I arrived at Norton in March of 1973 and of course, the new guy hears all the stories and is usually laughing too hard to sort out fact from fiction.

Eventually, I just decided to tell the stories to other new guys, using laughter to raise moral.

Onto the drilling story. We had an Airman First Class who wanted to drill some screw accesses or something in a flat metal bar but was too lazy to either fill out a request for a skilled machinist to do it, or too lazy to go across the street to the maintenance dock hangar and politely ask to use a drill press.

No, he was going to do this himself, drilling into 3/8" steel with ... a hand drill. Now, the bench is just above the belt where we put electronic boxes to work on them. You see right where this is going if you're adept and I'm sure you are.

Well, our friend takes it another step further. He's also too lazy to stand, prefers to sit on a bench stool.

He uses a C Clamp to hold down the strip on a bench. Oils the steel bar to keep the bit cool, all usual safety precautions, avoiding common sense, or course.

Well, leaning onto the drill to force it through the plate, it was bad enough if it had penetrated the bar as desired it would have permanently damaged the bench surface. Well, our friend leaned a bit hard and thanks to the oil on the bar the drill slipped and with full power driving the bit, went right at the Captain and both Lieutenants.

He was lucky enough that the bit missed his little Captain and the Lieutenants were combat savvy enough to let the bit pass between both of them.

Thanks to a very sharp bit, which otherwise would have bound up scrotum flesh, he got away with a clean wound which healed completely to our knowledge.

I don't know what his wife had to say but we all got a laugh out of this one.

Much safer to use a drill press ... they were made to hold that bit in place.

Good thing for this guy he was using a 1/16" bit. I could imagine what a 1/4" or better would have done.

Submitted on 05/06/2012

Submitted by: Michael Durthaler
Reference: Personal Reference

Copyright © 2012 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
This guy probably doesn't realize just how lucky he was. From the description it sounds like he could have drilled right into the femoral artery in his thigh, and if he'd done that he would have bled to death rather quickly. Thanks for a good example of why you should always use the proper tools!

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
As Bruce said!

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