Injuries

[n[ate]vw]

Originally posted by Koko Ed
They seem funny now but if someone gets seriously hurt, maimed or killed I don't think anyone will be laughing at all.

__________________
Don't take life so seriously. You'll never get out of it alive!

Interesting combination of post and signature.

[Aaron Lussier]

My injury did not happen all at once, it's more of a "Progressive Injury" We got the shafts for our Transmission today, and of course they were 5 thousands oversized, the shaft was too long to put in the drill press we had, so we had to use emery paper and sand it down by hand, After you do that for about an hour the tiny metal shavings you take off when you sand were working there way in to my thumb, I cant get them out cause there so small, so tomorrow I'll just do it some more and shove more metal in to my thumb, by the end of this week they will be calling me Steel Thumb

[DanLevin247]

set up a 10" cylinder to act as a vaccum...put your thumb over the hole and it should suck those little buggers right out.

[Koko Ed]

Originally posted by n[ate]vw
Interesting combination of post and signature.

It's one thing to live life in the moment and another to live life without regard.

[Sean_330]

Wow, so many near misses with teams this year. Let's be safe out there everybody! A little safety precaution goes a long way because it does not take much to be seiously injured and serious injuries are not cool. Lets not give the paramedics any business this year!


Sean Roberts, EMT-1

former Safety Officer, Team 330

[Alex Forest]

Hmm. This year we thought it would be fun to go riding down the nice ramp. On little carts, you know the ones for mock competitions. I, of course, being the sane one in the group watched carefully to see that no one killed themselves. ANYWAYS, they decided, hmm lets see if we can do spins. Right. So, they turned the ramp so they could have the most room to go flying down it. which happened to be directly into a large steel door. (we were in our schools auto body shop) needless to say, there is now a large dent in this supposedly steel door. *sigh*

[Jeff Waegelin]

We did something similar with our 2001 bot at a demo one time. We were at parent-teacher conferences, in a school hall way, and we accidentally whacked the wall with our arms, leaving a big black mark on the wall. Later that day, we almost tipped it onto a parent. That robot's just a little dangerous for demos. It's retired now...

[Munkaboo]

I cut my finger by playing with a vice... .... ?

[Matt Attallah]

Well, I think i am one, if not the only one, here that hasn't shead any blood/hurt for FIRST. All 4 (yes, Four) years that i have been on my team, I don't recall being hurt, even by a stupid vice grip or anything... Hmmmm, i must not be working hard enough...

I will say, though, I have shead tears before...

[sevisehda]

I've been doing FIRST for 3 years with no injuries but today after school I cut my hand peeling an orange and had to get stitches.

[MattK]

Originally posted by sevisehda
I've been doing FIRST for 3 years with no injuries but today after school I cut my hand peeling an orange and had to get stitches.

I have done that, I have a scare... and it was after school but like not at FIRST

[ChewyMasterFlex]

Major Arthritis from designing for over 10 hours in the same chair nonstop....

[FAKrogoth]

We occasionally get injuries from the power tools, usually from the older users (our instructor is fairly klutzy. Fortunately, twenty years of construction work have given him the reflexes required to not shred his hands). They were usually relatively minor (drilling of thumbs and burns most often). However, we did destroy two drill bits in 15 minutes last year.

What we were told was angle iron turned out to have some interesting thermal properties. When it got hot, it got hard. One drill bit shattered, and the teacher came over to "show how it should be done." He said the secret was constant, large force while drilling. He attempted it, and the oil smoked, the angle iron turned funny colors, and the drill bit developed a healthy glow. Mr. J. stopped when it was cherry red, and starting to deform. As for the angle iron, it was barely nicked!

Crazy stuff . . .

[Doug]

Originally posted by Alex Forest
Hmm. This year we thought it would be fun to go riding down the nice ramp. On little carts, you know the ones for mock competitions. I, of course, being the sane one in the group watched carefully to see that no one killed themselves. ANYWAYS, they decided, hmm lets see if we can do spins. Right. So, they turned the ramp so they could have the most room to go flying down it. which happened to be directly into a large steel door. (we were in our schools auto body shop) needless to say, there is now a large dent in this supposedly steel door. *sigh*

I was in no way involved as always such immaturity and reckeless disregard would not have been allowed on my watch

[sevisehda]

While assembling the ramp today I smashed my thumb with a hammer, more stitches to add to yesterdays orange incident. Needless to say my lefthand is utterly useless now.

[Gamer930]

Originally posted by sevisehda
While assembling the ramp today I smashed my thumb with a hammer, more stitches to add to yesterdays orange incident. Needless to say my lefthand is utterly useless now.

More stitches????? Why would you need stitches for a smashed thumb??

My injurie last year. Putting the robot in a SUV to get it to some presentation. (normal routine) I got into the front of the truck to grab it as it came in and also to guide it along. I got my hand caught under and made a big gash on my wrist. I still have a scare where it happened.

[Tytus Gerrish]

I have had more injuries accedents broken windows trips stuff falling on me and

Pnewmaticly launching steel bolts out of pvc tubes and breaking windows

[Ryan Albright]

well we where fermicaining (cant spell) and you dont want to do that in a closed enviroment which we were doing so about a hour in we all got a little happy and started chasing each ohter around with power tools on the mechanics chairs that was great

[Da SPAMinatress]

hmm.... last year at KSC regionals, i ran into a turnstyle and flipped over it, and had a bruise the size of a grapefruit on the side of my knee.... not fun

and at nationals last year, i was running up the bleachers outside after the party on saturday night, to get our t-shirt quilt down with a bunch of other ppl on my team, and what i thought was a step, was only an extension to another step, and i fell and scraped the skin off my palm on the chair, skinned my knee on the next step up, and i cut my chest on the metal bar that held up the chairs

... good times, good times...

[Tytus Gerrish]

Thats the kind of damage Our Gator launcher causes

(thas when you launch steel bolts out of a tube!!)

[Guyute]

i drilled a hole in my hand...

[MisterX]

I have luckily been realitivly injury free except for a few burns a scratches but probably one of my most embarassing injuries happened at Nats last year. On are mini bot we had originally used the ribbed tubing for our wire and had no trouble with it a regionals but during nats it was getting caught during practice so we decided to play it safe nd swith tubbing. Any the tubing was way to small for all of the wires so we figured we just need a sturdy hole on the wire so we tied one had to a support rigging. And were trying to thread the wire through. However we had to much tension and in the middle of pulling it through the wire snapped clean through in the middle sending everyone sprawling. I ended up backstepping right into my team at banging or head to gether then falling on a hammer (can some one please tell me why that hammer was there?)

PS In case u are curious we eventually did get it threaded and had no more trouble with the mini!

[Gadget470]

Last year with 247 we had a pair of non work related injuries.

Chris-
At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Chris was unwillingly put up for a crowd surf to a less than mediocre house band. Well.. he ran out of people to hold him up and two girls broke his fall at about stomach to shoulder level. He ended up landing on his neck, nearly breaking it. After security said "Have him sit out a few songs and take a breather" our mentor called an ambulence.
Chris had severe hemoraging in his neck and lost all vital signs twice during the night.
He's fine now though. If it hasn't been said enough already, his family and he thanks the FIRST community for their support after the incident.

Trevor aka T-Funk-
Trevor was an excited kid. While he cheered our bot on during the first round of eliminations he jumped up, came down, and well.. didn't jump right back up again. He tore his ACL cheering for us.


On the job injuries?
Well for me twice I had a piece of our robot that is actuated by pnumatics hit me. once on top of the head, the other time it cut my neck right next to my throat. Scary stuff.

[Vincent Chan]

--I was soddering something, and Paul and I turned to face each other at the same moment, and I stabbed him in the hand with the iron. Prophetically, we had dubbed the iron 'the cauterizing iron' just days before. It only burnt about the flat end of a stick pen's worth of area of his skin, and it wasn't deep, but that sizzle sounded nasty.

--Jay, the freshman on our team, likes to throw tools. It's not too bad when it's closed wire strippers or all-in-one crimpers or even bolts, but he's tried, more than once, to toss me a screwdriver. I've had many close encounters, and after two days with him, I decided just to let them fall before trying to grab them. (He's in line for some disciplining using the pneumatics-tubing whip. )

[Yan Wang]

Cut myself with parts on both my left and right hand at least 4 times. Took off a 1 mm thick piece of skin on my right index finger. Robot fell on my head, BOUNCED OFF, CAUGHT BY SOMEONE, and I fell to the ground; head bleeding. Sanded finger nail.

[Iain]

Background:

Our robot has two giant plastic "ears" made out of cut and rounded panels of the plastic that tops the ramp. These are rotated from a raised position to a lowered (and "outward") position by the Nippon window motors.

Now guess what? Not one, not two, not three, but four of our team members have been smacked by these wings accidentally at various times because they happened to be standing in the wrong place while we tested the controls or autonomous mode.

I myself took the worst blow, I was kneeling next to the robot when the auton mode caused a wing to swing down full-force into the very tip of my shoulder. It hurt like hell for about a minute and scraped me, but never even bruised. Luckily I don't injure very easily.

(I also have the honor of being the only person who's been hit twice by the things, just a few minutes before this happened one scraped one of my knuckles when it came down on my hand.)

I know that's peanuts to some of the nasty stuff other people have taken; the funny part is how often it happens.

[Solace]

We had a parents day at our school last year, and we decided to have our robot there as a demo. Anyways, we said, who cares, lets let all the kids drive it around. Well, before the words were even 20 seconds out of my mouth Omar had managed to drive the robot right through someone's grandmother.

[pauluffel]

Yeah Chan, I still have a mark from the cauterizing iron. I even got cauterized a few days before that by our Dremel. While cutting fake lexan (yes, fake lexan) with a cutting wheel, I accidentally touched the wheel with my finger, leaving a groove in my finger (grooves look amazing different from plain cuts, you should try it some time). Thankfully, the wound didn"t bleed at all because the wheel was hot enough to seal the cut as soon as it was made.

[SkitzoSmurf]

Ummm, quincey, funny story. Our robot has a modular involving pneumatic wings, and a girl happened to walk by the side when we opened them, SMACK! She wasnt hurt, I hope. . . But boy was she surprised!

[David Lantz]

I haven't read through all of this thread so I don't know how many times this has happened to other people.

About once or twice every night I was able to maime (is that spelled right?) some part of my person. My favorite memory of this came when I was using our chop saw and came close to not having 8 fingers and 2 thumbs. I didn't realize this until I started bleeding all over the bot. Oh well, water and duck-tape fixed that.