A good afternoon

[Greg Beetham]

I'ts good to see you believe in the balance of nature PT. I think nowdays the more telling blows are done after school days are over, when they get a drivers licence and pubescent hormones have shrunk their brain down too the size of a pea.....not even the air bag fitment regulations can save some idiots...like you say, natural selection at work....
Greg

[Javelin]

My high school in Montreal was built in the 20's and the shops originally were furnished with surplus WW1 machinery. many of these machines were made to be run on factory power (steam plants and overhead belts and shafts) but were converted to electric. There was no way they had lawyers back then. Most of those were set aside before I got there and replaces with more WW2 surplus. TRhe exodus of anglophones was well underway and the school built for 3k students was down to 300 buy the time I was done there. I got my start in machinery there because none of the machines that were left after being cherry picked for the French schools worked and I spent a good deal of time rebuilding them and getting them certified under the direction of the 8 fingered shop teacher that I swear was 200 years old... I learned a lot but also saw a lot of accidents.

One memorable one was a couple students had tried to pull out an oxy/acetylene kit out but the cart fell apart. so they took the bottles off and laid the acetylene on a bench against a vice and the oxygen across the bottom rails. another student came by with a die shoe in his hands (must have been close to 150lbs that chunk of steel) and knocked the valve and regulator clean off the acetylene bottle, which took off like a rocket across the last 3 benches, careened off another vice and went right through a block wall where it bounced around in the hallway smashing lockers before it was depleted. afterwords everyone was amazed that it didn't ignite.. but we got the next few days off for the engineers to investigate.. nobody was hurt but they made the papers anyway

[Birma]

...knocked the valve and regulator clean off the acetylene bottle, which took off like a rocket ...

Whoa suddenly my old school seems like it was wrapped in cotton wool! Well done for surviving Javelin

[Javelin]

lol. I heard it but only saw the end of it going through the wall .. it sounded pretty cool though. never heard a sound like that since... kinda whoosh with a fading Doppler effect and a few clangs... heh.


There were few accidents purely from stupidity like this though. most were accidents that you might say could happen to anyone but probably more so to wild teenagers