Various Accidents and Injuries

[Richtee]

And to be honest, this was the the first time I put my face shield on for testing stars, don't know what made me put it up but I sure as hell am grateful.

 

Go get a replacement shield, and a lottery ticket ;{)

[50AE]

Yesterday, I bought a nice statuete with a glass candle at the top. Because all the wax was out, I decided to fill the glass with alcohol. It burned very nice with a big flame. Until, after some time, I decided to move it while it was lit. What I didn't expect is that the flame was moving and quickly heating the glass. Suddenly, the glass broke because of the the quick heating, spilling burning alcohol on my hands. I quickly put the statuete on the ground and covered my hands with my shirt, putting the flames out. The result is small 1st degree burns, with a little 2nd on two fingers, my shirt and the floor covered with wax. So don't light alcohol in glass which isn't heatproof. Edited October 16, 2008 by 50AE

[NightHawkInLight]

A friend of mine that I met years ago under pyrotechnic circumstances burned himself quite badly a few months back. He made the poor decision to grind magnalium in a coffee mill and ended up having a 10 day stay in a burn unit. It only takes one decision that wasn't thought out...

[Boomer]

(see announcements, Jim Freeman's accident today)

 

"A PGI Grandmaster, expert in the craft, badly hurt. It can happen to ANYBODY"

 

Just lake Tad K.! I did not put it in above thread because it's more general, and seems inappropriate.

 

That's what scares me most, it happens to the veterans, while even *we amateurs* look down upon k3wls using a sparkler as a fuse for a naked block of AP putty. Or think of the one-handed guy from my town who filled a metal pipe with chlorate/sugar, THEN hammered the ends closed. We think we are safe because even at age 12-15 we were smart enough to weld end-plates on, drill a hole in one, cut a metric thread, fill with only gentle tapping, clean the thread really well, and insert a screw with a 2mm fuse hole. (This is not meant as a how-to, we were just ignorant of threaded water pipes. And thank God weedkiller is off the shelves over here.)

 

Now looking back, we were not THAT smart after all: We used chlorate blackpowder for the filler for years. Either the charcoal absorbed acid traces from the sulfur/chlorate, or we were just lucky. Maybe we still live to tell only because we were too eager to light them off to keep the finished pipe bombs over a day.

 

Those who've read my posts over the years will know I had several close calls, and even with 33 years of fireworks and 28 years of HE experience I do make stupid mistakes sometimes. I remember *seven* visits to the ER, two for HE, one each for fireworks and chemistry, one for BBQ, one for a cigarette and one for violence (not mine). And it could easily have been 14 or more, with the RDX in the microwave, the nitro syringe detonating in my hand, and so on.

 

I hope it was not only luck that kept me alive, that would be unbelievable by now. I rather hope it was some general carefulness that compensated for occasional stupidity. One-gram-max amounts saved my life more than once, and kept damage bearable.

[hst45]

Boomer, I couldn't agree more. As another old guy with a few scars and war stories (less than yours of course) my advise to all is to please take ALL precautions, EVERY time and do SMALL tests. Looking back, some of the dumbest things I've done have been when testing something new, like testing a new star in the star gun with some loose BP around (guess where the spark went), or the infamous Negative-X fountain that wrapped a green fireball around my head, or the rocket that burned up the hayfield, all of which were the results of practices that I knew better than to do, but was in a rush or got lazy. Remember, in this hobby even if you win the coin-toss 1,000 time in a row and lose once, YOU LOSE! Be safe.

 

Best wishes to Jim Freeman

[xetap]

I'd like to post a site (thanks, LadyKate) that's available to check on Jim Freeman's progress. It's: http://caringbridge.org/visit/jimfreeman

 

Photos: http://caringbridge.org/cb/photoMainView.do

 

All indications are that he's recovering nicely, and will be in attendance at Mason City this August, "where I will attempt to explain what happened. The more I think about it and recount those few milliseconds in my mind, the more uncertain I become about what actually happened. Be assured howwever, that there will be a safety lesson to be learned."

Edited January 29, 2009 by xetap

[TheSidewinder]

Glad to see others are following his progress.

 

Please keep in mind, though, that Jim's amazingly fast recovery is an exception to the rules about burns and their aftermath. I hesitate to apply the word "miracle", but there's damn few other words that fit.

 

Many (if not most) people his age, with burns that severe, would have died as a result of that accident. But Jim was an exceptionally healthy man to start with and just plain tough, as his doctors said. He'll be his old self again, something I thought impossible a day or two after the accident.

 

I'll be interested to hear what he has to say about it.

[Swede]

I'm shaking my head because I know the pain the man is experiencing. Hopefully he has intelligent doctors that will give him WHATEVER he needs to combat the pain.

 

As a 10 year old, I was badly burned (leg) with gasoline, and the next few weeks were hell.

 

I'm glad to hear he is recovering rapidly.

[Updup]

Okay, I just had a scare this morning. I was making a bunch of charcoal last night, and when I thought it was cool, I had set it up on my work bench for the night.

 

One of my paint cans, (a gallon) was NOT cool, the carcoal was almost gone this morning, and where the paint can was sitting a black mark was left where it had turned my work bench to charcoal...

 

Now, I think that the biggest thing about this, was that the house could have burned down. One note is that I looked at the can before going to bed and thought... "nah its not too hot"

 

I think I'll take Rich's advice here and leave the can for half a day or so, I don't think dad's too happy about thw work bench and it shook me quite a bit aswell.

 

I hope other people can learn so that this dosn't happen again.

 

Thanks for reading, UpDUp.

Edited November 29, 2009 by Updup

[Richtee]

Now, I this that the biggest thing about this, way that the house could have burned down. One note is that I looked at the can before going to bed and thought... "nah its not too hot"

 

Altho I have not had THAT happen I have found a can full of ash more than once, thinking "it's cool... I'm gonna open the can and..."

 

LEAVE that can sealed for 6 hours- why not? Oh...and on a fireproof surface too.

Edited November 29, 2009 by Richtee

[Twotails]

had the same thing happen to me, Burned my speaker(i was making some Nice bamboo charcoalm, and it did seems cool to the touch, i even had my hand down inside the bucket feeling for embers, not smat anyway)

 

Theres a fantastic story i have, that you can watch, it was my super sparkler i made. It ended up ignighting all at once, resulting a quite a large fireball, scared the crap out of me, and now have fully re grown the hair that was singed off my hand and arm. Its on my youtube account, under the name "Super Sparkler"

 

Another stupid thing was, when i was preparing my Lead tetraoxide (in the tut's section) i splashed a small amount of NaOH/KOH and H2O2 mixture into my right eye. Luckly i was by a sink, and was able to wash it out immidiatly, nowi use a larger reaction vessle so i dont have to transfer while the reation is taking place.

 

 

but knock-on-wood i havent burned myself with fireworks(Exept the time i was 6 and grabed the hot wire of a sparkler, and severly burned my hand) I have burned my self many times while cooking(Both at school and home) mostly catching a hot tray, or having the pot holder fold over and expose my bare hand/tumb to hot stuff.

[Mumbles]

I think the real question is why you weren't wearing any sort of eye or face protection. It's crucial, and outside of wearing gloves, is probably the simplest and most effective piece of PPE.

 

I think you guys forget that burning charcoal is exothermic. Just because it's mostly cool doesn't mean it will stay that way. One ember, with appropriate oxygen can heat up or ignite all the charcoal in the container. Just cover it with aluminum foil and leave it outside on a fireproof surface overnight.

[firetech]

I stepped on a soldering gun once. It took my a second or two to realize where the odd pinching was coming from on the ground (it fell off its table when I left the room for a moment). Luckily my feet were so caloused from walking barefoot in the summer that I did not get badly burned.

[Twotails]

The reason i had no safty sheild was, It started to spill over, and me, being me, tried to get it over to a bigger vessle without much spillige. I should have just let it react, and spill, it's not like what i used were expensive. oh well, lessons learned

 

and for the super sparkler, I did have safty glasses on, had a feeling.

Edited November 30, 2009 by Twotails

[gordohigh]

When I was very young, back in tthe 70's, I was working in the pool industry and had a drum of calcium hypochlorite in the bed of my truck. I also had a bottle of brake fluid, because the master cylinder on the truck had a slow leak and the company was too cheap to fix it. Anyway, the bottle managed to start leaking one day and soaked the bottom of the cardboard drum and yes, it ignited and the whole bed went up in flames. The fire dept came and put it out and gave me a nice lecture about chems mixing, they were actually cool about it and although scarey, nobody got hurt. I have always been very cautious about mixing chemicals since that day so a lesson was learned. Calcium chloride can be quite dangerous if people don't know the properties of it and it deserves a lot of respect!!

 

PS the company fixed the master cylinder when they had the bed fixed.

[andyboy]

calcium hypochlorite + brake fluid = flames.

 

Nice, I will have to try that out some day, on a smaller scale though.

[Ralph]

Calcium chloride can be quite dangerous if people don't know the properties of it and it deserves a lot of respect!!

you mean calcium hypochlorite this is a "recipie" used by kwels the world over in improvised explosives if you want an auto ignition comp try something like ralphXXX (crappy spin off of negative X) ratios are 5/3/3/1 KNO₃ / Sulfur/Spherical aluminium (200-400mesh no finer) /NaOH the first 3 ingredients may be mixed together the NaOH must only be added immediately before used or may be sprinkled on top a drop of water is added and moments later a blinding white flame erpts from the composition

[50AE]

I'll report my first accident guys

 

It happened yesterday night, I decided to light some stars just for fun.

I took one of each of my favorite organic red and blue colored stars primed with meal and I went to the testing area.

I put the first star on the ground aside, I lit the second, it went ok. Then I lit the first, everything was ok.

Then it seemed to me that the blue color was ugly and I decided to test two more blue stars.

 

I put the first star on ground, but this time I was holding the second one in my right hand's fist. I thought it will be safe there.

When I touched the first star on the ground with the ignition stick, it went "whooosh", and then... the fire of the star unnoticeably slipped through my fingers

The second star in my fist went WHOOSH. Woaaaw!

I dropped the burning star and I ran to the bathroom to wash my hand with cold water. Then I understood what kind of pain was waiting for me.

My mom was still awake, so I asked her for a special anti-burns balm, which helps a little.

After maybe 5 minutes, the pain came. Nor the words here, nor the photos of the injury can describe how powerful it is. It was very, very awful, I had no morphine or something similair. Most times I wanted to shout from the pain, but I couldn't, because it was 23:30 PM.

After one hour, it still hurted. But I successfuly outsmarted the pain by thinking of something else and so I slept.

 

I woke up with a big blister on my ring finger, and three tiny ones on my palm. Some parts of my palm are saved from blisters, because of the thick skin I get from lifting weights in the gym (calluses).

 

Conclusion : 1st and 2nd degree burns on the hand!

Lesson learned : Never hold a star or another ignitable mix or device in your hand while lighting another. Even if the star is tightly closed in your hand, which was my case!

 

It's amazing how passfire can surprise you with the unexpected.

 

Now I can use my hand to type on the keyboard, but I'll have to skip the gym for a week maybe .

 

But I'm still happy! It could've been worse. What if it was a metallic fueled stars I don't wanna know.

 

The photos:

 

At night: (ignore the black stuff, it's copper oxide)

http://store.picbg.net/thumb/4F/5D/52b1584177be4f5d.JPG

 

In the morning:

http://store.picbg.net/thumb/6E/82/cb267467a83b6e82.JPG

Edited May 21, 2010 by 50AE

[Ventsi]

Ouch!! That actually remind me of an accident I had, where a 3lb sugar rocket went off with my open hand right under the nozzle. As you said, aside from the prescription strength pain killers I had later that day, nothing could stop the pain, I had a big heart shaped bubble for about a week. Yes, I was branded by pyro in a way....

[Steps]

 

 

Conclusion : 1st and 2nd degree burns on the hand!

Lesson learned : Never hold a star or another ignitable mix or device in your hand while lighting another. Even if the star is tightly closed in your hand, which was my case!

 

 

Similiar thing happened to one of my aquaintances while he was drunk lighting stars and throwing them .

He learnt the exact same lesson, except he had a fistful of glitter stars in his hand and was lighting stars in the same hand. I would have sent in a nomination for a darwin award if he had passed away.

[gordohigh]

you mean calcium hypochlorite this is a "recipie" used by kwels the world over in improvised explosives if you want an auto ignition comp try something like ralphXXX (crappy spin off of negative X) ratios are 5/3/3/1 KNO₃ / Sulfur/Spherical aluminium (200-400mesh no finer) /NaOH the first 3 ingredients may be mixed together the NaOH must only be added immediately before used or may be sprinkled on top a drop of water is added and moments later a blinding white flame erpts from the composition

 

 

Yes, Hypochlorite, don't know why I missed that. I never knew about the kewls using that recipe, very dangerous.

[Zeus]

Hope I don't get flamed for kicking this, I learnt about armstrong's mix and confinment a year ago (yesterday).

 

Never confine let alone compress that stuff, don't touch it at all.

 

I mixed maybe a grain 50/50 armstrong's and match powder, compress it in a PC board standoff with a 3 mm lead ball in the end.

 

Guess what happened then, I ended up with the ball nearly through my finger, and the entry wound looked like a volcano.

 

I've learnt since then, don't judge me on this incident, I'm now paranoid about safety, I don't know how you can keep steady hands doing this stuff.

 

Not stopping me from trying a few things though.

 

Lachlan

[Gunzway]

Thanks for sharing Lachlan.

 

Sharing mishaps and our mistakes is something I believe is of great importance; especially in this hobby . While it is not a good thing people have such mishaps, telling people about them can potentially mean others don't have to learn from it by first hand experience. At least one good consequence from most non-life changing accidents is that we learn from it and we're A LOT more careful from then on. I hope you made a full recovery as fingers can be damaged permanently quite easily.

[dagabu]

Hope I don't get flamed for kicking this, I learnt about armstrong's mix and confinment a year ago (yesterday).

 

Never confine let alone compress that stuff, don't touch it at all.

 

I mixed maybe a grain 50/50 armstrong's and match powder, compress it in a PC board standoff with a 3 mm lead ball in the end.

 

Guess what happened then, I ended up with the ball nearly through my finger, and the entry wound looked like a volcano.

 

I've learnt since then, don't judge me on this incident, I'm now paranoid about safety, I don't know how you can keep steady hands doing this stuff.

 

Not stopping me from trying a few things though.

 

Lachlan

 

For those that do not know, Armstrong's mix is also called a Death Mix informally just for this reason. I wont flame you but a good kick in the pants for doing that would not be out of order either.

 

As for judgment, we have all made mistakes and now you get to share your mistake with others and explain why you should never make Armstrong's.

[FREAKYDUTCHMEN]

Zeus, great sharing your story. People can learn from it.

 

I'm pretty curious about someone else's accident, but I think he will never tell. I think most people here know who I'm talking about.

 

 

It's good to learn from each others mistakes, it would and it does make our passion a lot safer.