[Steelspine]

After school job at a plastics manufacturing plant (talk about fumes...). I was using a table router to round some edges and the piece caught and pulled my left index finger into the router blade. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt for hours. I picked the chunk of finger off the side of a nearby table and put it in my pocket for some reason. A few hours later it started to hurt. A lot. Most of it grew back but I still have a white scar on my finger that throbs when it rains.

That job was great for seeing people get hurt doing dumb things, usually it was one of the cons on work release. One con tried to cut a four foot long, 3/4 inch (read: freakin' thick) sheet of PVC by himself. One of the first things you learn about a high powered table saw is to work with a partner on big pieces and DON'T PINCH THE BLADE. I was probably 30 or 40 feet away when half of the sheet landed on the table I was working at. I didn't hear anything because I was running a router and wearing hearign protection. The con split his hand in half when he pinched the blade and the piece kicked back on him.

Another con was running a robotized router that cut vent slots in computer housings. It was on a long robot arm that was programmed to move around a piece on all sides including the top. I remember being trained on it and the guy told me how fast it spun, it was like a trillion RPM or something almost as ridiculous, that thing sounded like an f-14 at full throttle. So the con is running this thing and he is trying to get a guys attention, so he taps the guy and turns to point at the router and when he puts his arm up the robot arm puts the router right through it and doesn't even pause. There wasn't much blood, I guess it cauterized while it cut. Stunk like hell though.

Makes me feel better about jumping an Optima red top in the dark, red clamp to red clamp, black to black or something like that. I'm in the car trying to start it wonderign why ti won't turn over when I get this nice electrical burning smell mixed with a plastic/rubber burning smell as the insulation melts off the jumper cables. In a hurry, in the dark, red top red post, not the same.