Honolulu Lite
Our work party had spent several injury-free hours repairing some docks in Kaneohe Bay, which we should have known was too good to be true. After all, when you get several guys together with power saws, drills, hammers (sledge and regular), nails, bolts, jacks and cement blocks, something bad is going to happen. I think it's a rule. All-guy work party is a
happening waiting to accidentWith my well-documented history of self-inflicted construction appliance injuries, I was happy to stand back and let others risk life, limb, fingers, toes and other assorted appendages operating the heavy machinery. I was the designated "hammer dude" whose duty it was to hammer in nails after massive beams were cut with a massive, industrial-strength circular saw and jacked into place under the sagging pier. Hammer-related injuries, I knew, are frequent and inevitable but generally non-life-threatening, so I was game.
Actually, the beams weren't massive, but any large piece of wood can become a weapon in the hands of a testosterone-laden work party, which we proved about four hours into the job. I won't name names here because there is no individual blame to be assigned when a clump of guys are at work. What happened was this: The "circular saw guy" -- who owned the saw and ironically insisted on running it so that no one would get hurt -- was cutting the end off of a wood beam when a chunk the size of a softball shot through the air like a rocket, slamming into the face of the "jack guy," standing 10 feet away. The "jack guy" fell backward in a strangely graceful manner, ending up on his back on the reef looking very much dead. It turned out that the block of wood had only hit him on the forehead, a good inch and a half above his right eye, and he was only unconscious for about 20 seconds. So we were lucky there.
Being guys, we spent the next 10 minutes telling each other exactly how we saw the incident go down, which was helpful to the victim since all he remembered was a chunk of wood approaching his head at a high velocity. After a few "Whoa boys" and low whistles, our heartbeats had settled down to the point where we could go back to work.
Afterward, at the mandatory beer-fueled decompression session, talk inevitably led to all the tool-related accidents and near misses we had either witnessed or experienced firsthand. I supplied stories of how I accidentally cut a power saw's electric cord in half while the saw was running and managed not to get electrocuted. Another time, while wielding an electric chain saw with one hand, the blade came in contact with the palm of my other hand, just barely leaving a mark on the skin. A little further and one hand would have been in a permanent "shaka" sign.
There was the tale of a guy who shot a nail through three fingers with a nail gun, while another nail gunner managed to fire one through the fleshy part between his thumb and forefinger. We remembered state legislator Fred Hemmings chopping off several toes with his lawn mower and somebody else hitting himself in the forehead with a hammer, leaving a permanent indention.
Considering the historical record, our work party was quite successful. What's a minor subdural hematoma among friends?
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com