Moments from disaster.. share your stories

[Claud]

Working on a rooftop years ago. It was a hot day and I had my boiler suir unbuttoned. A wasp got trapped in there and stung me, as it flew away I tried to take a swipe at it. Luckily a workmate was standing next to me and grabbed me before i stepped off the edge of a three storey building bent on swatting that pesky wasp...

Claud.

 

[Dave Sherman]

Changing the clutch in the Midget, I had bought a CHEAP come-along, suspended from the roof truss in the garage, to pull the engine. Pulled the engine out, had pushed the car out of the way, and a buddy of mine up on a step stool started ratcheting the engine down. Click. Click. Click. I was just reaching for the stands to prop up the engine, and both ratchets let go, dropping the engine from 3 feet up on the floor, narrowly missing my foot. Fortunately the car was out of the way and it was when it was coming out, not going back in. Flattened one corner of the oil pan slightly, but the engine stayed upright. Rented an engine hoist to go back in, come-along went in the trash.

 

[ragtoplvr]

I found myself looking at wedding rings one day.

Rod

 

[Hal-9000]

Does anyone here know what a paragraph is?

 

[Benzadmiral]

With my very first car, the '75 Ford Maverick sedan, when I l lived in Lafayette, LA. Getting ready to head down to Gnaw-luns, I did my usual visual check of everything before going to gas up. The top radiator hose had a bulge in it -- made me think of TV doctor dramas and aortal aneurysms. Carefully I drove to the parts store for the replacement hose, changed it (easy to do on that Ford 6), and topped off the coolant. There are long lonely stretches between exits on that 2-hour, 120-mile trip to Da Swamp -- and this was 1977, long before cell phones. No telling what might have happened. . . .

 

[Benzadmiral]

Does anyone here know what a paragraph is?

I can't do that, Hal.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Come to think of it . . . I was heading back late one night from Ville Platte after my 6-to-midnight air shift at the radio station there. On a dark stretch of a state highway, I came around a curve and saw brake lights flare on the vehicle ahead of me. I slowed down in plenty of time.

Then something tall and dark flashed past my driver's window -- I barely made out a silhouette of some kind against the night sky. Whatever it was, it was taller than the Ford Maverick's roof. Shook me up quite a bit, even after I realized that it was probably a deer bounding down the highway. The other driver had braked for it, and it leaped past me in a straight line up the road. If I'd been ahead of the other guy, who knows if I'd have seen the beast in time to brake.

 

[AutoMechanic]

Working under a car and a coworker started it up and nearly took my fingers off he had heard the person in the bay next to me yell clear to start. Also when I was in a shop helping a friend and someone burnt it to the ground I was on the other side and had to run around the fire to the door he was welding and someone was taking down a gas tank and spilt the gas and a spark hit it we all thought we were goners then. The shop and everything in it was a total loss at least none of my stuff was in there. The shop got a total rebuild and upgrade after that. Also seen a coworker catch himself on fire too but that’s not me luckily but it was a scary experience still.

 

[UncleDave]

1987

I got this deathtrap old T Bucket to about 110 on a country road and almost lost it.

0 safety gear
Steering play a good 1/3 turn
Brakes - almost non existant

Im lucky to be alive.

Only picture I have was towing it from Torrance Ca to Wheat Field Indiana.