So a few months back. While working a power house outage we were all called away from our work for a safety meeting. This was in addition to our usual weekly safety meeting. So we were a bit surprised when this announcement was made. Well the cram 120 of us into the room (we were safety meeting 1 of 4), and start their meeting. The topic was in regards to gloves. The high dollar, cut proof, and heat resistant gloves that they like for us to wear so much. An ironworker had had a small accident with a Metabo. (A 6in high speed right angle cut off grinder. Designed to cut pretty much any and all metal. They are extremely efficient at it as well.) Apparently he was not wearing one of his gloves, the grinder binder up and kicked back. It left two of his fingers hanging by skin, severing completely through the bone like it was butter, gashed two other fingers and split part of his hand open to the bone. It was obviously a quite messy accident. The point had been made though for us to wear our gloves and be mindful of what we are doing. Then the bone headed safety man opens his mouth. "If he had only been wearing his gloves....." Oh come on now! As I have already described. This tool is made and designed specifically for cutting metal! The RPMs are a decent amount higher than a typical angle grinder and the wheels are a lot stronger and cut ALOT better than regular cut off wheels. Who the hell is he trying to kid. Anyway, from out of the back of the room a boilermaker shouts out. "Yeah he would have had a hell of a time removing his severed fingers from his ripped up gloves!" Well ol safety man turns dang near purple and sputters out "Well we will never know now will we!?!" To which the hidden boiler maker replies, "Naw we all already know what would happen. He would have still almost cut his fingers off. Them gloves ain't a magical fix all to protect everything. They serve a purpose which is to protect from heat and minor cuts. Not to protect from a cut off wheel. But if it makes you sleep better at night. Then just believe that these magic gloves will make everyone completely safe."I have edited the language for this site.)
Never have I seen anyone as angry as this safety man was. I swear he would have fired the lot of us just to be rid of the worlds only intelligent boilermaker. After more dressing down about our wonderful gloves. (which I might add are extremely comfortable and VERY electrician friendly. I kinda wish my current contractor would buy us some) We were gruffly told to return to work and be safe. We were also informed that they would not be feeding us our hotdogs and chips Wednesday of that week, because the accident had resulted in a loss of time recordable.
