My workplace injury (warning graphic photos)

[XARATE]

Hey guys just thought share my experience of a work place injury

First off a big thankyou to my boss, all the staff at concord burns unit in sydney who were awesome and so happy for such a downer of a place, workcover for being easy to deal with and my family for the support


Was at work doing a distributer replacement on an early model falcon. im pretty small in size to the point where i can easyly reach the distributer. Anyway did the job and the customer picked it up, came back later and reports that it wasnt as powerful as before "no prob mate i'll add a bit more timing".

Now the car was at operating temprature so i put on what we at work call a "hot sleeve" it like a like skin tight fingerless glove that covers your entire arm from the armpit to the palm of your hand. The sleeve allows you to rest your arm against hot (engine operating temp) objects without burning yourself

So i reach in to adjust the timing and as i do i put just the slightest of all pressure against the top radiator hose amd BAM! Theres an explosion of hot coolant that blasts my arm and burns me throught the material of the sleeve.*
Im swearing and cursing and run to the shower while undressing. Jump in for a few minutes and the boss drives me in his car (im soaking wet) to the hospital.

I got it bandaged, pumped full of morphine (which made the pain 100x worse) and spent the night there*
The next day i flew to sydney and attended an appointment at concord burns unit, they scrubbed the burnt skin off and applyied "biobrane"*

Flew back amd forwards for a few weeks for treatment and was healed completely with NO scars!!!
The nurses and doctors at concord burns unit are amazing, they kept me laughing the whole time with their jokes and antics.

The cause of the burn was an inproper repair to the radiator. The neck for the top hose had broken off with only 3mm left to clamp the hose on. The 3mm was enough for day to day driving but the added pressure of me touching it blew it off. It was so close to coming off that a simple prod off the finger would of set it off.

Would like to hear others experinces with work place injurys

The burn before treatment










The treatment with biobrane





Two weeks After treatment

[XRGhia]

Damn, good job there...!


Goes to show, that anything incorrectly fitted can cause a lot of **** to occur...

[TheZHLANE]

Bloody Hell, hope you are going well now!

[Neale]

so lucky that you had the hot sleave on. also lucky it didnt get you in the face.

Its amazing how clever those doctors & nurses are to be able to keep you in good spirits & how well its come along in just 2 weeks

[XARATE]

Yeah im all good now thanks actually hapoen a few months ago. Looking at my arm now you would never notice it had been burnt, medical technology has come so far.

[buggo]

Far out mate that looks freakin painful. It's great it didn't scar mate, looks like it could have very easily left something to remember it by.

[SM1DY]

I was doing a colourbond roof up the north end of the Gold Coast one Friday, it was the show holiday that day (02/09/11) and I chose to work so I could get the monday after the AFL and NRL grandfinal's off.

My old man was down on the ground cutting the roof sheets and me and another guy were putting them in. The old fella cut one of the roof sheets the wrong length and made it to short, but we put it in anyway so we could get the gap to the next roof sheet and continue on, we planned to replace it later.

After lunch we moved onto another section of roof to get that going and the old boy passed up a roof sheet about 5m long. I walk across the roof looking at where I need to be instead of where I was going and step straight through the gap in the roof we had left earlier, drop the roof sheet, front of my leg just below my shin hits the jagged edge of the short sheet and splits it wide open.

Anyway, hear is the money shot -




And, as of right now -



Couldn't walk for a week, and had a limp for about 6 weeks. Flew down the Hway to Robina Hospital because my mother is a nursing administrator or some s*** there, waited about 1hr went in got fixed up and was out by 5:30pm after getting there about 1:30pm. The worst part about it all was that I missed the Hawks v Suns game a Metricon the next day.

[Neale]

I dont want to come across as hijacking this thread but, you said you wanted to hear other peoples experiences with work place injuries.

As far as work place injuries go, the last place I worked at was pretty bad.

So many stories because the boss was old school & thought safety was for wusses. Because I was fresh out of school I didnt know any better.

I remember cutting a sheet of plastic on a table saw, when I asked him where the safety galsses were, he just said just close your eyes when you start cutting :0

You werent considered by everyone that worked there "one of the boys" until
the boss injured you in one way or another.

My old boss was was one of those bull at a gate or rip, tear & bust kind of guys. Which always ment he wasnt really concentrating on what he was doing.

Everyone had their story. I got a gash in the head by the corner of a sheet of colourbond that he pulled out of the rack & didnt tell me that he was doing.

He also nearly ran over me when I was working under a vehicle he decided he was going to move it without checking first. He stated it up & then straight away started to drive it. He only stopped when I started to hit the side off the car.

Other guys were worse off, eg. he knocked out one guy with the truck mounted hiab crane arm. Another got his tendons slashed in his hand when the boss started pulling a large sheet of aluminium before he had a proper hold of it.

The best part of it all was the first aid kit never had anything more than some betadine & cotton buds, so if you cut yourself you were told to just wrap it up with some masking tape which was called a "tradies band-aid"

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by Neale

I dont want to come across as hijacking this thread but, you said you wanted to hear other peoples experiences with work place injuries.

As far as work place injuries go, the last place I worked at was pretty bad.

So many stories because the boss was old school & thought safety was for wusses. Because I was fresh out of school I didnt know any better.

I remember cutting a sheet of plastic on a table saw, when I asked him where the safety galsses were, he just said just close your eyes when you start cutting :0

You werent considered by everyone that worked there "one of the boys" until
the boss injured you in one way or another.

My old boss was was one of those bull at a gate or rip, tear & bust kind of guys. Which always ment he wasnt really concentrating on what he was doing.

Everyone had their story. I got a gash in the head by the corner of a sheet of colourbond that he pulled out of the rack & didnt tell me that he was doing.

He also nearly ran over me when I was working under a vehicle he decided he was going to move it without checking first. He stated it up & then straight away started to drive it. He only stopped when I started to hit the side off the car.

Other guys were worse off, eg. he knocked out one guy with the truck mounted hiab crane arm. Another got his tendons slashed in his hand when the boss started pulling a large sheet of aluminium before he had a proper hold of it.

The best part of it all was the first aid kit never had anything more than some betadine & cotton buds, so if you cut yourself you were told to just wrap it up with some masking tape which was called a "tradies band-aid"

Hope I never end up working for this idiot(your old boss). Sounds like a (W) anchor. Injured workers work less than uninjured workers!

[Alby1]

Have the exact cut on my shin from metal roof,
I went to a trade safety meeting the other night and supposedly new legislation is coming in so there is more responsibility on the individual. Abit random i know but i thought it has a little to do with this topic

[THE SLUG]

Jeez, that's a nasty burn mate, it must of been very painful. Lucky you were wearing the sleeve!

[bob^]

I feel sorry for the bloke in the background of your 3rd photo :(

[XARATE]

Yeah the poor bloke recieved burns to 95% of his body after he tried lighting a metho fueled bbq and accidently got it on himself
He was there for therapy where they physically moved all his limbs through their full range of movement. After seeing him tear up in pain i felt lucky and never complained.

[Stefan]

Originally Posted by Neale

I dont want to come across as hijacking this thread but, you said you wanted to hear other peoples experiences with work place injuries.

As far as work place injuries go, the last place I worked at was pretty bad.

So many stories because the boss was old school & thought safety was for wusses. Because I was fresh out of school I didnt know any better.

I remember cutting a sheet of plastic on a table saw, when I asked him where the safety galsses were, he just said just close your eyes when you start cutting :0

You werent considered by everyone that worked there "one of the boys" until
the boss injured you in one way or another.

My old boss was was one of those bull at a gate or rip, tear & bust kind of guys. Which always ment he wasnt really concentrating on what he was doing.

Everyone had their story. I got a gash in the head by the corner of a sheet of colourbond that he pulled out of the rack & didnt tell me that he was doing.

He also nearly ran over me when I was working under a vehicle he decided he was going to move it without checking first. He stated it up & then straight away started to drive it. He only stopped when I started to hit the side off the car.

Other guys were worse off, eg. he knocked out one guy with the truck mounted hiab crane arm. Another got his tendons slashed in his hand when the boss started pulling a large sheet of aluminium before he had a proper hold of it.

The best part of it all was the first aid kit never had anything more than some betadine & cotton buds, so if you cut yourself you were told to just wrap it up with some masking tape which was called a "tradies band-aid"

Sounds like my Dad....very old school with an absolute disregard to the safety of people around him.

But I think that is how Tradies were a few decades ago.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Geeze... amazing how good it looks towards the end. To think how far we have progressed medically, and to think what is just around the corner.

[Peter B - CV8]

Glad to hear & see that you've recovered nicely. Whoever did the bodgey radiator repair should be made aware of what happened (due to their negligence). What was the car owner's reaction ???
I'm not suggesting that you sue them or anything (given that you've fully recovered) - but maybe make then sweat a bit... People need to know what can happen when you take shortcuts....

[hawke]

Burn injuries of that nature can have long term consiquences. There are very specific and non changable time frames in lodging CTP - Motor Vehicle - claims. Your legal advisor should give you some specific advice on your entitlement.

Your employer should have lodged the claim with his Workers Compensation Insurer. There are provisions there to assist you if you have some perminant imparement.

[XARATE]

I cant say who was at fault due to legal reasons, the owner of the car didmt really react he just wanted to know how much longer we were going to be to fix it and later said i shouldnt of had my hand in there :-/

On the compo side of things all my transport and medical bill were paid for by work cover and i got my usual pay for every week that i was off work (2.5 weeks lol) they really looked after me and ensured that the best available treatment was available and that i was looked after, my boss made the process 100x easyier as he didnt argue or say it was my fault. He was there for anything i needed.
My arm is perfectly fine now with no scaring so i dont want any payout or compo. It would be wrong of me to do so

[XARATE]

Dont mind the dirt i just finnished work

[creative]

Not a workplace injury but I had a very similar experience.

My supra overheated one day. I was leaning over the engine bay with my hands on the slam panel keeping well away from the rad cap. What I didn't realize was I was directly over the expansion bottle the popped it's lid off.




After 2 weeks it looked like a zombie arm!



If I had been 30 cm to the right, it would of been a very different outcome.

My arm also looks as if there was nothing ever wrong. I do have a very feignt line where the new skin starts but you really can't tell without me pointing it out

[Falcman0o7]

That sux mate! Hot water burns like fire! remember that add? Glad you are coming right. The skin is pretty unreal at healing thank god!
Gook luck buddy

[buggerlugs]

That is amazing, the recovery of your arm. Did you ever hear how that poor bugger with the 95% burns faired ?