Man survives being dragged through CD case-sized gap

This is pretty amazing.

Quote :

A steel worker sustained horrific injuries but miraculously escaped with his life after being dragged through a gap no wider than a CD case.

Matthew Lowe, 23, was working for Barnsley structural steel fabricator Compass Engineering as a plate welder when his overalls got caught on a high-powered conveyor system for moving heavy steel beams.

Barnsley Magistrates’ Court heard that Lowe’s clothing snagged on the machine and he was forced though an opening just 125mm high on the machine head, suffering horrific injuries that have caused lasting physical and psychological damage.

Lowe suffered a ruptured stomach and bowel, broke his back in two places, shattered his pelvis, and fractured both hips, his right arm and several ribs.

Yet, he's still alive. A CD case sized gap...

Quote :

The HSE investigation into the incident on 19 December 2008 found there was no guarding in place to protect the worker – a serious safety failing for both his employer and the machine supplier, Kaltenbach.

The court was told that both parties were responsible for ensuring sufficient guarding was in place. The machine ultimately belonged to Compass Engineering after it was bought from new, but Kaltenbach installed and signed-off the equipment as being fit and ready for use.

Oops.

I debated whether this should be in Antidotes or not, but considering that it could have been prevented with a simple guard on the machine...

A hundred years later and we're not all that far removed from The Jungle.

Honestly, even after finding a BBC article on this, I'm still finding it hard to believe. How was his head not crushed? How far did he get dragged into this thing? Ow, ow, ow, and so on.

But there's a picture of the machine gap in question in the Beeb article which...doesn't really help much, but at least gives an impression of the size being dealt with.

He must be a pretty small dude anyway, given that "crushed skull" wasn't on the list of injuries.

And this wasn't even the worst industrial accident of 2008!

There was a guy who stubbed his toe.

So, uh, where did this happen? The article isn't clear.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

So, uh, where did this happen? The article isn't clear.

A short google search turns up that Compass Engineering are based in Barnsley, UK. Which it also says in the article.

Um... this being practically a miracle that he's ALIVE, shouldn't this be an antidote?

Lexin wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

So, uh, where did this happen? The article isn't clear.

A short google search turns up that Compass Engineering are based in Barnsley, UK. Which it also says in the article.

I think it just said Barnsley.

If I said Plano, would you know where the hell it is (or which one I'm talking about) without Google?

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

Um... this being practically a miracle that he's ALIVE, shouldn't this be an antidote?

Agreed. This is actually rather uplifting, compared to the murders an gangrapes that seem to be the norm for "News".

I dunno, I kinda vote for it staying here...after those injuries I have to wonder if death wouldn't have been preferable. Not to mention the PTSD.

One has to be amazed at the elastic properties of the human body though. He's like the real Mr. Fantastic.


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I would rather die then live through that. The poor guy

I wouldn't rather die. Although I'm wondering if his heawent through the gap... surely not!