this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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Back when I was a welder, I was trying to cut something with an angle grinder in an awkward position.
I guess my brain was turned off that day because I decided to grind with the sparks going directly away from me.
So of course, the disc binded, and sent the angle grinder directly at my face.
Thank god I was wearing a face shield, at least. In about 0.1 seconds, my face shield was cut entirely in half.
The fun didn't stop there, though, because I had the trigger lock on (again, genius). So it was still spinning at full force after it jumped out of my hands.
Also, I was on a ladder, so here I am, trying to throw the grinder away from my with my arms, on top of a ladder, all the while the cutting disc is going absolutely out of control essentially in full contact with my face, neck, chest, and arms.
Finally I manage to push it off of me, it falls to the floor and the disc breaks. I finally get off the ladder and unplug the grinder.
At this point, I can see that my face shield is cut clean down the middle. I'm thinking 1000% I'm gonna be needing an urgent hospital visit. I take off the face shield, and carefully touch my face... No blood... I take out my phone and use it as a mirror, not a scratch... I meticulously check the rest of my body... nothing.
Turns out, after all that, the only damage was to the disc and the face shield.
I can't even explain how I felt after that. I spent the rest of the day in an almost out-of-body experience, and was shaken for a few weeks at least. I beat myself up a lot for being so stupid, and I literally couldn't believe how lucky I was. I still can't believe it.
Fuck, you got really lucky. There were so many aspects of that whole situation that you could've died from, even just the ladder.
I think you should congratulate yourself a bit: You didn't make it due to dumb luck, but because you were smart enough to have several redundant safety measures in place, so that even though two of them failed (cutting the wrong way, with lock engaged) the last one (face shield) saved you. It wasn't luck, but routine and skill that made sure you were fine, even though your brain was completely turned off that day :)
Yeah, it only takes one experience to completely cement the use of PPE. You can always tell when someone has never had an accident, because they complain about wearing their PPE, or neglect to wear it at all. In contrast, the people who have been saved by PPE will wear it without complaint. Every. Single. Time.
Sort of like wearing your seatbelt. You don’t need it until suddenly you do.
Likely your biggest fatality risk was the fall but it would have left you with a nasty scar and maybe loss of an eye.
Friend welder did exact same thing. Funny thing was a cop walked in that pretty much exact second totally unrelated. The cop ended up taking him to the hospital. Just a good scar on his head now. But what welder doesn't have a few?
Would this actually kill you though? Sounds scary but not really deadly.
An angle grinder to the face could easily kill you. Even falling off a ladder could be potentially deadly depending on the situation
Yeah, it was definitely a situation where all my vital organs were dangerously close to a cutting disc spinning at over 10k rpm, plus the ladder. Definitely enough to stop a guy from living if it went slightly differently.
Angle grinders will 100% fuck you up. The blade is made of compressed metal dust, so it can erode as it grinds away at whatever you’re cutting. But it also means that the blades are prone to shattering, because it’s basically just dust and glue held together by a wire mesh. The resulting shards are often moving so fast that they can embed themselves in solid concrete.
At the very least, OP would be missing their nose or an eye, and would have a giant chunk of metal embedded in their face. That’s the best case scenario. If the blade hasn’t shattered and is still spinning, then you have something designed to grind incredibly hard materials actively grinding away at your skull. And if they were working alone when this happened, (it sounds like they were) they’d probably bleed out before anyone else found them.
As someone who has done a lot of construction work, I say this with complete certainty: You don’t even want to be in the same room as an angle grinder unless you’re wearing a full face shield. Not just safety goggles. A full face shield.
Right on. Also, can confirm, was working alone at the time.