Whoops! Off to the emergency room for me...

Well yesterday I pulled the engine out of my Galaxie. My buddy and I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was. I had already done all the hard work of getting accessories off and such, so it was a cinch. Of course we missed a bolt and a wire the first time we yanked on it, but after that it slid right out.

All we had to do was remove the flexplate and oil pan for the new engine, as I had taken care of everything else. Genious me had already removed the dampner and the bolt was elsewhere. So I got the bright idea of having my buddy hold a wrench on one flexplate bolt and I use a wrench on the opposite one so as to loosen them without spinning the motor. Of course I grabbed the closest wrench to me which happened to be a flex-head ratchet. Now as I started applying obscene amounts of force to the bolt I hesitated and thought to myself, this doesn't seem like a very bright idea. So after that thought crossed my mind I shrugged it off and blundered on. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] Of course the inevitable happened and the ratchet head flexed the wrong way... Right into the flexplate's teeth. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_bicker.gif[/img]

I butchered my thumb a bit. After bringing the engine and hoist back home I decided it may be prudent to go to the emergency room. They scrubbed my wound with a sponge, and the guy was just smiling at me saying "Yeah, there's a lot of nerves in there". Gee, ya think? Anywho, then the doctor came in with the stitches and proceeded to stab my wound about 10-15 times with a needle which was supposed to numb it, yeah, tell my hand that! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_mad.gif[/img] He said it would burn, but there was no burning, only sharp stabbing pain. Then he stitched me up, I was bandaged and sent on my way. I walked in the hospitol feeling no pain at all and with decent ability to use my hand, and walked out in a good bit of pain unable to use my hand at all.

The best part is after they sewed up my right hand, and then shot me with tetnis in my left arm, they asked me to sign some papers. Yeah right! All in all it wasn't so bad. I was laughing between yelps. I thought it was funny how much of a wuss I was.

Anywho, the new engine goes in Sunday... I figure by Sunday I'll be in good enough shape to get the job done, with the help of a friend of course.

I'm sure we all have stories of injuries that could easily have been prevented... So feel free to share, it'll make me feel less dumb. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]

Don't feel bad. I think I've knocked my left thumbnail off about three times. It takes forever to grow back (months) Once it had just grown back and I knocked it off again!
I scraped my hand the other day on my desk at work!!! Sometimes I think my hands would get a divorce from me the way I treat them. Stu

Even waxing my car I end up bleeding from a knuckle or something. Monday was the first time I ever tried using the buffer we've had for 2 yrs and still managed to bleed. It must be one of those unwritten laws or something.[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]

Deb

Don't worry about it. I was trying to change a light bulb (1157) for a friend and it shattered in my hand as I was pushing down on it and ended up with 5 stiches in the joint on my right pointer finger. I was mad at the time but now it is [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]
[addsig]

How about gettin poked in the eye while you are sleeping??[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img] I have a red eye with blurry vision and had to miss 2 days of work because of the sensitivity to light.. Wonder what my 15 month old son was thinking...

I smashed my left index finger between a ring gear & gear case this week. Stupid, stupid, stupid me. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_tdown.gif[/img] Put the differential / ring gear in & finger-tightened the caps. Spun the gear a few times and looked away to grab the torque wrench. Leaned forward as my hand came down and 'Crack' right onto the bone. Popped both sides of the skin like a grape & 'chip fractured' the bone. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cry.gif[/img]

The 9" rearend project gets delayed another two weeks or so, but the prescribed painkillers really work![img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_spin.gif[/img]

_________________
'67 Mustang fastback / 5.0 EFI & AOD
2000 Explorer Sport 4x4

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kewolfe on 3/20/04 10:50am ]</font>

I should probably leave this one alone, but figured I'd share mine too. Once upon a time, we found an old 8-71 blower at a scrap metal recycler. I bought it for $5 (scrap price at the time) and took it home to rebuild. I put it all back together (them damned fools at GM decided to use a double spline on one rotor...took forever to figure that one out) and decided to test it out. I gave it a spin with the drill, around 1500 RPM, and took the drill off. I don't remember what I was doing to get my hand down in the rotors, but all I remember was looking down at my finger seeing blood everwhere and a piece of bone sticking out. 15 stitches later and some pain killers I was back home. I sold the blower on Ebay for $90. Those rotors are sharp!

[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_cool.gif[/img]when i was working as a temp in a plastics factory, i managed, through a bit of stupidity, to cut my hand with an exacto knife. i told my supervisor about it, i was quite calm and she freaked! after 2 hours waiting in the emergency room, i finally got to see a doctor, and he said the same thing i had been saying, that i didnt need stiches. it wasnt untill the doc sprayed some glue on my hand, it was supposed to be lightly sprayed he decided on a river, that i felt any pain at all(my mom says that at that point they are usually trying to scrap people off the ceiling).
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A couple of months ago I was working on a car with oil pressure problems. I pulled the PCV valve that was located in the back of the intake and the grommet fell inside. The engine had been running so I wanted to get the grommet out before it started to melt. I couldn't get it with my grabbers so knowing my high tolerance for heat I decided to give a quick try with my finger. My finger slid in the hot intake like an old wedding ring and to my suprise I couldn't pull it out. I couldn't reach anything that could possibly help and my tolerance for pain was disappearing fast. Luckily, the juices from my cooking finger lubed it enough to pull out while the top layers of skin rolled back on my finger. The doctors called it degloving. Later, when I went to put the new PCV valve in after this incident, I found what I thought was an additional o-ring of sorts which turned out to be a nice roll of skin. STUPID!
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On 2004-03-21 20:38, flyingcometus wrote:
A couple of months ago I was working on a car with oil pressure problems. I pulled the PCV valve that was located in the back of the intake and the grommet fell inside. The engine had been running so I wanted to get the grommet out before it started to melt. I couldn't get it with my grabbers so knowing my high tolerance for heat I decided to give a quick try with my finger. My finger slid in the hot intake like an old wedding ring and to my suprise I couldn't pull it out. I couldn't reach anything that could possibly help and my tolerance for pain was disappearing fast. Luckily, the juices from my cooking finger lubed it enough to pull out while the top layers of skin rolled back on my finger. The doctors called it degloving. Later, when I went to put the new PCV valve in after this incident, I found what I thought was an additional o-ring of sorts which turned out to be a nice roll of skin. STUPID!
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Geez, that's sick! I pulled some pics off the internet of deglovings for a training presentation I made for work. You should see the people squirm when those pics pop up.
I used to have a rusty flexplate with mangled teeth mounted on one of the posts in my garage. If someone asked what it was for I explained that when I am working on a car and I know busted knuckles are inevitable I just walk over to that flexplate and beat my knuckles on it till they are good and bloody to get it over with already. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif[/img]
Kywookie