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Lucky Escapes

Nosmo King said:
Back in 2015 i was working on a building project as a gateman, coming up to knocking off time, the groundworkers were rushing to complete the install of some lampposts near the entrance, the holes had been excavated, the sleeves for the posts inserted and wiring fitted, the post was being placed into the hole using an excavator, with the post chained to it boom, a guy was holding the post at the bottom and guiding it into the hole, when the boom lifted the post to an upright position it connected with an 11,000 volt power line, that nobody (!) had noticed previously (after all the processes mentioned earlier). The guy was seriously injured but it was only the fact that the post was in contact with the ground that prevented the man from dying instantly. I was about 20ft away from the incident and the person that called the ambulance, firebrigade and electric company.

http://www.basingstokeobserver.co.uk/companies-fined-280k-after-man-severely-hurt-by-electric-shock
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Yikes! That guy is so lucky to have survived, (if he did?)
I'm sorry you had to see that. I hope you're ok.
I've worked in construction for over 20 years, and teach electrical and buried utility safety, and it's always sad and scary to hear about these incidents happening, when they shouldn't.
 
Gizmos Mama said:
Yikes! That guy is so lucky to have survived, (if he did?)
I'm sorry you had to see that. I hope you're ok.
I've worked in construction for over 20 years, and teach electrical and buried utility safety, and it's always sad and scary to hear about these incidents happening, when they shouldn't.
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The last I heard he was doing ok, albeit with some lasting effects, I think he was invalided off work. I think the fact that the pole was in contact with the ground at the time, and the current wasnt earthing totally through him saved his life.
 
Nosmo King said:
The last I heard he was doing ok, albeit with some lasting effects, I think he was invalided off work. I think the fact that the pole was in contact with the ground at the time, and the current wasnt earthing totally through him saved his life.
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That is probably the case. It at least lessened the damage he received.
It's the only lucky thing in that scenario.
 
Years ago my brother and the ex were fixing some old Fiesta and gave it a test drive, whereupon it reached the street corner and burst into flames.

The Fire Brigade attended right away and quickly put it out. As they left one sucked his teeth and said 'Yeah, we've 'ad a few o'them lately.'
I had many questions but with a wave he was gone.
 
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escargot said:
Years ago my brother and the ex were fixing some old Fiesta and gave it a test drive, whereupon it reached the street corner and burst into flames.

The Fire Brigade attended right away and quickly put it out. As they left one sucked his teeth and said 'Yeah, we've 'ad a few o'them lately.'
I had many questions but with a wave he was gone.
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I drive a Ford Fiesta. My nephew calls it the party on wheels (it's not). No fires (yet)!
 
escargot said:
Years ago my brother and the ex were fixing some old Fiesta and gave it a test drive, whereupon it reached the street corner and burst into flames.

The Fire Brigade attended right away and quickly put it out. As they left one sucked his teeth and said 'Yeah, we've 'ad a few o'them lately.'
I had many questions but with a wave he was gone.
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Years ago, a lady my parents knew had her Mini go up in flames one day.
She'd bought a hi-fi for the car and a guy she knew fitted it for her (not a proper garage job). Anyhoo, he wired it up wrongly, created a short circuit and the electrics were fried. She had to write the car off.
 
I had a Peugeot 405 which went up in flames, big explosion when the full fuel tank exploded. We were lucky to escape unharmed.

I had some major work done to it, new head gasket etc, and the fire investigations people reckoned that a fuel line had been left with a tiny puncture. It just took a spark in the wrong place to ignite all the fuel in the line which obviously leads to the tank.

I'm not sure how accurate that diagnosis was, it sounds like something that could happen much too easily.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
I had a Peugeot 405 which went up in flames, big explosion when the full fuel tank exploded. We were lucky to escape unharmed.
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Yikes! I'm glad you escaped unscathed. That was the other thing that struck me about yesterday's scene: the driver had had the wit to get out, but they were standing right by the car. Me, I'd have wanted to put a bit of distance between.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Yikes! I'm glad you escaped unscathed. That was the other thing that struck me about yesterday's scene: the driver had had the wit to get out, but they were standing right by the car. Me, I'd have wanted to put a bit of distance between.
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I was actually driving when it caught fire but didn't realise, I stopped at a mini roundabout and the car stalled, I tried to restart it and could see a guy on the pavement frantically waving and yelling at me so we panicked and jumped out of the car.

Afterwards the bloke said that when I turned the key a jet of flame shot out of the exhaust and smoke appeared under the car so I guess the ignition spark actually ignited the fuel?

We got about 30 yards before it exploded. Unfortunately I didn't fly through the air like an action hero.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Yikes! I'm glad you escaped unscathed. That was the other thing that struck me about yesterday's scene: the driver had had the wit to get out, but they were standing right by the car. Me, I'd have wanted to put a bit of distance between.
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Yup, I was once driving a car with my eldest as a passenger when we noticed smoke coming from under the bonnet.
We screeched to a halt and I shouted RUN! and we jumped out and did just that. o_O

Turned out not to be serious - can't remember, it might have been steam from a leaky hose - but I was taking NO chances. :chuckle:
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
I was actually driving when it caught fire but didn't realise, I stopped at a mini roundabout and the car stalled, I tried to restart it and could see a guy on the pavement frantically waving and yelling at me so we panicked and jumped out of the car.

Afterwards the bloke said that when I turned the key a jet of flame shot out of the exhaust and smoke appeared under the car so I guess the ignition spark actually ignited the fuel?

We got about 30 yards before it exploded. Unfortunately I didn't fly through the air like an action hero.
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That bystander may have saved your lives! I'm sure you know that. :)
He has a good story to tell in the pub though.

I was reading about a similar incident recently where a hard-of-hearing taxi driver's vehicle caught fire.
It naturally took bystanders some effort to attract his attention but he survived. His car may have been written off.
 
I've seen it several times.
In fact a friend of mine was driving his MK3 Escort RS Turbo down the M10 (A414) at some illegal speed in the middle of the night once years ago, when the car started filling with smoke.
He pulled over and jumped out to find the whole of the engine bay belching flames.
That done for that car.
 
We were sitting having a cup of tea about fifteen years ago when someone said 'I can smell smoke'.
Clouds of dark smoke were rising from a burning baler in the field near the house. Fortunately the farmer had been able to disconnect it from his expensive tractor before it really started blazing.
The cause was determined to be a build of straw and grease which had overheated and ignited.
 

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Krepostnoi said:
Yesterday, Madame Snail posted in the jokes thread:

Tonight, on my way home from work, I saw a car stopped in the other carriageway with its bonnet up and, sure enough, flames flickering in the engine bay. I've never seen that before in thirty years of driving.
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The complexity of modern cars makes fires actually more likely. I've seen a few recently mainly on motorways. Instinctively people throw open the bonnet which of course gives more oxygen to the fire. I carry a fire extinguisher just in case.
 
A couple of months ago I encountered this when I was going shopping. A mobile paper shredder had jammed and started smouldering. It was next to the town council offices, which had to be evacuated.
 

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escargot said:
Who the hell does that? Are they more concerned about the car than their own skin?

Not me. The minute I was sure the car was on fire I'd be out and off, which is what once actually happened. :chuckle:
Bugger the car and contents. :wink2:
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I've had two cars go on fire in the street outside my house in the past 5 years. In both cases the bonnet wasn't opened - in the first case the car was abandoned in the wee small hours and whoever was in it legged it away pretty sharpish. In the second case, the driver got out and called the fire brigade. What surprised me was just how quickly they went up, in the second case it went from smoke coming out of a wheel arch to a blazing inferno in a few minutes.
I've cobbled together some pics of the last one - the time from the first pic with the smoke drifting out to the final one with the fire brigade is just under 10 minutes. Got some pics of the other fire somewhere which is even more spectacular.
carfire1.jpg
 
Only seen one car fire, I came across one well on fire yes bonnet up driver running
round doing the headless chicken thing, I had been in the AFS and the Station was
just round the corner so drove there a matter of seconds ran in banged the call out
button fire crew appeared from every direction doors opened I shouted what and were
and in what could not have been 30 secs I was left all on my own in a empty station
with clouds of diesel fumes up to my knees it felt very strange how in so short a time
the station went form dead to full on action the dead again and I was left in a empty
station.
 
Back in the late 70s I saw a ford Cortina going around a roundabout with smoke and small flame coming out of wheel-arch. I tried to catch him up but by the time I had got onto the busy roundabout they were gone.
On a different note, I was driving up the M1 and drawing level with a car I was overtaking when his bonnet flipped back and covered the screen. I kept an eye open and he did manage to get it to the hard shoulder fortunately. It was then I realised why you used to see those pegs and wire clips on customised car bonnets:thought:
 
Giant R said:
Back in the late 70s I saw a ford Cortina going around a roundabout with smoke and small flame coming out of wheel-arch. I tried to catch him up but by the time I had got onto the busy roundabout they were gone.
On a different note, I was driving up the M1 and drawing level with a car I was overtaking when his bonnet flipped back and covered the screen. I kept an eye open and he did manage to get it to the hard shoulder fortunately. It was then I realised why you used to see those pegs and wire clips on customised car bonnets:thought:
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Yup, I used to drive horrifically dilapidated Transit vans which all had sturdy failsafe bonnet catch assemblies.

Once after the bonnet mustn't have been secured properly it started wobbling up and down on a fast road and I thought shit, it's gonna flip up and smash the windscreen! but of course it did no such thing. Phew.
 
escargot said:
Yup, I used to drive horrifically dilapidated Transit vans which all had sturdy failsafe bonnet catch assemblies.

Once after the bonnet mustn't have been secured properly it started wobbling up and down on a fast road and I thought shit, it's gonna flip up and smash the windscreen! but of course it did no such thing. Phew.
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Only last year I had new brake pads fitted and when I collected the car I set off up the motorway straight away. It was very sunny and after 10 miles or so, and travelling at around 70mph, I noticed the sun was glinting on the front of the bonnet in a funny kind of way. I pulled off at the next service station and found the bonnet hadn't been closed right down in the workshop and was only on the safety catch.
 
My Mum and Dad's neighbour had a Triumph Spitfire (or something like that), which had bonnet catches on the sides of the vehicle.
He drove off one day, only for the bonnet to jump up in front of him. Fortunately, he hadn't driven far.
 
My elder sister had a Mazda (rotary engine) and spotted some-one having car trouble at the side of the lane. She stopped and got out to see if she could help and literally after a few steps her car had turned into a fire-ball behind her.
 
This Wisconsin Amazon delivery man can't believe he survived being broadsided by a train.
Amazon delivery driver struck by train can't believe he survived

An Amazon delivery driver said he's still in shock after an Amtrak train slammed into his truck, cutting it in half Wednesday.

"Yeah, it just, boom," Amazon driver Alexander Evans said. ...

It happened on River Valley Road in Ixonia in Jefferson County.

"What did you feel and hear when that train hit your truck?" WISN 12's Terry Sater asked him.

"Just air and the pressure. I felt the airbags. I didn't know what to feel, to be honest with you," Evans said. ...

He traced his route in red on a map, showing how the road parallels the track before the crossing, limiting a driver's view of the tracks.

"I just tried. I made a look as I was going down the hill to swerve, and I didn't see anything. He was on my left side," Evans said.

Evans said he's deaf in his left ear and didn't hear the horn at first. ...

There are no signals, lights or warning sounds at that crossing.

Evans said he feels something more needs to be done to alert drivers of oncoming trains.

The train hit him on his 33rd birthday.

Evans said he is still sore from the impact.
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FULL STORY: https://www.wisn.com/article/amazon-delivery-driver-struck-by-amtrak-train-survived/38239454
 
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