Great Escapes. Or, how to live to tell the tale

[FourstrokeForever]

Well, I'm sitting here at the keyboard feeling a bit sore but glad to still have both my legs and arms.

There I was doing some tree surgery yesterday which included the use of my trusty Stihl chainsaw and a 16 foot extension ladder to remove some unwanted upper branches that were hanging over the neighbours yard. No body was home. Just me, the chainsaw and the owners dog.

I stood back and thought about what I was doing before I ventured into the task. The extension ladder was firm and steady. Nothing around me that would impede my progress. Trajectory of the falling limb planned. Nothing will get broken.....

I started the chainsaw before I climbed the ladder to near the top and proceeded to cut the branch. All was good until the ladder decided it was time to bend and the two ladder pieces part company. Chainsaw still revving to the moon as I plummet the 12 or so feet to earth with legs tangled in the ladder steps and the tree branch coming down after me. You know that feeling you get when you know this is about to hurt.....well I hit the deck with a thud. I lay there stunned for what seemed like minutes before I realised what had happened. The tree branch ( about 10" diameter) was laying across my left shin....ooh, that hurt a bit. My lower back was letting me know I was still alive. My left leg was trapped in the tangle of the broken ladder but there was no major pain to speak of. Phew...

Then I thought about the chainsaw that was still in my hand. The 20" bar and just sharpened chain resting across both my thighs. Astonished that there, A) wasn't any sign of blood, B) the chain wasn't moving and C) the motor sitting at idle. I shouted a huge thank you to the sky. Somehow, the chain brake got engaged as I fell to earth. I flicked the off lever on the chainsaw and put it aside.

It took a few minutes to move the tree branch off my leg and untangle myself from the mess. 1 leg on the ground and I could stand....sweet. Next leg.....sweet. All fingers intact....sweet. No blood anywhere apart from the tiniest of a cut on my third finger..... Then I had a bit of a laugh, another thank you to sky before I checked what had happened. The Aluminum ladder started to fold itself in half before the two sections separated completely......I threw it in the trailer.

Still glad to be alive and in one piece, I made it home and went straight to the medicine fridge. I can't remember beer ever tasting so good.....

Anybody else got a great escape yarn to share. Being dirt bike riders, I'm sure there are many.

[tony27]

Surprised you didn't buy a few lottery tickets on the way home. Certainly wouldn't have expected such a great outcome in the situation

[Tossa]

Blew myself up last year luckly no serious damage, though did try this impersonation as the 'libra wings man'

[GD66]

Bloody hell mate. Welding a petrol tank ?

[Tossa]

No but involved petrol

[fred99999au]

Did a similar thing years ago but not to the same extent.

Bit pissed one night, couple of mates around, "why don't we have a bonfire?"

Not to be deterred by the fact that it was drizzling a bit, and the pile of tree cuttings was 4 feet high, my mate went to get the petrol while I went to get the matches.

I didn't think to ask how much petrol he put on it.

He didn't think to tell me that he had emptied a 10 litre jerry onto it.

To make matters worse, I ran my burned hand under cold water for 10 minutes until it still felt no different, then moved onto running it around the inside of the freezer, and it still felt hot.

Enter the next bright bloody idea:



From the product specs :
http://www.crcindustries.com/ei/product_detail.aspx?id=14086

Aerosol coolant system that instantly freezes surfaces to -60°F (-51 degrees C)

So, off to the hospital when we found someone who could drive and my hand in a plastic bag for 3 weeks.

Hospital says I have chemical burns from the petrol, heat burns from the fire and frostbite from the freeze spray.

[sa63]

that's unfortunate for you but made me laugh like hell, that's pissed logic for you hey!!

[fred99999au]

Yep. I posted it for general amusement. Wasn't so funny at the time though.

[FAT-TOY]

 
  I friend of mine decided to replace the rooted exhaust on his car by running the front wheels up on ramps and cutting the old pipes using his old 9" angle grinder.  Problem was halfway through the first cut the blade jambed and the grinder was torn from his hands it then came loose and when it hit the ground it jumped straight at him.
  He was trying to slide backwards out from under the car while fending off the grinder with his hands, again every time it hit the ground it flew at him again.  The next day he called in home and with all the bandages, bandaids and mercurochrome ointment on his hands and arms he looked like he had been hand feeding tiger sharks.
  A good reason why they stopped using those big grinders in industry and why I think they stopped using the lock on triggers as well.
    zane

[80-85 husky]

next time any of you bozos have a "bright idea", check out the fail army on you tube, your bright idea will be on there for sure! then you can laugh rather than whimper....

I was installing fancy cornice (read bloody heavy) in an old Victorian years ago. we had a big steel scaffold with two planks on the top bar with a plastic stool at each end with the walking plank on top. ol mate plasterer started up one end holding the cornice up with his head while he knocked clouts in slowly working down to my end. just as he got close the plastic stool collapsed but we had both sussed it and we stepped down to next level as the plank came down on the other side...Phew, we were up a fair way!

[fred99999au]

Fair go mate, I'm talking over 20 years ago. Petrol was almost new then...

[80-85 husky]

I was watching a bloke fill up one of those sally salamander kero heaters while it was going flatout...as the flames came up the stream of kero, he just kept lifting the drum higher....filled it without an inferno but I was watching from a long way away at the end...

[FourstrokeForever]

Fair go mate, I'm talking over 20 years ago. Petrol was almost new then...

Yep.....and it was cheap!

I was having a late arvo blat on my 77 PE175 way back when the things were near new. We stayed out a bit longer than planned and the big light bulb in the sky had disappeared from view. We decided a BBQ would be the go so old mate jumps on his CR125 and races back home to raid mum n dads freezer while I get the fire going. We were a well known big Sydney park so there were BBQ's scattered here and there.
I got some wood and loaded up the BBQ. Got some paper out of a garbage bin and tried to get the fire started with no luck. Running low on matches, I had the bright idea of getting some fuel out of the PE to help things along. Found a bottle in the garbage and drained some fuel out of the bike. Dowsed the wood with fuel and started up a match. It went out as the slight wind made it hard to keep a match alight. I crouched down close to the BBQ, struck another match and immediately threw it into the BBQ. Woosh was all I heard as the flames shot out at me straight into my face. I jumped back and saw that I wasn't on fire....Shit, that was close I thought.....
Old mate comes back and starts pissing himself laughing. It seems the fire took care of my eyebrows and most of the hair on the top of my head.
I got the fire started though!

[Nathan S]

It pales compared to most of the stories here, but I was cutting something using my 4" angle grinder. I stopped, placed the grinder on top of the ladder and climbed down. As I got to the bottom, the grinder fell off and the switch was bumped on as it fell.
After getting the fudge out of the way, my instinct was still to reach out and catch it as it fell...

Many years ago, a mate cut through the power cord of the grinder he was using. The look on his face as he worked out what happened, will stay with my forever...

[FAT-TOY]

  Back in the early 70s I was working with a crew doing road repairs.  Still suffering from the previous night out I walked into the bush at the side of the road for a private chuck that was when I realised I was standing on the nest of those big red bull ants.  The bastards stung me 4 or 5 times on my legs ( painfull bastards )  so I decided to burn every last one of them.
  I went back to the truck and picked up the 5 ltrs of petrol we used for the roller and back I go, I emptied the whole can down the nest hole and then in my still half drunk state I realised I had no matches with me, so back to the truck again pick up a box and headed back in.  Sober I would have known that the petrol would have already kill most or the little pricks anyway but I didn't and all of the fumes had enough time to spred and when I struck the match it was like I was standing in the middle of a frigin bonfire with a hand grenade going of under my feet it blew a hole about a foot deep, peppered me with small stones from that gravel type dirt and my mates on the truck thought that a plane had crashed and every time they looked at me for the rest of the week with the burns to my face and hands and the missing eyebrows etc they laughed almost till they cried.
                    Zane