive. Nope, I don't like ladders.

 

[ashdigger]

On a side note, I hate ladders so much that I have a drone I fly indoors or out to get elevated photographs. Haven’t been on a ladder in almost two years. They are definitely the devil’s tool box.

My nephew fell off a ladder about 25 feet up. He’s had 9 surgeries. If things go as planned, he has 3 more until humpty dumpty is put back together.

 

[J.GANDY]

Many times I have counted my fingers and toes! Thankfully, I still have all 20.

We definitely all have those times. In a rush, or "I can put half of my body weight here and the other half here. That should hold me!" kind of experiences. A momentary lapse of the saftey first rule.

Hopefully it's nothing major and just bumps a bruises.

Rest up and take care!

 

[pantsBoots]

Ladders are safe tools if they're set up correctly. Don't cheat or get lazy on the setup. If something feels wrong, get down, take it down and begin again at step 1. Coming from the construction industry, I've seen too many people fucked up from falls. In none of those instances was the ladder failure a mystery - it always came down to poor setup or an unwillingness to adjust the ladder so it's perfect.

This concludes the public service announcement. If it saves one broken bone, it was worth it.

 

[Capt Morgan]

Hell yeah, I have had a few sphincter clenching moments. That moment when you're just going to go along for the ride and hope you're still breathing on the other end. I can honestly say I know how you feel.

I hope everything is ok for you.

 

[rajangan]

Man are you lucky!

 

[troyniss]

I worked for my fathers rough carpentry business every summer during college and that has given me enough of those moments.

The closet call I had was when we were doing a re-roof from flat roof trusses to an easy 6/12 pitch. We had to sawzall the old trusses off while someone below used a forktlift/telehandler to keep it from falling too violently. After some time we realized it was easier to cut and just let it fall in sections and we didn't need to use the lift anymore. One of the buildings, the trusses were all hanging together and wouldn't budge, no matter where I cut it, effectively connecting about 60 feet of roof and not breaking off like it normally was on the previous buildings. I came down to the last truss that needed to be cut. As soon as it had enough, it came off so fast and loud I almost got shaken off the remaining roof and almost took my arm off with it. Dust, insulation, rat poop, etc came flying up as well. Felt like a huge gush of wind and I held on for dear life.

I've been hurt numerous times though but nothing that made me think I was dead. Some fun ones were shooting a nail from a nail gun into my knee meat. A 3 inch sliver into my shoulder from a piece of sheared wood. Almost cut my wrists open while trying to yank on some aluminum roof stack without gloves. Stepping on nails from time to time.

Those were the good times. I miss working with my father. The guys I worked with were a bunch of misfits who swore like sailors, smoked-cigarettes like no tomorrow and finished the day with drinking beers and consuming devils lettuce. It's been about 10 years since then but sure feels like ages ago.

 

[mso489]

shikano, be a good physician to yourself and get what you need -- imaging and a good diagnosis. I don't know your situation or the quality of care available at the moment, but I have seen ER visits where the level of care and especially diagnosis was ludicrous, and not even in pandemic times. Be direct and complete in reporting all of your pain and suspicions to your wife and maybe another responsible adult in case you need help when you are not alert. I don't know your age or health otherwise, but for you and/or others, I will say that the sense of balance does not improve with age. I had a neighbor, a spare little orchard man retired from upstate New York who was painting houses into his late eighties, but he is not typical, not remotely. As a kid, he was born on a ladder. Most of us "graduate" from having sufficient balance to work on ladders in our 50's or 60's. And as people age, they heal MUCH more slowly, and that causes loss of muscle mass, etc. Maybe hang the bicycles closer to the floor so no ladder is required, however that is possible. I wish you minimal discomfort possible and good and rapid healing. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

 

[cigrmaster]

I was all Quaaluded out and I flipped my buddies Jeep Wagoneer into a van and they both blew up. I was alone in the vehicle and crawled out of a burning wreck. I bolted so I could report the Wagoneer stolen but the cops found me before I could make a call. No cell phones back then,

One night I fucked was up again and flew my sisters Fiatl 131s off route 128 west of Boston and landed on the tops of some trees. I climbed down without a scratch. My old man wasn't pissed at all cause he couldn't sell the car for shit but I made him good money from the insurance company. I have stories from the 70's and 80's that I still cannot believe I lived through them. I was a lucky son of a bitch for sure.

 

[troyniss]

I was all Quaaluded out and I flipped my buddies Jeep Wagoneer into a van and they both blew up. I was alone in the vehicle and crawled out of a burning wreck. I bolted so I could report the Wagoneer stolen but the cops found me before I could make a call. No cell phones back then,

One night I fucked was up again and flew my sisters Fiatl 131s off route 128 west of Boston highway and landed on the tops of some trees. I climbed down without a scratch. My old man wasn't pissed at all cause he couldn't sell the car for shit but I made him good money from the insurance company. I have stories from the 70's and 80's that I still cannot believe I lived through them. I was a lucky son of a bitch for sure.

Back in the day where they would just slap your wrist and tell you to get home safely piss drunk, at least that what my father told me.

 

[workman]

I was part of a crew that was changing the roof on a public school. The roof is aluminum sheets, nailed to the rafters. I was pulling nails out and stupidly stepped on a sheet with no nails. The sheet went down with me on it. As it went off the roof I managed to grab the scaffolding with my right hand, swinging round into it, while the aluminum sheet spiralled five stories down to the yard.
I had to sit down for a couple of cigarettes, but I lived.

 

[shikano53]

Yup! I hear you all. One slip, one being too tired and letting a safety procedure pass because you're just too damn tired, or being intimidated by a bully foreman or supervisor can get you killed real quick when they demand that you do something that you feel you shouldn't be doing and is unsafe. I've worked in the Petro-Chemical industry for a lot of years and seen a lot of people end up dead because they had to go into a confined space and didn't take the time to do a gas check because the foreman was a dick and they ended up dead. Three guys were killed going into a confined space; a tank. They didn't do a sniff test first for nitrogen and they didn't have a gas monitor. The first guy went in and collapsed and died in minutes. The second guy went in to help his buddy and he too died from Asphyxiation by nitrogen gas. Incredulously the third guy climbed down and was dead within six minutes.
What a tragedy.

MSO: I'm 67, and consider myself in fair health. I run 5k every morning and try and keep moving. Yesterday my cell phone was just in reach where it flew and I was in the process if wondering if I could use it, when my wife came out into the garage because she thought she heard boxes falling.

 

[Ahi Ka]

I’ve known some people to feel that way after loading a bowl of brown bogie for the first time.

glad you’re ok and hopefully can enjoy an event-free weekend

 

[cigrmaster]

Back in the day where they would just slap your wrist and tell you to get home safely piss drunk, at least that what my father told me.

I had 2 dwi

Back in the day where they would just slap your wrist and tell you to get home safely piss drunk, at least that what my father told me.

Back in 1980 I got a DWI, they grabbed my license for 30 days. As soon as I got it back, I was Quaaluded again and was hungry so I drove down to Chinatown through the back bay. I ran around 10 red lights in a row so when I made the turn on Arlington street they had a road block set up for me. Needless to say I stopped and didn't say a word. I had no booze in me so I got written up for driving under the influence of drugs.
I lost my license for 90 days. I happened to be a mfg rep in the jewelry industry at the time so I had to hire a driver because my territory was New England. I learned my lesson and that was my last dwi.

They only would give you a break if you lived close to home and were not that young. Fucking chicks never got written up, it was totally unfair.

 

[NomadOrb]

One of my brushes with death was because of a ladder as well. I used to work in a warehouse when I was younger that had really unsafe conditions, and we frequently had to climb to the part that says, "DO NOT STAND" to reach high level objects.

Well, one time I was up there balancing on the balls of my feet trying to yank a box off the shelf, when something must have shifted inside the box and threw my weight off balance.

Down I went, reaching and clawing for anything within reach, and managed to slow my fall down with mostly the backs of my arms and shoulders on the shelfs and ladder. Still feel it in my left shoulder to this day.

 

[FurCoat]

Every time I rode my motorcycle. The roads have become too dangerous since smart phones hit the market. Haven't ridden in two years so the bike goes up for sale this spring.