Woodworking Injuries in Slow Motion

Slow motion woodworking accidents shot at 40,000 fps on the highest resolution high-speed camera in the world.

Chris V:

Cam Adams: He's just a guy, he doesn't have a website

00:00 Introduction
00:46 Camera and cameraman
01:38 Jointer injury w/Katz Moses
04:57 Router/CNC injury w/Foureyes Furniture
07:59 Chainsaw to the leg
09:01 Testing chainsaw chaps
10:07 Blacktail n3 nanofinish
11:18 Nailgun accident
12:42 Angle grinder accident w/Malecki
16:10 Bandsaw finger slice
18:07 Table saw accident w/Jimmy Diresta
21:36 Bonus table saw accident
22:38 Accident montage

[jake]

Saw a guy lose a testicle with a framing nailer. He was putting on trusses and straddling the crown tying them together and sat the nailer in his lap with finger on trigger to scoot forward and nailed a boy to a truss. Had to pull nail without squishing anything else to take him to er. Have NEVER heard a man make a noise close to his primordial scream... makes me want to barf thinking about it!!

[Chris]

I'm an Industrial Tech teacher, and I am 100% going to use this video in my woodworking classes. Forgive me if I skip over your ad when I show it to high schoolers though... :) You did an amazing job explaining everything, and the interviews were very well put together and informative. Thank you for putting something like this together to help me further educate our future power tool users!

[squash]

As someone who is around chainsaws very often, the reason your chainsaw wrapped around the leg is is because there was nothing to stop the leg from rotating. Usually your hip will keep your leg from rotating and the saw will just get bogged down in the fabric. Injury is definitely still a possibility but will be much less severe.

[robbmorrow]

My grandfather cut himself on his old table saw. It was 1996, just before my parents wedding, and he was cutting some wood for the house. He was 72 at the time and as fit as a fiddle, always had been, he’d worked all his life (and had plenty of injuries), but was happily retired then. Anyway he was pushing wood through the saw when he heard a noise, and he turned his head for a split second to see what it was and his fingers went through the blade. He was the hardest man ever to live. He picked each finger up, threw them into a jar of some sort (I can’t remember what he filled it with to preserve the fingers, if anything), and jumped into his van. He drove down to the village and pulled up to the shop where my granny was working. He shouted in the door “I’m going to the hospital, I’ve cut my fingers off!”. So, she hopped in with him and he drove to the hospital, with one hand fingerless. Thankfully, they managed to reattach them, and he had fully functioning hands by the time I came along in 1999; albeit the fingers were a bit stiffer, but, if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t notice. He told me that as a kid to warn me about that danger, and in my mum and dad’s wedding photos he’s got a huge white cast 😁 He died in 2012, in bed, of old age surrounded by his family. Not a one of his injuries, and there were many, got him. But, my God, if he had ever followed safety guidelines his life woulda been a whole lot less painful!

[Hongobogologomo]

The problem with safety is that legitimate safety questions like "am I mentally here, am I tired, should I do this later" are often ignored in the workplace because its a workplace. If you say Im tired, im stressed, youll get motioned away or given a lighthearted comment, or straight up fired.
Yes, youre better off not working in such places. Dont lose your body parts for a job.

[avgjoeshow]

This was a genius video idea, and I love that you didn’t just show what happens in slow motion, but actually interviewed somebody who had that injury for each accident

[TimIrwin]

My Dad was a surgeon and I grew up in a town with a lot of logging (commercial and "amateur"). He hated trying to sew up chainsaw wounds because there was very little available to sew together.

[terrmaso]

My job while in the Army was an operating room technician. I have seen the effects of more "accidental" injuries than I can even remember. Now, my job in furniture repair exposes me to most of the tools you filmed. My respect for all fast-moving sharp objects will never go away, nor will my love for safety equipment. My belief is that the extra time spent eliminating hazards is well spent. I like all my functioning digits/appendages. Thanks for the cool footage.

[poseidon.-]

the most dangerous in wood working is when you doing a lot repetitive cut / work & you get too comfortable to realize that the dangers still there.

[chuckhammond]

As someone who lost their thumb with a band saw I can tell you that you really don’t feel it at first but the stitches are the worst part. It’s been a year since I cut it off and I still have a lot of pain whenever I hit it on anything. I’m a mechanic so it sucks but I gotta push through it and get the job done.

[bensnide]

I've been in construction for 25 years, mostly being a cut man for a couple different carpenter's. The kid I'm working for now is only 24 and is an average 24 year old, thinks I'm overly cautious about safety. I'm definitely sending him this video. Thank you so much for taking the time and money to make this.

[thedreadwolf]

My dad has been a carpenter tradesman all of my life so I've been around all of these tools during that time, but the table saw has always made me VERY nervous!

[colleenh]

I used to be an x-ray tech, and seeing all these different injuries being demonstrated is quite interesting to me because I often wondered how the people acquired the injuries that they came in with that I ended up x-raying. I’ve seen someone that shot a nail through their foot and boot. And I’ve also seen them nail two fingers together. I’ve seen fingers completely removed and had to X-ray them apart from their owner. Surprisingly lawnmowers are one of the biggest culprits.

[ExhaustedOwl]

I worked as a court transcriber for 3 years and saw a lot of workplace injury cases. Many of them were from circular saws. Interestingly, there was a pattern: part 1 was a tradesman would injure a finger (perhaps by striking it badly with his hammer) and the finger would develop neuropathy, aka go numb as a result of nerve damage. Part 2 was that because he could no longer feel that finger (and perhaps not be able to bend it), a second, far worse injury would later happen to it, eg. a circular saw cut. It was honestly strange how many people had the same sequence of events.

[Jesperalex]

This video reminded me about an injury I got in 2013 while helping my grandma and her partner clear branches from a bush with a circular saw attached to a brushcutter. In the timespan of less than 2 seconds her partner cut me in my left upper thigh to the front, ”luckily” just above my knee. Without protective gear it penetrated my thigh about 8 cm (~3 inches) deep and I was after surgery in bed for 3 weeks waiting for the injury to heal, roughly 40 stitches. The initial cut didn’t hurt but I screamed like I was dying. Luckily the circular saw missed the artery, otherwise I would’ve bled to death in a minute (scary to learn that after the accident). Since then I always have the most respect for safety guidelines and rules.

[iaethyourfamily]

Im 13 and I do woodworks in school so like this is definitely making me realise the importance of watching what you’re doing and having your full attention on the machine

[davenelson]

I am an Industrial Tech teacher. I do tell my students that the packing plant in our town uses a bandsaw. My students can understand that because most of their parents work at the packing plant. Thanks for putting this video together. As a teacher, i can not stress more how important safety is.

[Springboksfan]

Mad respect to the guy who lent him a hand, or two.

[steverodriguez]

I work in a meat department at Costco and that bandsaw is fucking terrifying. That thing cuts through bone very easily.

[Ripboss]

There was a saying my father would always tell me. He would always tell me that "Whenever you are working with power tools, or just in general, watch where you put your fingers. Because you can only loose them once." This video truly highlights, for me at least, why he would always tell me that.