By specific, I mean not general fears like fear of heights or spiders.

  • Mic_Check_One_Two@reddthat.com
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    19 hours ago

    The most gnarly scar I’ve ever seen was from a Skil saw. He was a former roofer. Roofers would get tired of dealing with the blade guard; They don’t typically have a place to put sawhorses up on a slanted roof, and they don’t want to constantly be passing sheets of plywood up and down the ladders to make cuts on the ground… So they want to be able to do things like make plunge-cuts (which the blade guard gets in the way of) with only one hand, while holding the plywood with their other hand. So it became standard practice (not best safety practice, but still standard practice) to wire the blade guard open.

    So he had his guard wired open. He made his cut, and then set the saw down. The issue is that his trigger was stuck, so the saw didn’t stop. And without the blade guard to protect it, it was just the bare saw blade spinning against the wood roof. The saw quickly ran away at like 70MPH, with the blade acting as a sort of wheel. His foot snagged the power cord, it whipped back around, and the saw came back at him.

    It hit his left ankle, ran all the way up his left leg, went all the way up and across his torso, and exited via his right shoulder. It apparently peeled him open like a can opener, right before he fell off the roof and dislocated his shoulder from the fall. He didn’t bother taking off his pants to confirm it, but I saw the scar starting at his ankle, and it ran all the way up his chest to his shoulder.

    So yeah, Skil saws are fucking terrifying. The only thing scarier is the table saw, because that’s where the vast majority of lost fingers happen.

    • Haess@lemmynsfw.com
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      19 hours ago

      Well, this certainly fucking helps hahaha. I worked in residential construction for several years (cribbing, framing, roofing, drywall) and the shortcuts people took are just… Insanity. Been twenty years since I was last on a worksite and I still flinch.