Most outrageous experience. 2

[waross]

We had the start of a discussion in another thread about unusual experiences. It may be more appropriate to continue in this forum. We have had some glimpses of wild experiences from some of our friends. One friend made the papers with some hijinks on a railway trestle, another was sent out into the Canadian mountains due east of Alaska in a vehicle that did not have a big enough gas tank to reach the next gas station, another etc. This may be a good place to share experiences. Did I ever tell about the time I flew tourist, unaccompanied, from Central America to Western Canada with some crutches, some awesome pain pills and a broken hip? Dang, that was an expensive adventure.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[BigInch]

I've felt so stupid about that incident for so long now. Glad I finally got it off my chest. That was the last time I used the rope. Too much wind now and I just go back to the sofa.

A lot of things out there are like street flooding. As you start driving into it, its not so high, and you don't really noitice it getting higher. Then... all of a sudden, its over the hood and spilling in through the air vents, the car starts moving sideways, the engine stops and you're in deeeeeeep s*&%. It pays to keep track of the differential increments of a situation.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not moving fast enough."
- Mario Andretti- When asked about transient hydraulics

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[rmw]

I worked at an ammunition plant during my college days and the line I worked on when this happened made 4.2" mortar shells. My work station was out in the munitions bunker which had big berms all around it but I worked by myself so I would come up to the main assembly line to take my breaks and lunches. This plant also had a nearby assembly line that was blown all to hell by a mishap. That line made cluster bombs and they were blown all over the place so it was impossible to clean it all up so they just sealed it off. Animals would regularly set off the cluster bomb-lets.

Anyway, back to my line, the bullets (mortar shells) would go to the "melt" where TNT was heated up to the molten state and poured into the shells whereupon they would be loaded on buggies, something like 8 X 8 or so, nose up, with the pink TNT looking right up at you. From there, they would be lifted up on the line where the fuses and liners, etc that preceded the fuses would be put on and then they would be packed out for shipment (to Nam).

All the hand tools on that line used by the maintenance personnel were made from Cadmium to prevent sparking during their use. Similar precautions were taken all around. The buggy had to be grounded when it was rolled up to the line prior to unloading.

Well, one particular beak I came up there to find a buddy of mine who worked lifting the bullets off the buggy onto the line sitting there idly tapping a nail in the wooden counter of the assembly line with a (steel) railroad spike he had found outside on a railroad spur outside the building with sparks showering down from the nail into the open noses of the bullets sitting there with the nice pink color of the freshly poured TNT.

I figured that if there was a God and he wanted me that was his chance to take me. I got the heck out of there and never took breaks with them again.

One thing humorous happened one night when Simeon set a steam cleaner nozzle down and went to dinner up in the melt area. Just as we walked back down to the line from the cafeteria which was located about 1/4 mile from the assembly line down long corridors with a double door about every 20 feet, the steam from the steam cleaner which was playing on a sprinkler head set off the head and that set off the alarm.

From every one of those doors started pouring people of all descriptions, mostly women (most of the employees on these types of assembly lines were women, lots of them overweight) began to run across the open ground back to the cafeteria. The SOP was that you didn't go back to the connecting corridor which could be some distance from your work station, but exited your area directly across open fields to the cafeteria.

Well, it was wintertime and it was wet (deep south) and the field was sloppy with standing water and we were all slogging across that all of us scared out of our wits. It seemed like a war movie to me. It reminded me of the beach scenes of movies like D-Day. People were going down to the left of me, to the right of me, in front of me, behind me. I was young (college boy) and still agile, but most of these people were middle aged to older women and they were paying a heavy toll for our late night run through the swamps. Still one of the most vivid memories I have of a comical scene that I was part of.

As a note, later I transferred to an engineering job on a metal parts line-forges and lathes, presses and heat treat furnaces-no explosives of any kind and as it turned out, someone was walking down a road outside the building eating some pickled pigs feet and throwing the bony remnants onto the ground as they walked along. Someone else upon coming up on this and seeing the bones alerted security and there was a real panic until they found out what it really was thinking that it was human bones having been blown over there from the nearby line that had blown up that I mentioned earlier. Quite the panic until it all got sorted.

rmw

 

[thruthefence]

This is from my college days in the '60's, pre engineering & pre A&P mechanic days; I was a helper/go-fer at a small aircraft maintenance facility,hoping to learn a little "real world" stuff in the maintenance field along with my formal schooling.
During the process of inspecting a Cessna 177, the engine's #1 cylinder ( four cylinder, horizontally opposed ) was found,while doing a cylinder leak down check, to have a leak past the exhaust valve.There is a process, called 'staking' the valve, where the cylinder is pressurized, & the exhaust rocker is struck sharply with a leather mallet. Often, this will dislodge lead or carbon deposits from the valve seat, allowing the engine to continue in service. When this is accomplished, great billowing clouds of carbon dust comes out the exhaust. In this case, the procedure failed, and the leak was worse. Talk turned to whether the valve was burnt, stretched, or perhaps the guide was badly worn, causing the valve to 'rock' unevenly in it's seat.....A quick & dirty check for guide wear, is to pull the prop through, get the exhaust valve off it's seat, and by placing one's thumb on the rocker arm, you can feel the stem of the valve shift slightly as it seeks it's place on the seat. There is a sort of "sweet spot" that can be found by rocking the prop back & forth, while feeling the rocker arm. Me being the eager youngster, I jumped in to "learn something". After a few 'rocks' of the prop blade, the engine suddenly fired, ran briefly, & died. I was struck three times on the right arm, fortunately glancing blows, tho I have a dent in that forearm to this day. What I did learn that day, was that carbon dust will burn just fine, and machinery will kill you. It is no respecter of persons, or forgiving of carelessness. During my days as a Designated Examiner for new mechanics, I always told the story.

 

[berkshire]

thruthefence (Aerospace)
So you were rocking the prop on a "hot" engine.
I guess that one goes down to " Guess how I found out about that.", bummer.
B.E.

 

[thruthefence]

No, the strange thing was, the aircraft had been sitting for a week, and the fuel selector was in "cutoff", and the mags were "off"! When the impulse coupling clicked, apparently the carbon dust floating around is the gas path was enough to light it off. They did later find high resistance across the mag switch, which explains the "hot" mag. From that day on, all mags have been "hot", in my mind.

 

[berkshire]

thruthefence (Aerospace)
I recently did some work on an 0320 and during that little check where you shut both mags off at idle, the engine kept running, then would not, do it, when we tried to reproduce the problem.
We determined that the switch for the left mag was intermittent. A new mag switch later we were back in business. So **it definitely happens.
B.E.

 

[dougantholz]

This one luckily does not end in any explosions or injuries but...
I work as a structural engineer and for a few years I worked primarily on renovations of large (200K+ sq ft) office/warehouse conversions to lofts. This often requires waiting until demolition and abatement has begun to do some finalizing of details becuase you don't have x-ray vision to see where things are above the plaster ceiling or behind the plaster wall. In this particular case I was in the basement of a building measuring up an existing stairwell opening that was going to get infilled. Next to me was a demo contractor removing the steel divider beams in an elevator shaft that was also getting infilled. The demo contractor had his oxy-acetylene canister at the bottom of the shaft and was working from a bosun's chair up and down the shaft to cut the beams. He was basically torching the steel free after tying it off to a winch. Then his partner at the top of the shaft would lower the steel to the bottom of the shaft.
Anyway I was walking around measuring up things when I noticed the sparks from the cutting were making it all the way to the bottom of the shaft...all the way down to his acetylene tank as a mater of fact. Standing 5 ft away from the tank watching big flowing red steel slab bounce of his tank caught me as odd. Unfortunately he doesn't work for me, but I didn't hesitate to point out the problem. He seemed perturbed that someone would question what he was doing, but he finally relented covering the tank with a fire blanket and moving it out of the way. Glad I lived through that one.

 

[plasgears]

When I was in the Army [Corps/Engrs], we went thru orientation at the Aberdeen ordnance center in MD. We were sitting in the 'VIP' stands, and they were demonstrating mortar aiming and correction. One 'round' went off 50 yds in front of the stand. Another 'round' went off behind the stands. You never saw a group of 2d Lts scramble to exit the area so fast. Of course, it was all a set up.

They did something similar during a nuclear weapon arming demo. In a twinkling of the eye, a jillion flash lamps went off in our faces. Fun and games in the Army.

 

[btrueblood]

Oy. Monkeydog, I finally had a chance to confer with a colleague - yes, I believe Tom was his first name (he was fairly new to our organization then).

 

[swearingen]

This one is from an engineer I used to work for: He was at a junk yard getting some parts and he overheard a conversation between the owner and a patron. The owner was bragging that he could remove a car engine in less than 5 minutes and the patron bet him he couldn't do it.

He promptly lifted the front end of a car with chains from a forklift and went underneath and started cutting with his acetylene torch. Suddenly, the car fell and bounced on its front wheels a few times before coming to a rest. The scene: the owner was standing in the engine bay of the car holding his torch while the engine was suspended in the air above him - he had chained only the engine to the forklift, cut it free, and let the car fall around him!

As my boss used to say, "You can gauge a man by his tattoo-to-tooth ratio. If he has more tattoos than teeth, he can't be killed - he will die of natural causes."



If you "heard" it on the internet, it's guilty until proven innocent. - DCS

 

[JStephen]

Here's the Hollywood equivalent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsyRhRR5Iu4

 

[moltenmetal]

A warning that not all the hazards we encounter in our lives as engineers are physical-

I was new to the profession, and had been given the job of doing a "demonstration" (pilot test, really) of a water treatment process, attempting to clean up groundwater contaminated by explosives from a de-mil facility on a Trident submarine base. The thought of running a rented HPLC and a UV/ozone system off a generator in a tent in the woods, in winter, with our client watching, wasn't helping with getting a good night's sleep!

The night before I was to leave for the base, I tossed and turned in the hotel bed and finally fell asleep. I had an extremely vivid and terrifying dream that there was a bomb in the room and I had to run NOW or risk being killed. I awoke in the hallway to the sound of the hotel room door clicking behind me...No pajamas, but fortunately I had underwear and, for some strange reason, a pillow. So like Mr. Bean, I got in the elevator and went down to the front desk to ask to be let back into my room...

Fortunately, the "demonstration" went just fine, aside from some regular requirement for thawing of the equipment which had frozen overnight in the tent. Unfortunately, they never bought a unit from us...