The CDC clams that: “Each year, approximately 36,000 people are treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries using chain saws.” And then, of course, is the fact that although nail gun injuries are increasing rapidly— work-related nail gun injuries have stayed the same. What’s going on here?

You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, that’s what.

From the New York TImes:

Perhaps it’s surprising that there aren’t more disasters. Of course, as any contractor can tell you, there are plenty of close calls, to which homeowners often may remain happily oblivious. David Guido, who runs Witchtree Contracting in Woodstock, N.Y., once stopped by the home of a client who had just bought a kerosene heater and was about to fill it up with a can of gasoline.

“If I had come by 10 minutes later, it would have went up like a bomb,” Mr. Guido said.

He also recalled a man who removed the foundation from beneath his fireplace so he could open up the basement and put in a pool table.

“The whole fireplace was held up by the floor joists,” Mr. Guido said. “I went real quick and got three or four guys off a job and we put up a whole bunch of braces to hold up the house.”

The rest of the article contains various cautionary tales that are both humorous and sobering. Also included are some astute observations, such as:

“Sequentially, leaving a nail gun on top of a ladder, then moving the ladder, is never a good idea.” Food for thought. —MEGHANN MARCO

Easy, Mr. Fix-It [NYT]
(Photo: Irish Typepad)

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