re: Admitting our dangerous (and dumb) mistakes might help others.

Sometimes incidents seem funny even though they could have had tragic results.

When attempting to be very precise while drilling, I got my head too close to the small corded drill and when I started to drill, my long hair got caught in the armature. I immediately released the trigger, but the drill was already tight to my head. I unplugged the drill and walked into the house, laughing, and asked my husband if he would cut it out of my hair. After the drill was removed from my head, I decided to see if holding the hair while reversing the direction would allow me to remove the hair without damage to the armature. It came out perfectly. I ended up with a chunk of hair cut to my scalp and had to do a comb-over for a long time to cover my stupidity!

After sharing that incident, another woodworker told of a co-worker who had gotten his beard entangled in the drill press while working alone after hours and had to stand on his feet all night waiting for someone to cut him free in the morning. I’m not certain I could have reacted quickly enough to find and turn off the switch on my drill press to prevent more serious injury.

Not long after my accident, the news carried the story of a young graduate student at a prestigious university, working after hours alone in a lab, who caught her hair in a lathe and was found dead the next morning.

I have been wearing my hair shorter or tied back since that incident several years ago.

L/W