What's your biggest DIY calamity?

[Onoff]

9 hours ago, Triassic said:

Don’t fall in, not very nice at all.

 

I lived!

[Onoff]

7 hours ago, Temp said:

Forgot to seal a top access shower trap/waste. First use it was raining on my computer in the room below.

 

Near death experience... I embedded some 10mm threaded rod in the concrete slab for my shed to make it easier to bolt down later. Some days later I fell backwards and one ended up a few inches to one side of my head. Nearly impaled. I spent the next 10 mins cutting up some 40mm pipe to put over them.

 

Happened on site to a lad. 6" step in the concrete floor levels and he stumbled backwards, head hitting a bar sticking out. Classed as a fall from height. Horrible. 

[Sue B]

Oh dead oh dear.

 

so.....  Peter is a little accident prone......

 

He was on a Local authority tree felling course.  This was before we were married, so very very young.  In the way of the world as it was then, lunch was down the pub and he had a drink (never a big drinker, it always went to his head).  That afternoon, the chainsaw slipped and went straight down onto the top of his knee - luckily it wasn’t particularly deep.  He arrived at A&E and was promptly seen by my sister who was was on duty as a nurse - she sewed him up and phoned our parents to come and collect him.  The Local authority banned drinking before work and at lunch for those operating machinery soon after.

 

Several years later we were doing a large extension on our house.  I was out collecting the windows and Peter was up a ladder, with an angle grinder, cutting into the brickwork for the new joist hangers.  He blames it on being left handed but the grinder hit something hard in the wall and kicked back, swinging round on the handle.  The grinder hit him in the chest on what would have been his bra line for his moobs (they didn’t exist then but certainly do now!) .

 

I arrived home to find a very shaken looking brickie who had taken Peter to hospital in his pristine Jag.  He was a little surprised at my “oh well, never mind” attitude.  It is one I have learnt to develop over the years to stop panic setting in.  Huge scar but just needed stitching again.

 

Many years after that we had an allotment.  It was a hot day, he was cutting the grass with his petrol mower.  The mower needed re-filling but he’d forgotten he had a little fire going to burn some raspberry canes.  Fumes, fire, a spark from the canes and WHOOSH.  His arm is engulfed in flames.  The only water available was from a well with an old fashioned hand pump.  He used that to put his arm out.  Put everything away and put the fire out, drove back home and asked me to take him to A&E.  They wrapped the arm in cling film (who knew that was the best first aid treatment) and sent us to the the nearest specialist burns hospital (Kensington and Chelsea) on a Saturday afternoon!  Luckily there was no home game that day as the hospital hires out some of the car park to Chelsea fans!  We had a family BBQ planned for that evening, it still went ahead.

 

So not only extremely accident prone, he has the luck of the devil as well, and of course no sense, no feeling!!!!!!

 

He regularly asks for a nail gun for Christmas with an excited little glint in his eyes.  It’s not happening.

 

Our daughter is just as accident prone!

 

I live in fear.

 

Do I win?

Edited December 1, 2019 by Sue B

[SteamyTea]

My Father was accident prone.

Put a fork though his foot.  Did not matter as he then chopped off toes with his Flymo.

He slipped on a ladder, but decided to slide down it like a stuntman.  Forgot to bend his legs though.  Needed a couple of new knees.

He had a hedge trimming attachment for his old B&D drill, the drill was so old that the switch was stuck on permanently.

He picked the hedge trimmer up by the blade, then switched it on.

But I do like this video.

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by SteamyTea

[willbish]

Two recent incidents with the same pair of helping hands. Bless him, would put his neck on the line for you anyday but how he has lived to 60 years old I don't know.

 

1, putting up kwikstage scaffold, already second lift high but we decided to adjust one foot and level. Whole scaffolding started going over, my first reaction was to jump clear and let it go crashing down. His reaction, get under it, arms way above his head, and hold the whole bloody lot up. 

Saved a couple hours work and damage to the boundary wall but can't help thinking it wasn't worth the risk.

 

2, Same guy, 650kg 12 metre steel beam being rotated into position under crane with tag lines.180° rotation nearing completion so he decides to tie tag line to the scaffold on which he and 2 others were standing.?

The screams of NOOOOO we heard for miles!