Tag Archives: accident

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Science, Space, Technology

Space Shuttle Challenger mural at my high school

February 17, 2007 kleucht 4 Comments

When I was a student at Deer Creek Mackinaw (Dee-Mack) High School in Mackinaw, Illinois (1984 thru 1988) I was really into anything that was even remotely related to art. I loved drafting classes and all of the different art classes too. Our art teacher, Mrs. Schultz, organized some of the best art students there and had them paint a few organized and approved murals around the school. I was allowed to paint a Space Shuttle mural upstairs on the big 2-story wall just outside the library. I was also into space, and I had some NASA photos and mission patches and I basically just painted a collage of some of the items in that material. I dedicated the mural to the crew of the Challenger mission that was lost during their launch on January 28th, 1986. This large mural was a big project for a high school student … and I never actually technically finished the mural. I had intended to paint land masses on the earth, but never got around to it. I took these photos in the summer of 2002, so the mural was at least there for 14 years. I think they had to paint over it a few years ago, though.

Kurt

Art, Graphics, Woodworking, Health, Home, Property, Safety

Safety tip: Nail gun accident!

January 14, 2007 kleucht 1 Comment

Power nail guns are quite dangerous, and even though they have a pretty good safety trigger, they are not accident-proof. One of the many ways you can get shot with a nail gun is for the gun to be too close to the edge of the board that is triggering it and for the nail to miss the board completely.

Over the holidays, someone that I personally know (whom I’m not going to identify, because they’re embarrassed enough as it is) accidentally shot a 10d nail into their arm near the wrist. The nail hit the bone and it actually bent the nail a little bit. Thankfully, the bone was not chipped or hurt in any way and this person made a quick recovery with only a slight bruising of their pride.

.
Photo of nail lodged in arm.
This photo was taken by a cell phone camera
on the way to the emergency room.

Photos of x-rays from hospital.

No bone damage was found.

So please be careful with power nailers. A good safety precaution is to never put any part of your body anywhere near inline with the shooting path of a nail gun. Not even if there’s construction lumber in between!

Kurt

Health, Home, Property, Safety, Miscellaneous

Safety tip: Never touch fallen power lines!

August 19, 2006 kleucht Leave a comment

The following is completely true and actually happened to me on Wed March 29, 2006. I posted the following on a private web forum that day, and thought it important enough to also share with “the masses”:

Something that I won’t forget any time soon happened in front of me on my way to work today, and I thought it would make for a valuable safety tip.

As I was approaching a stop light this morning, one of those city yard waste trucks (you know, the ones with those hydraulic booms with the bucket on the end) was moving through the intersection towards me with its boom in the “up” position. Before I could completely realize what was happening, the extended boom had knocked down some power lines (causing some scary looking fireworks up high on the streetlight pole) and had also knocked the streetlight down from it’s pole. (see attached photo taken after all the excitement was over)

I was just arriving at the intersection when this accident happened in front of me. I started flashing my lights and honking my horn (as if the two guys in the city truck didn’t see and hear the world crashing down around them). Two bundles of lines had fallen from the power poles. One was laying on the ground in front of the city truck and the other was laying directly across the city truck’s bed. I pulled off the road and rolled down my window because the guys in the truck had opened both of their doors and I was afraid that they were going to get out of the truck. I yelled repeatedly at them from across the intersection that there were “live wires” on their truck. To my horror, both men jumped out of the truck and the driver actually grabbed the bundle that was laying across the bed of his truck and flung it off the back of the truck to the ground. I was still screaming at him that there were “live wires”. I was kinda freaked out. Either this guy is actually Superman, or the lines laying across the truck were not actually live (anymore). The latter was actually true. But why in the world would anyone feel the need to risk being electrocuted? I’m fairly certain that the safe thing to do if you have downed power lines on your vehicle is to stay inside and wait for help. The rubber tires on your vehicle will likely insulate you from being shocked until a breaker can be opened to insure that it is completely safe to get out of the vehicle. Edit: Turns out that the rubber tires on your vehicle actually do conduct electricity, but that’s okay, because then the electricity takes the least resistive path to ground through the tires. Either way, it is still safer to stay inside the cab than to get out.

Kurt
P.S. Also, if you come upon an intersection that has lost power and the streetlights are not working, you are supposed to treat the intersection like a 4-way stop. People were continuously zooming through the intersection after this accident at full speed (45 mph), until the fire trucks and police arrived.