I hit 'it' with a hammer too.....

Just a warning to everyone out there. If your working on a ladder with tools, either take the tools down with you when yougo, or use the holes designed to hold them.

Sunday afternoon I was working off an 8 foot step ladder and putting few nails in my shed roof. I climbed down to check on another project I had going on, and when I came back decided to move the ladder a few feet. I forgot I had left the hammer lying on the top, instead of sticking it in the hole designed for it.

The end result was about a 1" long gash on the top of my head. Thankfully it only hurt when the hammer hit it. I didn't even know I was cu for several minutes, until I took off my hat and the blood began flowing across my face.

Got the blood stopped, and got my wife to look at it. I was happy to wipe it with antibiotic and go on, but my wife said I needed to have it looked at. I figured it would take less time to hit the Fast Med, than to listen to her fuss at me, so off we went.

I came home with 3 staples in my head.......Still never really hurt, even without any deadening, beyond a slight pinching pain when the doctor stapled it. I get to wear them for 2 weeks, and then go back so they can take them out.

Like I said, always being tools down, or put them in the holes designed to keep them in place when your working......Your noggin will thank you......

everybody loves to devil me about wearing my hardhat nearly all the time but it's saved me from some serious dings too many times to relate here.

My hard-hat saved my life.

Back in 1968 I was working for Pacific Clay Products (World's largest manufacturer of Vitrified Clay Sewer Pipe) in Santa Fe Springs, CA . I was helping fabricate a new, 12 story tall Iso-Press Tower - (most sewer pipe is made by extruding wet clay, which then has to air-dry for a week, before it can be fired in the Kiln. The Iso-Press system would allow us to take DRY, granulated clay and put it in a mold and press it pneumatically, eliminating the drying stage, before it went to the Kiln.) . I was working on ground level, and someone up on the 8th level accidently kicked a 24 inch Crescent Wrench off the metal decking, striking me directly on top of my hard-hat. Impact knocked me out for a few seconds; checked my hard-hat and the wrench had put a 1 inch Deep by 4 inch Long crease diagonally across the top of my AlumaLite hard-hat. After being checked out at the local Hospital and returned to duty, the Company gave me a new AlumaLite hard-hat (which I still have) and took pictures of me holding the Wrench in the crease. The Wrench, my hard-hat, and the Photos were all put up on the SAFETY Bulletinboard in the Main Office (and are still there as far as I know) .

Doc :>)

Woke up on the ground with blood everywhere, 30' extension ladder laying across me and the 2x4 block I had been using to tap siding into place near. I had left it up top rung as I got to the ground and hoisted the ladder up to move it.

Or... wear a hardhat. That's the first question that would get asked if on a construction site and you were injured, was he wearing a hardhat? Glad it was not any worse, those sure can bleed too, then the wife sees you afterward, not knowing, it looks a lot worse than it probably is.

A year or two ago a young fellow on a construction site in a nearby city was killed by a falling hammer when he had no hard hat on.

My father still has his FiberMetal aluma-lite, blue with fancy calligraphy lettering with his initials, think my granddad did that for him as he was an artist and extremely talented with calligraphy. I have always found that FiberMetal was the best hardhat, though there are so many out there now.

While in egress from a high rise in Manhattan, a bricklayer lost a full load of brick from the thing with the handle that picks them up, say 8 at a time. They came raining down. We always put up shedding and sidewalk scaffold to protect from this kind of accident, even a hardhat may not prevent injury from that height, say 8 stories, but I'd rather have one on than not. I've been on jobs where jumbo bricks were intentionally tossed down at us, people can be real jerks sometimes. Last time it happened I went to the floor with a crew of ironworkers ready to set things right, of course I sort of fired them up about it, was tired of dodging bricks while we were rigging. Turns out they were trying to break the glass in our giant windows, with no care that we were also within range of what they were tossing down at us.

Wayne, How much damage was done to the hammer ? LOL...... Glad you ok dude..

Holly Ouch. Glad it didnt knock anything loose but your pride a little. Glad your ok and it wasnt worse.

When they first started working with the Atlas ICBM the crews were always instructed to wear hard hats. The missile in vertical launch position is 65+ feet tall. After a few near missises of people on the deck from hard hats falling down, it was decided to wear bump hats when working on high. The bump hats are a lot softer and don't weigh as much.

I got my own hammer back I reluctantly lent to a laborer when I moved a ten foot ladder. Just a lump no cuts.

That's how you keep someone from stealing your ladder while you are gone to break or to get something you need. Leave something up there. Always had a few subs on a project who would expect to use others ladders rather than haul in their own. BTW it does cure the problem. Just gotta be careful not to forget you set the trap or it may bite you. gobble

You broke the hammers fall as no knowing what could have happened if the handle hit first unknowingly cracking the handle, go to use it and have head come off flying backwards going thru a triple pane picture window and smashing into SWMBO's great-grandmas china cabinet and hitting the Ming Dynasty vase.

Or worse yet, hitting your trucks windshield.

That's using your head for more than a hat rack. LOL

It is amazing how much a head injury bleeds. I know from first hand experience. I have one of the little tools for removing the staples, it saves me a trip to the doctors office.

dam ,I hate it when that happens ,hope you heal well and learn a lasting good lesson , been working on stepladders for 45yrs , ,the wood and aluminum and magnesium ladders never had holes in the top step, or the tool paint flapper,.so I never developed a bad habit of leaving tools up there .. when they started putting holes in the plastic tops for tools , I told my son not to give into the habit of parking things there ,,sooner or later you will get down for something and leave a screwdriver setting up there ,. spends 5 minutes to build your product on the floor and get ready to install all the while wondering where the durn screwdriver walked off to ,,,when ready to install your device you quikly decide to move the ladder a little to better get a nice torque and good angle for installing when ,. BINGO , the phantom screwdriver comes down right alongside your head and clips your ear,.. from4ft of fall it can deliver some severe bloody pain,.. but it will heal in a week and in a couple weks you can forget and do it all over again,../the only way to break yourself of that bad habit is a open bucket of paint ,all over your head .lol