A time to review safety

[Rounder]

A good friend of mine and another forum member was taken to the emergency room last night for a woodworking accident. I am still not sure exactly what happened, but this is the best I can figure out.

He was cutting a 4" x 4" on his table-saw and got kickback. A piece of the wood hit him in his left eye and knocked him out. He has damage to his eye and can only see minimal light from it. They are saying in 4 to 6 weeks they will know if he will regain vision in his eye.

As I said, the exact details are not known, but it is enough to remind me to wear a face shield when woodworking with power tools; make sure I have the proper hold-downs and finger boards in place, and make sure the cut is safe.

[venkatbo]

Hi Rounder,

We wish and pray he has a very speedy recovery...
BTW, do you happen to know if he was wearing safety glasses when this happened ? 'am wondering if he was wearing one, if it didn't help, then would a face mask have helped ? 'am presuming these both are the ANSI stansard ones...

Thanks,
/venkat

[Leon]

He was not wearing safety glasses. He was wearing them outside while working on the deck but they were sunglasses also and he took them off when he went in the shop to trim the 4x4. I know that he got the saw at a garage sale without any of the safety attachments.

Leon

[just4funsies]

If you've ever seen table saw guru Kelly Mehler (who currently "preaches" for Delta on the WW show trail) do his talk about TS kickback, the very first thing you'll do is get a riving knife for your BT. I just replaced my homemade one with one that Lee Styron makes. Hands and eyes don't grow back. I hope all goes well for our brother-in-arms.

[lcm1947]

Man, that's tough. Hope your friend is OK and gets his sight back OK. Yeah, you've got to stay on guard with this important and necessary tool. She'll get you if you let her. Hmmm, kinda reminds me of She who must be obeyed. Anyway thanks for telling us about it. I hate to hear something like that but it does help to keep us on our toes.