Dumbest thing I have heard of yet

So I get a call tonight from a friend and coworker of mine with a story. He had his neighbor helping him build a fence. This neighbor is a FORMER employee. Not the sharpest tool in the drawer, hence the former status. Dull neighbor gets in the Cat 287 and uses it to stretch the fence. He gets out, fastens the fence, cuts it, and gets back in the Cat. This is where I get a little lost. He calls my friend for help, saying he "smashed his foot with the bucket of the skid steer". Now keep in mind he is working alone, when he had been told by my friend to wait until he got there to help. My friend tells him "There is no way you can smash your own foot with the skid steer by yourself". That would be my first reaction as well, but no, we were both wrong. Seems he crawled most of the way into the cab, sat partially on the seat with his feet sticking OUT of the front of the cab (a position I could not get into even if I tried), lowered the lap bar, unlocked the hydraulics, (all the safeties WORK on the machine) and proceeded to lower the boom until he smashed his feet. ointhead Oh, I forgot to mention, doing this was easier because of the fact he got out of the machine, and then back into it while the boom was raised in the air, another no-no. So now the neighbor has a smashed, possibly broken foot, and I guess is somewhat lucky that is all. My question is how in the world a grown man can be so dumb?????:Banghead:Banghead:Banghead There are 3 seperate safties to make sure you can't operate this machine unless you are sitting in the seat, and to intentionally get past all of these then lower the boom onto yourself takes a special kind of stupid. I have rarely been happier that someone no longer worked for me. He could have done that or worse on the job, but instead did it at a friend and neighbors house.

Okay, I can see somebody getting in with the bucket up; I can imagine someone sitting with their feet out cause I sometimes run my trackhoe (for a few minutes)with my feet propped on the windshield frame above my waist and my behind almost out of the seat(BUT NOT A SKIDSTEER!); but, to do both?! ON A SKIDSTEER!??!! Okay, for the sake of disscussion we assume this is done, BUT HE LOWERED THE BOOM ON HIS, OWN, STUPID FEET???!!! Either he is such a cowboy he revved it tight and slammed it down or he is so stupid you better watch he doesn't forget to breathe. Congratulations on the excellent business decision.

natural selection. people that stupid walk with a limp.

HEY NOW! PLAY NICE! My limp is from birth. If you don't watch it I'll join that Truckdriver Tiny in his war against you.

Well, you failed to mention something JDO...as you mentioned, the idiot had to be partially in cab, with the leg/foot he had no great concern about hanging out into the mean old world of loader arms and bucket, and he had to depress seat switch, had to let seat bar down, can't be comfortable by now, had to depress "enable" button on left console (is he a contorsion artist by now?),,, And... he had to grab the joystick control to make the boom come down and mash the foot he had no great concern about. This fellow had to be as twisted up as a pretzel at this point. I'd be afraid to let him borrow my truck. He could probably manage to drive it up a Mack's exhaust stack with little effort. Some people are too dumb to breath air. I sure hope he dosn't try and sue your bud for his own stupidity.

We had a guy on the job (operating a Case skidder), who noticed that one of the bucket latches was not fully engaged. He slid his butt down in the seat far enough that he could reach out to kick the latch closed, without ever raising the safety bar, throttling back from full speed, or taking his hands off the controls. When he kicked, he inadvertantly lowered the arms and caught his leg with the crossmember. He got away with a nasty bruise to his bone, but didn't break anything. Another couple of inches, and who knows what might've happened. It's true--You can't fix stupid.

The local garbage company uses two cat skid steers to push all the recycling onto the conveyer belt for the sorting plant. One of the "operators" noticed a piece of trash stuck in the bucket pin. He decided, in all his wisdom, that if he raised the bucket he could pull it out from the bottom without leaving his seat. Unfortunately he couldnt reach so he stretched as far as he could, hitting the joystick and bringing the bucket down on his arm. It folded him drug his arm and shoulder down so far that it broke his shoulder. I was there getting a load of woodchips and saw the whole thing, I thought he was dead. When the paramedics got there the boss had to crawl in the machine on top of him to raise the bucket and free him.

People that stupid should be required to wear a sign, so the rest of us could stay a safe distance away from them. On another note, the idiot in question got fired because when he was on flagman duty one day, he was found laying down on the edge of the road, with the stop/slow sign leaning over on something, taking a nap! Its a good thing it was the slow time for traffic.

Now you guys need to give him credit, at least it was his own foot

and we wonder why they put lap bars in them:Banghead i saw a guy get completely,thrown to the ground from a 1845c once.

There was a guy here running an old Hydromac in a salvage yard. He was very good operator and "didn't need to wear no seatbelt" and no lap bar in those. He pitched himself out over the top of the bucket. Not too bad except they had foot controls and Hydromac was well made. They had cast iron "shoes" over the front of the pedals. They were just like the ones you see in factories on control pedals for shears and such. Nice idea so you couldn't step on the pedals by accident when getting in or out. He went out the front but his feet stayed. Two broken legs and I cringe every time I think of it.

komatsu 150 said: there was a guy here running an old hydromac in a salvage yard. He was very good operator and "didn't need to wear no seatbelt" and no lap bar in those. He pitched himself out over the top of the bucket. Not too bad except they had foot controls and hydromac was well made. They had cast iron "shoes" over the front of the pedals. They were just like the ones you see in factories on control pedals for shears and such. Nice idea so you couldn't step on the pedals by accident when getting in or out. He went out the front but his feet stayed. Two broken legs and i cringe every time i think of it. Click to expand... owwww!

Now not that one should or would be casting aspirations on this ????operators character but would that funny stuff that some people smoke have any bearing on this "accident"..?

stock said: Now not that one should or would be casting aspirations on this ????operators character but would that funny stuff that some people smoke have any bearing on this "accident"..? Click to expand... Actually he was a good operator, not really a cowboy at all, just that sometimes confidence will bite us in the butt.

stock said: Now not that one should or would be casting aspirations on this ????operators character but would that funny stuff that some people smoke have any bearing on this "accident"..? Click to expand... It wasn't a factor in the one I posted either. Now, that's not to say that he might not have done that on the weekends, but I don't think he ever did it at work. The kind that do that on the job are seldom in a hurry, and this guy was always in a hurry. He was just a careless type in general.

stock said: Now not that one should or would be casting aspirations on this ????operators character but would that funny stuff that some people smoke have any bearing on this "accident"..? Click to expand... Well, not having been there, I could not say, but I am pretty sure a lot of his brain cells got smoked over the years.

Jerry what did he have to say for himself when you found him napping on the job?

I wasn't there (good thing, I didn't get in trouble that way) but the foreman told me he said he was tired and had asked to be relieved. Everyone was busy, so he decided to just take a break anyway. Besides, he said, the sign was still sticking up, so it should be OK. Granted it was the slow time of day on a private road, but if we didn't need a flagger I sure wouldn't have had one there. That was just the final straw. He had done some questionable stuff before, but I had let it slide, but this was just showing too much of a pattern. I fugured he would hurt himself or someone else, or both, sooner or later. Looks like I was right. Just glad he was not on the job still when it happened.

A farmer in our neck of the woods bought a skid steer to clean out out his cattle feed lot, as well as using it for other jobs around his farm. Unfortunately, I have forgotten all of the details, because he did tell me, but it was quite a few years ago. He was either putting the bucket or forks on it and he got out to line it up, when somehow the skidsteer drove forward and pinned him. The end result was that his leg was smashed up quite badly and resulted in a lot of time in hospital. He eventually gave up farming and the few times I did see him, his leg still wasn't fully recovered. RnR.

My farmer brother in law was cleaning up around a bale feeder and reached out of his Bobcat to pull some straw that was stuck on the back side of the bucket......hit the boom down foot control somehow and dropped the bucket on his hand pinning it against the top rail of the feeder. Spent a few days in the hospital and had several surgeries and it will never be right. We had another farmer in the area was using his skid steer to pick rocks out of a field. Don't know exactly what he did but he managed to flip a rather large rock in on his legs breaking both. He did have the presents of mind to drive to the nearest road where someone stopped and called 911. While he was in the hospital his wife sold the skid steer. Rick