I am writing in response to your request for additional information for my accident report. I put "Poor Planning" as the cause of my accident. You asked for a fuller explanation and I trust the following details will be sufficient.
I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, I was working alone on the roof of a new six-story building. When I completed my work, I found I had some bricks left over which, when weighed later, were found to weigh 240 lbs. Rather than carry the bricks down by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which was attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor. Securing the rope at ground level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the bricks into it. Then I went down and untied the rope, holding it tightly to ensure a slow descent of the 240 pounds of bricks. You will note on the accident report form that my weight is 135 lbs. Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel, which was now proceeding downward at an equally impressive speed. This explains the fractured skull, minor abrasions and the broken collarbone, as listed in Section 3 of the accident report form. Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent, not stopping until the fingers of my right hand were two-knuckles-deep into the pulley, which I mentioned in Paragraph 2 of this correspondence. Fortunately, by this time, I had regained my presence of mind and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite of the excruciating pain I was now beginning to experience. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel. Now devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 50 lbs. I refer you again to my weight. As you might imagine, I began a rapid descent down the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for the two fractured ankles, broken tooth and severe lacerations on my legs and lower body. Here my luck began to change slightly. The encounter with the barrel seemed to slow me enough to lessen my injuries when I fell into the pile of bricks and fortunately only three vertebrae were cracked. I am sorry to report, however, as I lay there on the pile of bricks, in pain, unable to move and watching the empty barrel six stories above me, I again lost my composure and presence of mind, let go of the rope, and I lay there watching the empty barrel begin its journey back onto me.
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Handymen are like doctors… well, not from the income perspective… but when someone learns what we do, they immediately ask for advice. And people always send me stories! HILARIOUS stories! This is one of the funniest I’ve read – it’s about a British DIY'er. LET ME KNOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT A “YOB” IS (bottom of the story). "A DO-IT-YOURSELF enthusiast has been banned by his wife from taking on any more tasks after causing about $30,000 of damage. Christopher Andrews, 21, a pensions administrator, has left a trail of destruction in their two-bedroom terrace house in Wiltshire, south-west England. While trying to change a washer on a tap, he went up into the loft to look for the stop-crock and disconnected two pipes, flooding the house. He later returned to the loft to look for the television aerial and crashed through the ceiling, showering plaster on his wife who was ironing. When he wanted to lay a carpet in the bedroom, he knocked out the light bringing the roll of material into the house. He cut a large hole in the carpet rather than move the bed. Andrews once blacked both his eyes when a wheel brace slipped as he tried to change a punctured tire on the couple’s car. He ruined a kitchen work surface by trimming off so much of it to make it fit that it ended up far too small. In his hands the electric drill becomes a dangerous weapon. He cut his leg badly when he dropped the drill as he tried to rehang a broken garden gate. Then, while trying to put up a coat rack in the hall, he drilled through an electric cable sending out sparks that set fire to the curtains. This made him more safety conscious. When he decided to put some speakers on the walls he turned off the electricity. Then, unable to understand why his electric drill had stopped working, he took it apart to see if he could fix the fault. Having failed to find anything wrong with it, he tried to put it back together again but by then he had forgotten where all the pieces went. He went out and bought another drill and was about to take it back because it didn’t work when his wife arrived home and reminded him that he had turned off the electricity.
Mrs Andrews, a job training manager, said she had had enough. "Chris will have a go at absolutely anything," she said. "But in his case DIY stands for Dangerously Incompetent Yob." |
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