Ouch - Mistakes, we all make em

[mickavalon]

couldn't help laughing at this, although I shouldn't..left the labourer, Dave out the front today knocking up some paving mix with a long handle shovel he'd been asking me to get.
I was just talking to the client when I heard Dave swearing louder and more than usual, so I popped out to tell him to kep it down and found him on the floor, blood comoing out his nose and the mixer on it's side and spinning like a top.
I turned it off and helped Dave up,seems he'd done his usual trick of using the shovel to scrape the mix off the sides of the mixer, but misjudged it cos of the length of the new handle and it had caught and smacked him in the face. Gave him a real good crack as well...wasted a whole batch as well

[lutonlagerlout]

I cant reiterate enough to labourers not to put the shovel in the mixer ,yet still they do it
saw an apprentice get a dislocated shoulder doing it with a diesel mixer==> not happy
at least it wasn't the mixer handle that hit him
LLL

[GB_Groundworks]

lucky it wasnt a big site mixer they keep going and keep hitting you, never stick a shovel in a running mixer, bang the outside with it yeah but not in it.


weve had one labourer break his wrist on the old hand start ones we used to have

[digerjones]

on one site, new labourer started. was shown the mixer, sand and cement. was told something like 16 sand 4 cement. came back later and yes sand in mixer going round with 4 ful unopened bags of cement. you counld'nt make it up. :p

[lutonlagerlout]

first gauge i ever knocked up in the big diesel was summat like 30 sand,5 cement and 5 lime
needless to say putting the water in last didnt win me many fans on my first day
LLL

[Ted]

Working with my African lads, some of whom aren't that educated, I make drums out of open-ended 25L olive-oil drums; 2 drums of stone, 4 of sand and 1 of dust...

As my guys earn about US$200 a month (+ freebie breakie and lunch and free work clothes), I can have a load of labourers and one or two excess workers doesn't break the bank like it might in the UK...

My guys used to stick the shovel in all the time but now I pay one intelligent guy US$250 (US$300 soon) a month to supervise.

I find all cement mixer drums are a little a different but I only really do two main mixes (1:6 and 1:8); once they know them and the mixer, they shouldn't be making mixes that stick to the drum...

Ted

[mickavalon]

Had a lad about 10 year ago, who, on his first week, tipped the mixer over forward so that it landed on the barrel and spun round. Instead of letting it go and switching it off, he kept hold of the handles and ran round with it. We couldn't do anything to help for laughing, bit naughty really but he was a cocky git.. not after that though!!

[London Stone Paving]

Site can be a dangerous place. I remember the first time I stood on a rake. The speed at which that handle flies towards your face is quite remarkable

[flowjoe]

One of our lads repaired a drain this afternnon, backfilled, reinstated and jumped in the van at 4pm to head back to the yard but couldn`t find his van keys, that's because they were in the bottom of the excavation he had just filled in.

An hour and a half of frantic digging and sifting later he found them, wont be getting any overtime though :laugh:

[Tommy]

Back in the midst of the snow in December, I was out gritting at 3am. The grit was soaked, and clogged up in the compartment between the hopper and the spinning disk.

Ordinarily not a problem, nothing but a few moments work to work it free, and get back in the nice warm cab. But this night it was particularly blocked, and due to parking in a dark corner. used my call out phone with a flashlight, got the worst of it out, then started the conveyor moving, got back to the back, and where was the phone?

Cue a frantic 10 minutes on hands and knees digging like a dog in the resulting pile of grit.