Workplace accidents are no joke, especially when you live in a country where universal health care isn't a thing and most people are scrambling for benefits! (That's another, bothersome story we'll save for another article.)
You can thank Redditor fukhed69 for today's burning question, which is: "What's the worst workplace accident at your work?"
Warning: Sensitive and possibly triggering material ahead.
"Well, one guy..."
Well, one guy was working on a cell phone tower and a high-tension supporting line snapped, which cut off his arm and head. That wasn't cool.
"You decided which is worse."
You decide which is worse.
Worked for Cessna Aircraft, guy working a punch press didn't remove the slugs and eventually too many were there. Shot out like a bullet into his chest, little aluminum discs about 2 inch diameter. Think it actually hit his heart.
Some years after that I was a bowling alley mechanic. One of the other mechanics at one of the other alley's the company owned stayed late to clean the top of the decks that sets the pins down. Next morning, the Manager came in and saw his feet on a lane, like he was standing there. When he didn't answer she went back and found him dead. He didn't shut the machine all the way down and the deck tried to go back up with him between it and the upper parts of the machine. They guessed it took a couple hours for him to die.
"Some girl..."
Some girl didn't have her hair tied up per regulation and got too close to the conveyor belt. Scalped herself.
"My story is from manufacturing."
My story is from manufacturing. The tops of ovens are pressed out of steel with up to 10 tonne dies.
One day a man tried to retrieve something from the path of the press, safety failed and he was crushed flat, from the waist up.
"Working in a coin mint."
Working in a coin mint. A guy was running a proofing press (this one actually.puts the images on the coins) that was apparently on the fritz. They all have a laser fence that's supposed to stop the machine if anything breaks the beams. I was on the other side of the factory running a punch press, when I heard a terrible screaming from clear across this giant facility. My partner and I ran over there to a pretty f---ed up scene.
This dude was doing single stamps on his machine (where it only is supposed to strike the coin once), and when he reached in to grab the freshly minted coin, the machine bugged out and did a double strike.
His middle and ring finger were between the dies when it came down, and they literally made a coin out of his bone. I saw the coin, it was crazy, all the details were there from the die. Ambulance was called and, of course, he lost his fingers to the machine.
Worst part was the owner was trying to figure out a way to blame it on the guy, not his fucky machine, so he wouldn't have to pay him anything beyond workers comp. I left that job before the guy came back to work, but I imagine he sued the owner, and rightly so. The factory is closed now, which is a shame since it was so old it had original dies from some of the first Nobel prizes. I doubt it was related.
"The building I worked in was old."
Former work as of 2 months ago, but it answers the question "how the hell do you get injured working at a radio station?"
The building I worked in was old. Built in the 1930s. A piece of broadcasting history, and the birthplace of the career of the person who would go on to create the late night television talk show.
But while the interior of the building had been rebuilt and repurposed over the decades since, there were parts of it that were still sh!t. Most of the third floor was condemned due to pervasive asbestos, and there was an old roof access point that finally claimed a victim a few years back.
This guy was one of our engineers. A few years from retirement, and an absolute joy to work with. Funny, skilled, and genuinely a good guy. One day he was climbing up through the roof access, and the heavy door (kind of like a hatch) broke loose and came down on his head.
At first he seemed a bit dazed, but pretty soon it became apparent that he'd been badly hurt. He was rushed to the hospital, and while he survived, he was never the same. Never able to return to work. His plans to retire cut short and he wound up on disability and having to live in constant pain.
The company swept it under the rug. Only a few people knew the full extent of his injuries, and they kept it that way. Before I knew all this, I'd made a joke in the presence of the HR person about the worst injury that was possible at a radio station and her head snapped around and she looked at me like "if you only knew."
There was never any fundraiser to help pay for his care, or any celebration of his service to the company, or anything except silence. I'm sure he was taken care of financially as laid out in our (pretty decent) benefits, but they kept what happened really quiet, and that's a damned shame.
"Moral of both stories..."
I have two actually. Used to work in a supermarket deli. The first one, a girl opened the slicer blade while she was cleaning it, turned the slicer on, and then proceeded to slice the palm of her hand off when she wiped down the blade. Yep that was an instant termination and a trip to the hospital.
Next one, a guy stood on top of the fryer while it was on to clean the fryer vents, which were built into the wall above the fryers. He slipped and his leg went into 338° grease up to his knee. He was also instantly terminated and got a helicopter ride to Tallahassee to visit the burn unit.
Moral of both stories, use your brains and some common sense. It could save you a lot of pain and a job search.
"Worked as an on site medic..."
Worked as an on site medic with an oilfield company. Derrick hand (works at the top of the rig) didn't tie on with his harness. Not sure what happened, but they fell from the top of the Derrick all the way to the ground. They like. Exploded from the inside, but didn't die. Being the medic, it was my responsibility to keep them alive. Ever try giving mouth to mouth to someone that's just oozing blood? Would not recommend. Long story short, they died. And now I've got hemophobia.
"Worked at a trampoline park..."
Worked at a trampoline park and one of my fellow staff members did a flip to show off and snapped their leg like a twig. Now staff are not allowed to flip while on duty.
"I'm a vet tech."
I'm a vet tech. One of my coworkers got bit in the face by a very large terrier mix. It tore open her cheek, took off the tip of her nose, and tore her lip so bad her gums were exposed. She only narrowly avoided losing an eye.
I was bitten on three separate occasions by cats. Each time the bite got infected. All three cases involved unvaccinated animals with neurological symptoms and unknown histories. Prime rabies suspects, basically.
My own worst injury happened when I was trying to help a paralyzed dog out of kennel. We had large kennels that closed with a fence gate. She was a large German Shepherd and pulled away at just the wrong time. The force pulled me down face first into the top of the gate's supporting pole. I'm still not sure how I didn't bust a few teeth. I looked like a chipmunk for a few weeks
"I worked in a prison."
I worked in a prison. An officer was sitting at his desk doing computer work when an inmate walked up and slugged him in the head knocking him to the floor. The inmate then jumped on top of the officer and stabbed him multiple times with a homemade knife. Fortunately, the officer survived but he never returned to work. The reason for the assault; the inmate wanted to be transferred to another prison.
"He was wearing shorts..."
There was a 5" x 16" metal plate on top of a ladder, guy moved the ladder and the plate came flying down at an angle. He was wearing shorts, and the plate sliced his calve with the sharpest angle it could possible achieve. His skin was flabbing off his leg like how when you only peel one side of a banana, still attached but close to not. And so much blood.
"A guy cut his finger off..."
A guy cut his finger off on a band saw. I was off sick that day and didn't see that one, but another bad one I actually saw right in front of me was a guy getting his entire forearm sliced open by a steel plate that spun around while it was hanging from a crane.
"We hung kayaks..."
We hung kayaks off of a railing over the first level. One day another employee was hanging up a new one and it fell on a customer.
"I'm sure there's been plenty worse..."
I'm sure there's been plenty worse accidents, but one that stuck with me from my time with this company was a guy that got his hand caught in a roller press. Don't search images of degloving.
"Guy was asked..."
Guy was asked to turn the fryers off. Didn't know how. Pulled the lever that releases all the oil. 350 degree oil spills all over him. Third degree burns covered him from the torso down. He quit.
"I worked as a lifeguard..."
I worked as a lifeguard for a casino pool and one day during the summer this one guy snuck past a fence we have for our waterfall. He made his way to the top of it and we were all whistling for him to get down. He then jumped off of it 20 feet into 3 1/2 feet of water breaking his legs. His friends pulled him out of the water and out of the pool area. Security tried to call an ambulance for him but they said he didn't have insurance so they carried him into an Uber. I have no idea what happened to him after that.
"Not current job..."
Not current job, but I worked at a warehouse about 4 years ago in Florida that had a shitty forklift. The tilt cylinder was pissing hydraulic fluid like a mafka. The operations manager wanted to wait till the end of the fiscal year to get a new one though. Cheap bastard.
We had to call mechanics out to top it off (and "limp it along as long as we can") every 10 days like clockwork. Tried explaining to the Op manager that no problem ever got better by ignoring it. The fluid was leaking all over the warehouse floor and made it slippery as shit. The parking lot looked like a shitty Jackson Pollock painting any time we had to take it out to unload anything.
One day, an operator was having to get a pallet of something down from about 6-7 feet above the floor. Another associate was standing about 10 feet in front of the forklift. When the tilt cylinder breaks in half. Somebody yells out to the guy and he moves out of the way just fast enough to avoid the pallet slipping of the forks and onto his head. It does hit everything on the right side of his neck. Dislocates his shoulder, breaking his collar bone in 2 places, fracturing a couple ribs, his hip, and shin.
The operations manager refused to file the guy's workers comp claim, fired him, and the forklift was gone the next morning. Dude sued the company, but settled out of court for whatever reason.
"I'm a truck driver..."
I'm a truck driver and, a little over a year ago, there was a mechanic's helper who got killed while filling a truck tire up with air. We don't know if he got careless and wasn't paying attention or if there was some unseen damage to the tire--but--the tire (which packs about 110 psi at maximum) blew up. He was standing about 2 feet away from the tire when it exploded and the force knocked him several feet back into a concrete wall. That combined with the steel mesh from the inner tire and rubber flying around...it was pretty bad.
He was pronounced dead on the scene from a combination of massive head trauma, internal injuries, and blood loss.
Reddit user FunChemical3182 asked:
"What is the weirdest animal fact you know?"
Like Perry
"Platypus glow blueish green under ultraviolet light."
"They also don’t have nipples, they just exude milk from glands under the skin and the baby’s lap it up."
~ WakingOwl1
"They have electrolocation in their bills that lets them detect their food under water."
~ DrPlatypus1
"And they lay eggs."
"The more I find out about them the more I understand why people first thought they were fake."
~ Reidroshdy
"After seeing all these platypus facts I am convinced these things are aliens that have been abandoned on Earth."
~ SeattleOne206
Kapow!
"Mantis Shrimp have 16 different sets of cones. Rods and cones are in your eyes. Cones see color, rods see light and motion."
"Dogs have 2 sets of cones—green and blue. Humans have 3 sets of cones—green, blue and red."
"Mantis Shrimp are seeing colors we can't comprehend and explains why they're very colorful."
"That’s not even the strangest thing about them."
"They can also punch as fast as a .22 bullet which cause a cavitation bubble which boils the water around them at temperatures of several thousand Kelvins."
~ RigzDigz
GiphyTerrible Twos
"Cats have the mental capacity of a 2-year-old which makes a lot of sense."
~ Alive_Ad823
Cats Dragging GIFGiphyLike Tinder
"When a female sloth wants a mate she'll hang onto a tree branch and just scream."
~ Remarkable_Sink2542
GiphyGood Thing They're So Small
"Dragonflies are the most successful predators on Earth."
"When lions choose prey they have like a 10% chance of catching it."
"African painted dogs—who hunt in packs—have the highest kill rate of any mammal, successfully catching 51% of their prey."
"When a dragonfly locks onto a target, it has a 99.9% success rate!"
~ PurpleInevitable2103
GiphyOn A Swivel
"Owls have really long necks, but it's hard to notice that because their feathers are so fluffy."
~ ergonaut
GiphyWhat About Cousin It?
"Sea otters are the most densely furred animal with 600,000 to 1,000,000 hair follicles per square inch."
"Dogs have about 15,000 per square inch, humans on average are between 800 to 1,290 hairs per square inch."
~ atom1129
Giphy
Sucker Punchers
"Octopus punch other fish for no reason—so, for fun."
~ Samanthalynn8915
"There's a direct correlation between species' intelligence and dickish behavior."
~ TheDesktopNinja
Looks Are Deceiving
"Polar bear fur isn't white—it's translucent (for most frequencies of light). And they have black skin underneath."
"So polar bear fur lets all the light through to their black skin to warm them—except for a few visible frequencies to keep them camouflaged as white."
~ seedanrun
GiphyWho's Going To Attack One‽‽
"Honey badgers can turn their a**holes inside out and use the smell to deter attackers."
"Not sure what exactly has the guts to attack a honey badger, but if they have the courage to do so, the badger sure as hell isn’t gonna make it easy."
~ nonexistantauthor
GiphyBig Momma
"The Blanket Octopus exhibits the highest degree of sexual dimorphism known."
"Females: About 6 feet across."
"Males: About one inch."
~ Fabulous-Pause4154
High Times
"Dolphins will intentionally use puffer fish to get high."
~ altkaldra
"They upset blowfish so they inflate, and therefore emit poison. It gets the dolphins high. Then they pass it around, literally."
~ smack4u
"Not just the dolphins. I recently saw a video about 10 animals that like to get high. Very interesting."
~ s137leo__
"Lemurs do that with giant centipedes/millipedes too."
~ chubbyknuckles420
Fabrizio Frigeni on Unsplash
Better Than Bike Helmets
"Woodpeckers' tongues wrap around their brains to cushion them from the vibrations of slamming their face into trees all day."
~ we_made_yewww
"Their tongues also have barbs to grab bugs out of the holes."
"Their brains have additional cushioning because, you know, they spend their days smashing their face as hard as possible into trees."
~ RhynoD
Detachable Organs
"Argonauts [paper nautili] are small octopuses that are too lazy to have intercourse."
"They detach their penises and toss them into the open sea to mate with female argonauts."
"The detachable 'd*ck' is a tiny tentacle, complete with suckers and sperm, that develops in a cavity under the eye of a male argonaut [paper nautilus]."
"When it's time to mate, the tentacle explodes out of the cavity, instantly killing the male argonaut. The tentacle then swims towards a female argonaut to insert itself."
"Sexy, huh?"
~ Schwarzes__Loch
What's your favorite weird animal fact?
Tough guys put on a facade that indicates to others that they always know what's going on.
But their confidence doesn't always match their intellect, which is probably why they cover their insecurities by walking around and trying to show everyone who's really the boss.
If that's the case, they should keep their mouths shut because not everything that comes out of their mouth needs to be heard.
Yet, it can be amusing to everyone else.
Curious to hear examples of these, Redditor PrototypeShadowBlitz asked:
"Reddit, what is the stupidest thing you've heard from the 'alpha male' community?"
You might find these guys at a bar.
The Dude Must Be Hungry
"Had a run in once with a group of young lads about something in a bar and one of them said we are top of the food chain bro and you will be the prey."
– insertitherenow
"'Whatever, mall ninja" -proper response."
– TheEighthLord
If The Shoe Fits
"That they were an alpha male."
– I_Have_A_Name37654
"The use of 'Alpha Male,' unironically is every indication that you're dealing with a child's understanding of manhood."
– 88Dubs
Brat Pack
"Me and my bros are all alpha males."
– SonOfDadOfSam
"I was skiing one time and rode the lift with a guy that said, 'I don't feel no pain. I live with 5 roommates and none of us feel any pain.' Okay, bud. That's a really interesting coincidence."
– NicPizzaLatte
They sure thrive on making sexist comments.
Contagious Femininity
"A coworker said, 'I don't spend too much time with my girlfriend because I'll become too feminine.'"
– Lazy_Natural6154
"FELLAS IS IT GAY?!"
– aliebabadegrote
Sexist Categorization
"I have been called a beta for saying that my wife makes more money than I do. She works in a more lucrative field and is more educated than I am, so it makes perfect sense that she makes more than I do."
"So I came back, and this post has really blown up. There's just a few things I want to clarify."
"1- I have only ever been called a beta online."
"2- I work full-time in project management. I have a master's degree. I have a 6 figure salary."
"3- My wife has a PhD and works in finance. She also has a 6 figure salary, it's just a higher salary than my own."
"4- I'm sorry to anyone who might feel as though my original post misled them."
– ExaminationDouble240
It's Teamwork
"A real man would be proud of his wife for achieving success, and not fall for that sort of insecure bullsh*t."
"It's not a contest, that's the real joke here. Good on you for seeing the big picture."
– Mrbeardoesthethings
Do these roles about parenting sound familiar?
Childish Things Are Too Girly
"Real men don't take their kids trick or treating is one that I heard recently."
– constructionguy89
"Related. Guys who brag about not changing diapers, not playing 'girly' games, etc. Essentially guys who brag that their only contribution to fatherhood is money and masculine things like fishing or football. Even then some of them brag about not paying a lot of child support to prove they didn't let the system take advantage of them."
"I can't imagine a life so empty my only accomplishment worth bragging about was being a terrible parent."
– Green7000
This Woman's Work
"I was told that taking care of my kids is woman's work. Apparently it's concerning that I try to spend so much of my free time with them. Oddly enough the meatheads at my grappling club think it's sweet I occasionally have my daughters' hair clips on and nails painted."
– MrFunktasticc
People discussed rules in the bedroom.
Never Submissive
"That a man is turned off when their wife/girlfriend seduces them, because if she wants sex and shows it she is a sl*t, also making the man the submissive one…"
– kamalaophelia
Stifling Emotions
"Not the whole community, but was cuddling with a guy once and could tell he was trying not to get emotional over something that was bothering him. He said, quite literally, 'it's not alpha male behaviour.' I told him that I liked that he showed emotions sometimes, and he looked disgusted by the fact that I pointed it out."
– LambLifts
In high school, a classmate who was on the football team said I was a "sissy" for listening to classical music.
The other classmates laughed at me, which was hardly surprising since all of the guys on our unbeatable football team were considered stars on campus.
This kind of mockery was a typical day for me.
I can laugh at their idiotic comments now but back then, I don't know why I ever let them get under my skin.
We've all done things, or in some cases, regularly do things that others might consider weird.
Even so, we often feel no shame or embarrassment and embrace how unusual these habits are, and take our friends teasing or laughing at us for doing so in stride.
Sometimes, however, we might not like to advertise some of our unusual habits or actions and make every effort to keep them a well-guarded secret.
As raised eyebrows are much easier to take than blatant judgment from friends and peers.
Redditor Key_Nectarine_1969 was curious to hear all the weird things people have done which they still keep under lock and key, leading them to ask:
"What’s the weirdest thing you’ve done that you could only tell people anonymously?"
The Devil [Dogs] Is In The Detail...
"All throughout middle school, there was someone who tucked unwrapped Hostess Devil Dogs into the toilet paper dispensers in the bathrooms, so that when you pulled some toilet paper out, the devil dog would fall out into your hand."
"We had to have an assembly about it."
"That person... Was me."- bejeweled_sky
Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time
"Was drunk at an escape room with coworkers."
"It was an extreme one where you are handcuffed the entire time."
"I decided in my drunken state that it would be bada** to dislocated my thumb and slip off the cuffs like the movies."
"It wasn't."
"We got kicked out, my coworkers were weirded out and I had to go to the hospital."
"I quit a few weeks later."
"White collar wasn't for me."- Grotesque-penguin
The Bread Of Heaven
"Stole over 1,000 wafers from church because I really liked the communion wafers & didn’t know where else to get them."
"I felt really blessed & cursed for a long time."- hALLIEcinate
catholic the exorcist GIFGiphyRetracing Steps...
"Once I got off the subway in NYC and I was super early for an appointment."
"So I picked a random guy and just followed him on foot for like 30 minutes, pretending I was like a private detective or something."
"Always kept about a half block behind."
"He turned this way and that, and eventually went into a building I had lived in 9 years earlier."
"It was weird, and so was I."- OKsurewhynotyep
Hygeine Be Damned...
"I found a dead rat in a field when i was younger and kissed it bc I wanted to say goodbye."- qeleia
exercise push up GIFGiphyBad Decisions Have A Way Of Getting Back To You...
"We got super drunk and ate a ton of spicy food in New Orleans."
"Back at the B&B, the food started to come out the back side."
"I was sitting on the toilet sh*tting bricks of fire."
"At that moment, the booze decided to hang a u-turn."
"The trash can was out of reach and I couldn't risk standing up from the toilet for even 5 seconds."
"The closest receptacle was the bathtub."
"I managed to turn in such a way that I could keep shi*ting in the toilet while projectile vomiting into the tub."
"Both ended up clogged, and there was no plunger."
"I had to call the owner to explain that I had destroyed both their toilet and their tub simultaneously."- HoopOnPoop
Things Best Left To Professionals...
"My partner is weirdly prone to cysts."
"I had to drain a 3 inch cyst on her back (thankfully she had a dr's appt the next week), then multiple other little cysts on her legs and chest."
"I never told her to her face but that first giant cyst literally haunted me, the amount of pus and blood I saw....good heavens."- SleepyBiologist
uruguay spot GIF by sargentoPezGiphyAt Least A Lesson Was Learned...
"When I was walking to school one morning, I saw a kid (7-8 yo?) kicking a dog."
"I ran over & kicked the kid and asked him how it felt."
"He ran off and no one saw."
"Still not sorry."- sneezyailurophile
All Creatures Deserve Love
"I was extremely socially isolated as a child and tried to make friends with the coyotes who lived in the woods by our home."
'I caught one in a snare and fed and kept her."
"I wanted a friend."- letthetreeburn
That's What Friends Are For...
"My wife and her best friend pick me up from a frat party black out drunk."
"Then they helped me take a sh*t on the toilet, wiped my a** and then gave me a shower and put me to bed naked."
"Don’t remember any of it."- nc3100
Party Love GIF by Chris CiminoGiphyNot The Right Kind Of Manure...
"One time I went outside at like 2AM and put the garden hose nozzle into my butthole and sprayed some water into it, then farted it out onto the lawn."
"Basically gave myself an enema with a garden hose."
"I did this because I was bored."
"My neighbour saw me and told my dad (lived at home at the time)."- WaspsInMyGoatse
A Little Fantasy Now And Then...
"When I was younger I joined an international dating site that I figured was a scam."
"Put a black square as my picture and gave myself a fake name, and then looked through their users."
"And after about 10 minutes I had like a 100 messages."
"Most of them were messages telling me how handsome I was or how these women fell in love with me at first site."
"Now I knew it was a scam but when ever I felt down or got rejected for a while I would pop back on the site and read a few messages."
'Yeah it’s kinda cringy and probably pathetic but it made me feel better."
"I would just turn off that logical part of my brain that knew it was a scam for awhile and just pretend I was this popular and desirable guy."
"And it honestly got me through the day sometimes."- Demonking3343
dating app GIFGiphyIf anyone says they've never done anything they're ashamed, or at the very least less-than-proud of, in all likelihood, they are lying.
Or, more likely, they understandably want to pretend that it never happened.
Which might be a little easier than harboring a secret.