Ouch!!

Here is today's lesson:
When using a chainsaw, always use two hands to hold the chainsaw, and wear gloves.

I should be relieved I didn't cut my bloody hand off. Quel con!

In full Spring mode, I had cut back a hazel nut tree and was using the chain saw to cut up the trunks and branches for firewood in a few years. My chainsaw is quite light, it has a 40 cm blade. Fiona was using shears to cut off the smaller branches, some of which we'll keep for kindling and the rest will be put on the bonfire.

I had developed the lazy and dangerous habit of sometimes holding a slimmer branch in my left hand and the chainsaws one-handed in my right, and using the chainsaw to trim off twiggy bits.

Suddenly the chain bit into the junction between twig and branch and pulled the branch (and my hand) into the chain.

Some choice swear words followed, followed by the immnse relief that my stupidity had only inflicted a small wound and not left me handicapped and unemployable.

Because I'm a craven coward I decided immediately that I didn't have to see a doctor. A doctor might decide to stitch it! Lots of thick dark blood pouring out of it convinced me that it was flushed clean. Obviously I wasn't going to be catching tiles at the factory the next day. I phoned in to tell them, and the next day saw the doctor to get signed off for a day or two. The toubib signed me off for a week! Happy days! The weather report says subshine through to Sunday.

The baby with the bathwater

New York dog sucked into street cleaner

These machines are supposed to sweep up the dog-shit, not the dog as well!

The 57-year-old said he believed the truck had exceeded the speed limit in the area and was investigating legal options.
The city Department of Sanitation called the incident "a rare and unfortunate accident."

I'm sure these machines are more complicated to manoevre than you might imagine.

I while ago I made a post about the guy at the factory who got his head crushed in the machinery.

Apparantly he was a bit of a numpty before the accident. His air-headedness was probably a major factor in the accident occuring. Anyway, he's back at work and more doolaly than before. So the bosses are thinking what they can do with him so he won't be a danger to himself and others.

"I know", says one, "we can put him on the sweeping machine. He can drive around, sweeping up. What harm can come from that?"

So we'd gotten used to seeing him driving around on this machine, a bit like the ones you see at airports, it's got rotating brushes and a big vacuum cleaner and an orange flashing light. The guys at work swap stories at the breaks of his latest exploits. For example, he was seen driving the thing outdoors, taking it to one of the tips, to empty it. It had been raining and he was driving it, with brushes and vacuum going, through all the mud and puddles, great clods of mud flying about. The machine had to spend a day having the mud cleeared out of it and having the brushes replaced.

I was at my press when I heard him in the corridor behind me, seemingly stuck on tight lock, the machine whirling round like a mad thing, with him clinging on, mouth open, eyes half closed. There was a great burnt rubber scorch mark on the floor after he'd gone.

It's very sad really.

The end came, we had just left for our break, and Mr Sweeper Man was in action nearby. We came back from the break, and the press was dead. No power to the console. or to any of the other consoles on the line. How mysterious. Pascal immediately asked Mr Sweeper Man if he had accidentally bumped anything. He pointed to one of the bank of electrical cabinets that line the wall.
Bugger.
We called the electricians. They poked about with their testers trying to find the answer. The answer was in front of us. If we had only followed the clear vacuumed path of the sweeper we would have seen it leading directly to one of the electrical cabinets. And we would have seen that 4 banks of circuit breakers had been "swept" by the machine as it did a tight turn. the end result was 2 hours of the presses out of action and an electrical engineer having to upload the presses' programs from a laptop.
And while that was going on, Mr. Sweeper Man went and DID THE SAME THING at the other side of the factory, taking out the robot arms that pack the tiles onto pallets.

It's not funny, it's tragic. I haven't seen him since. Those sweeper machines weigh a ton. they have steerable rear wheels like a forklift and are avery bit as dangerous. I hope they find a decent solution for him.

It is of such things that legends are made. The still tell of the maniak fork-lift driver, who, while loading a german lorry, put his forks through the tyres, bursting them with a loud explosion. He also knocked over a lorry load of tomatoes while putting tiles into a truck that was going to carry a shared load. And also put his fork-lift through a brick wall, and when found, in his fork-lift, surrounded by bricks and dust said "It wasn't me"

Trauma!

Short version: Our son Callan fell and broke his arm, Monday night. Pompiers, hospital, operation, tension.

Long Version:
You may have seen the video of Callan doing wall flips. He's very keen on gymnastics and free running and parcour. He's a fan of David Belle and he often practices his moves on the steps and walls of the village.
It was abut 6:30 in the evening, I was on the computer when I heard the strange, loud shouting from outside. I leapt up and opened the door, there was Callan holding his arm, face as white as a sheet.
"I don't believe it!" he shouted, "I've broken my arm, I don't believe it. Is this a dream?"
His forarm was bent down and hanging and looked wrong. It just looked WRONG.
Fiona sat him on her lap in the kitchen and held him still. He was moaning and saying "ow, ow", but not crying. I asked Fi if we should take him direct to the hospital ourselves or call the pompiers. She wanted to call the pompiers, because she didn't think it would be a good idea to drive the 40 minutes to the hospital trying not to bounce his arm around in the car.
I dialled 18 and the phone was answered immediately. I told them what had happened and where we were. They sent the ambulance out immediately and then transfered me to SAMU. The SAMU guy asked for more detail - how high had the fall been, did he hit his head, had he always been conscious, was there an open wound?
What he'd done, the silly bugger, was a vault over a rail, on top of a wall. It was a vault he'd done often before, but this time his foot caught the rail, he fell the three feet onto the wall, which broke his arm, and then a further four feet to the ground. He then had to walk the 50 yards back to the house, holding his floppy arm.
Sitting on Fi's lap, waiting for the ambulance, I told Callan he was going to have to be brave. I told him he was going to have to show true courage, the kind where you know that pain and bad times are ahead and you have to just take it. I told him the ambulance ride was going to be uncomfortable, and it was going to hurt when they immobilise his arm and get him into the ambulance.
I phoned a neighbour to take care of Briony while we went to the hospital. Alexandra and Didier Quichaud have three little boys and they are the best of people. They kept Briony overnight, and the next morning I picked her up and got her sorted out for school. Briony was an angel, and took all this mayhem without any fuss.
The pompiers arrived in about ten minutes, sirens on the go. Four of them, plus Fi and me made for a crowded kitchen. They put an inflatable sling around his arm with an ice pack. Once they had him in the ambulance, they were messing about with oxygen levels and pulse meters, so I left Fiona to go with them in the ambulance while I went ahead to the hospital.
It worked well, because I got the Emergency guys to fill out all the info on computer before they arrived. They took him straight in and slapped in a drip with paracetemol and saline. Being the evening there was no chance of getting it reset until the next day. They x-rayed and the pictures showed both radius and ulna broken, in a splintery sort of long break, and the two bones were displaced and overlapping a bit. I thought to myself that it would be tricky resetting it.
This whole time the little soul hadn't shed a tear. He was writhing when the pain surged, or when he had to be moved and gritting his teeth, but he took it better than I would have. If it had been me the air would have been blue.
The nurses put his arm in plaster to stop it moving during the night. He was put in a room in the pediatric wing and Fiona stayed with him overnight. They have fold out beds for the accompanying parent in the room. Fiona had a rough night, as Callan slept fitfully, and each time either of them got to sleep it seemed the nurses had to come in to change drips or take temperatures or something. I slept badly too, and couldn't get the image of his arm all bent out of shape out of my head.
He went in to have the arm reset under anaesthetic at 11:00 am. They said he'd be back after an hour. It was over three hours before he returned. The break was comlicated and they had to put two metal rods, INSIDE each bone, the full length of the forearm. Post-op x-rays show that he'll be setting off metal detectors for a while. I told him he was like Wolverine from X-men.
He then had a crap day, in pain as the anaesthetic wore off, but slowly improving as the immobilised arm settled down. The nurses kept him topped up with paracetemol and anti-inflamatories.
He had to stay another night and I took over from Fi so she could go home and sleep. The next day (that's today) another x-ray to check that nothing had shifted during the night. The surgeon said the metal bars will stay for six months and then another operation to take them out. He came home at 6:00 this evening and is a lot better for being at home and having the drip removed from his arm. How crap must it be to try and sleep, in pain, with one arm broken and immobilised and the other arm trailing plastic pipe that gets tangled on the bed ironware every time you move?
So, there it is. Could have been worse. Much gratitude to friend and neighbours, people who step up in a crisis - Alexandra and Didier for looking after Briony, and to our friend Bernadette Helou who brought them home from the hospital, pompiers, nurses, doctors, and surgeons, cleaners and cooks, Carte Vitale and mutuelle.

Health & Safety

While I've been on my 4 days end of shift rest, a guy on another shift was nearly killed when his head got squashed by machinery. More on that later.

Accident statistics in France are calculated thus:
In your working career you would work for 42 years.
There are 52 weeks in a year, at 5 days a week that gives 260 working days. Allowing for holidays, public holidays & stuff we'll go with 200 working days a year at 8 hours a day which gives us 1600 working hours in a year, thus a career of 67,200 hours.
If we allow for one serious accident in your working career we go with the calulation of 1/67,200 which is a small number so we multiply by a million to get something useful. It comes out at 14.8, say 15.
So if yoy have one serious accident in your working career you've hit an accident frequency level of 15.
In France, the national average is 45. That is, 3 serious accidents in a working career. Now, say the average company has 200 employees. At the national average of 3, there will be 600 serious accidents at that "average" factory during the 42 years the "average" employee is there.
A serious accident is defined as one where you have to have time off to recuperate.
For every 600 serious accidents there will be 60 very serious accidents, ie: loss of a finger/hand/eye or some other kind of handicapping/debiltating accident.
And for every 60 very serious accidents there will be one death.
Remember these are averages. Some factories may have no deaths in 42 years, some may have more than one.
In France, all companies have to declare what their accident frequency level is.
At our factory it is currently below 2. This is very good. It also means that if you are going for a job interview at a factory, ask to see their accident frequency level. If it is over 15, consider not working there, because the chances are, during your career there there will be one death and 60 very serious accidents. And it could be you!
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Back to this numpty that got his head squashed. I can call him a numpty because it looks like he's going to be OK. If he had died my tone might have been more somber.
It seems that at the end of his post, at 3;30 in the morning, he clumbed UNDER a safety barrier on all fours with a broom to start cleaning up, WITHOUT stopping the machinery. While under the machinery, 2 massive steel bars descended to pick up a line of tiles and his head got squashed under the bars.
When he emerged, with blood coming from his ears and mouth he had a broken jaw, a fractured skull, and both cheekbones crushed. He washed the blood from his face and went to the boss's office. The boss called the emergency services immidiately and he was taken to the ER at St Junian where he was x-rayed and them immediately transferred to Limoges for mor x-rays and scans.
Luckily he never lost consciousness and no brain damage sustained. He will start reconstructive surgury on his jaw and cheekbones tomorrow.
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Don't mess with big dangerous hydraulic machinery and never run with scissors!