I've never had, or seen, a serious injury while in FIRST. The worst I've had was a minor cut requiring a butterfly closure and some super glue. Normally I would have just used a band aid, but I wanted to get back to work faster
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Other then that just the usual assortment of scrapes, dings and solder burns. Overall my teams have always stressed and practiced good shop safety, and it's paid off. Team members learn from the start how to be safe, and everyone checks everyone else's work out. Normally a crowded shop isn't safe, but when everyone stays focused the extra eyes really help catch the little errors like chuck keys left in the chuck and so on.
My work experience has also been pretty safe. I did have a grinding wheel break up on me once, and a piece managed to take a good chunk out of a finger. Although it healed quickly it left a sizable scar and dent, and was very painful. Luckily I was wearing eye protection and my welding leathers, so the finger was the only casualty.
I've also worked in the medical field. In doing so you use what are called 'universal precautions'. Things like latex gloves, face masks, safety glasses/shields and lab coats. To my knowledge I never had to handle anything terribly infectious but the risk was still there. So anytime I worked on a piece of lab equipment that had been exposed to possibly infectious or hazardous materials I had to put on all that stuff until I had disinfected/cleaned it. It was a hassle at first, but after a while I felt naked with out it.
I guess the guiding principal to shop safety is to stay alert and focused. Accidents happen most often when people become complacent and rush. If you feel rushed to get something done, stop. Take a moment to breath, check your work, your work area, your tools and your self. Remove distractions (extra tools, prints, radio, even people). Think the next few actions through and
then do them. Some accidents are unavoidable, like my grinding wheel spontaneously coming apart, but if you make it a habit to always protect your self you'll minimize the impact.
If I sound preachy, I guess I am. Sorry. I try to keep that to a minimum, but I think safety is one of those things that just can't be brought up enough. I know there is a little bit of bravado in these threads over who has gotten the most scars or burns, and I guess thats okay if it gets people talking about safety. But the real benefit of these threads is to share ways to avoid injuries, and lessons learned from those we haven't.
-Andy A.