Injury while doing firewood.

[lml999]

I'm old enough that I hurt myself doing stupid things, but young enough that I'm not ready to admit to any of it in public.

I was doing something McGyverish, that could have turned out poorly... My wife was impressed with the McGyvering part and grabbed her phone, thinking she would record/post a video. Um, no. Put the phone down. I'll wait.

(I won't go into details, but it involved using an aluminum racing floor jack and a couple of 2x4s to lift something heavy/bulky from the floor to carrying height. It went fine, but in retrospect, I should have asked the assistant in the shower who hands me my shampoo to help with this task...)

 

[Isaac Carlson]

I was doing something McGyverish, that could have turned out poorly... My wife was impressed with the McGyvering part and grabbed her phone, thinking she would record/post a video. Um, no. Put the phone down. I'll wait.

(I won't go into details, but it involved using an aluminum racing floor jack and a couple of 2x4s to lift something heavy/bulky from the floor to carrying height. It went fine, but in retrospect, I should have asked the assistant in the shower who hands me my shampoo to help with this task...)

I don't think I want to ask what you were lifting....or if things were embellished a bit.🫣

 

[ericm979]

(I won't go into details, but it involved using an aluminum racing floor jack and a couple of 2x4s to lift something heavy/bulky from the floor to carrying height.

I almost lost an eye doing something similar. I was using a trolley jack with a 2x4 long ways to jack up the side of a barn I was rebuilding. The 2x4 shot out and nailed me in the face just below my eye. Fortunately the only damage was a nasty black eye.

I always wear safety glasses when doing anything remotely risky now and don't try to extend jacks like that.

 

[j7art2]

I had two this year.

Elbow surgery to fix the last 10 years I've been ignoring my tennis elbow from an entire lifetime of stacking wood along with 4 bone spurs removed in early October, and 3 weeks after, while doing firewood for physical therapy, had a 150lb oak round fall on my thumb after my pickaroon slip out and crush it between the handle of the pickaroon (which is all steel and homemade) and the corner of the round.

Turns out after multiple x-rays and comparing over the years, my thumb has been actually broken for the last 8 years after sustaining another injury and technically also requires surgery to be 100%, and I simply didn't realize it. This crush injury caused the bone shard to move in my thumb and tear out of the existing scar tissue enough to require taping for a month. Once the doc determined that it wasn't a new injury and that the shard simply had become dislodged from the significant amount of scar tissue I have there, his response was "give it a month to re-encapsulate and we'll re-evaluate.

Luckily I'm good now. I never stopped doing wood since I'm a bit short this year, but splitting half a driveway full of rounds with a taped and broken thumb was exciting. No rest for the wicked, and I'm certainly not bouncing back like I was when I was 25, but work doesn't stop simply because I'm hurt.

 

[lml999]

I don't think I want to ask what you were lifting....or if things were embellished a bit.🫣

Embellished? That's my middle name...

...but seriously...I was lifting an older 12K window air conditioner (really heavy and akward sucker) from the floor to a carrying position. I had moved it from our second floor storage area with a hand truck. I probably had no business trying to do it myself, or putting it into the window without some help. I'm not *quite* as young as I used to be...

So...it went off without incident. And after the end of the season, i sold both of the 12K units and we made do with 8K units for a year or two. Then this year we chucked them all and went with a sweet multizone mini split/heat pump system. It's now November 30 and the boiler has not been used for heating yet this year. The heat pumps, according to Mitsubishi, are good for pretty much any temperature we'll get on the cape, and the stove covers a decent portion of the house...

 

[lml999]

I always wear safety glasses when doing anything remotely risky now and don't try to extend jacks like that.

I keep reminding myself not to wear flip flops in the summer when I'm splitting wood. I've done it a couple of times and fortunately, have nothing to report.

 

[Ashful]

I will saw and split in shorts, but I always go for the ultra-fashionable choice of logging boots while working firewood, even when in shorts.

 

[Isaac Carlson]

I get hot when cutting wood, so I wear what's comfortable. I had to wear all the safety gear when working with tree companies, and had too many close calls and heat stroke episodes. I told the boss he could fire me if he wanted, but I would not wear it anymore. He didn't fire me and I did a lot better.

 

[Billijak]

1984...moved back to my hometown...new job at the local High School - music teacher. Cousin of my mom's asked for help cutting down a large cottonwood in the front yard of his mother's. I was in the tree , sitting on a large branch, my back against the main trunk, cutting in front of me..(not behind ). Cut through the branch, tree whipped forward and back as it dropped...and 18 ft later I was on the ground with a small branch in my side and ankle folded underneath me. Saved the saw...it was tied off in the tree! Waited 45 minutes for ambulance from the next town with a hospital. Broken ankle fixed with surgery - 4 stainless steel pins - and a cast. I was the new Band/Chorus director, so the next few weeks marching band was taught from the seat of a golf cart.

I no longer climb trees.

 

[GrumpyDad]

Embellished? That's my middle name...

...but seriously...I was lifting an older 12K window air conditioner (really heavy and akward sucker) from the floor to a carrying position. I had moved it from our second floor storage area with a hand truck. I probably had no business trying to do it myself, or putting it into the window without some help. I'm not *quite* as young as I used to be...

So...it went off without incident. And after the end of the season, i sold both of the 12K units and we made do with 8K units for a year or two. Then this year we chucked them all and went with a sweet multizone mini split/heat pump system. It's now November 30 and the boiler has not been used for heating yet this year. The heat pumps, according to Mitsubishi, are good for pretty much any temperature we'll get on the cape, and the stove covers a decent portion of the house...

I lifted a 20k unit out of a large window every fall and every spring. That sucked so bad I can't begin to describe it.