I'm a former safety captain, so this thread is pretty scary to me.
Our team has had a few flying chuck keys in its history. We keep one bent chuck key as a reminder of what happens when you're careless in the shop. Once a student was using auto feed on a lathe, and wasn't paying attention. The lathe bit ran into the spinning chuck and sent the bit flying across the shop.
LESSON LEARNED: Pay attention while operating machinery. We have a taped off a section of the floor around each machine in our shop, and only two people are allowed inside at a time. That's enough for an operator and a mentor or a freshman in training. We don't want anyone else near our machinists to distract them. Also, all of our current lathers don't use auto feed because we're still scared of it!
This wasn't related to robotics at all, but we once had a mentor have a seizure in the shop.
LESSON LEARNED: Be able to dial emergency numbers FAST. Also always have someone around who knows first aid. The mentor almost fell on the concrete floor and would have been hurt badly.
This was definitely not a near death experience but I brought a new pocket knife to a regional this year, and someone from electrical asked if she could borrow it. As a was opening it to give to her I cut my finger on the new blade, and after a handed it to her, SHE cut HER finger on the blade too!
LESSON LEARNED: Be careful with sharp objects, and never use one of my knifes!
