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Darwin Awards
2005 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Hair Today- Gone tomorrow

2005 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

A woman, who possessed butt length hair braided into two ponytails, worked in quality control for an Alabama plactics part manufacturer. The machine she operated tested the tensil strength of plastic strips. The strips would be attached at the ends to two slow moving screw drives vertically. While testing a strip, the woman decided to reach thru the machine to get her soft drink. In doing so , one of her ponytails swung into the downwardly moving drive getting hung up. No need to panic for the drive was moving at a snail's pace. But panic she did! She began attempting to pull her hair out with both hands all the while the drive continuing to pull her hair in deeper. She didn't yell at first, but after a minute she started screaming for help. Finally someone came to her rescue and hit the emergency off switch which was only 6 inches away. In the end she had her hair and scalp pulled from her skull and she lost a thumb in the screw drive.

This is a true story as I was the work comp adjuster who handled the claim.

Submitted on 11/22/2005

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference:

Copyright © 2005 DarwinAwards.com

Great? 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Awful?
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>> Moderator Scores <<

James said:
Neutral: Personal Account
OUCH!!! While a fair amount of the stupidity involved can be blamed on the company for not adequately enforcing basic safety rules (unsecured long hair has LONG been a "Bozo No-No" around machinery), this woman certainly got full reimbursement for the stupidity she expended. Reaching through ANY machine to get at something while the machine is running is a bad idea, and the fact that this machine moved slowly only served to prolong the agony. This one's painful enough to keep as a PA!

Greg said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Who knows, maybe the company DID enforce basic safety - in my experience there's always a handful of staff who routinely refuse to wear safety equipment properly until they get fired! Good PA for me. Thirty seconds longer and it could've been a really nasty DA!

Jorge said:
Maybe Toss: Other

Jack said:
Maybe Toss: Other
Having worked in Printing for over 10 years, I've heard horror stories about people getting hair and ties getting caught in machinery. I'm sorry, but without some sort of documentation, I can't believe that a woman with "butt length hair" would be allowed to work around machinery. That's asking for a negligence lawsuit!

Tracy said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Yes, there's definite stupidity here - but we get a lot of stories in the same vein, and most are funnier

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