Tobi-Kadachi 2023/01/09 (Mon) 21:57:39 #31050910
Some time ago, I heard from a guy about a particular experience he had.
"I was working on a do-it-yourself project, using an electric circular saw to cut a long, thin square piece of wood, like swish, swish. It gradually got shorter and shorter. Swish, swish, rhythmically cutting, and when I was about to cut the last piece in half, I turned the saw off for a moment. Blew the shavings away with my breath, held it firmly in place, and swish."
"I noticed that in the middle of cutting, like, oh, I'm cutting my fingers. My left hand. Even though I was trying to hold the lumber in place, there was no way I would ever put my fingers in such a spot. My index finger flew away, my middle and ring fingers dropped to the wood and then to the floor from the vibration, and my pinky finger stayed attached to the saw blade. When I moved my arm a bit, the wood shavings flew up and onto the palm side cross-section."
"It was painful."
"Strangely enough, it wasn't unbearable. I mean, it was still an intense pain. I guess some kind of brain chemical dulled my senses. I was more mentally distressed by the exposed bone, the wood splinters covering the wound, and the sight of familiar fingers falling around me. Tried to stand up and realized I couldn't. My friend standing nearby called an ambulance, and then I went to the hospital."
"And, well, they managed to reattach my fingers. It was harder to put strength into them, and I couldn't move them as smoothly as before, but they were fixed to the point where you couldn't tell from the outside. They were connected."
Elevator door gap
Before I go on with the rest of his story, let me tell you how I came to hear it.
Have you ever dropped something in the gap of an elevator door when it opens?
I was once employed by a company as an elevator mechanic, and you would be surprised how many people tend to lose their stuff in there.
Whenever I entered an elevator pit for routine maintenance, I would find coins, business cards, and the like piled up at the bottom of it. Sometimes I would get a call to pick up a key someone had dropped.
But one day, in one of the pits I was in charge of, there was something else entirely.
Fresh raw meat was down there.
Tobi-Kadachi 2023/01/09 (Mon) 22:08:13 #31050910
Hydraulic elevator pit
The elevator was located in a multi-tenant building. Apparently it was involved in a child-injury accident a few years ago, so the monthly scheduled maintenance had to be done much more carefully. In case you're interested, I have attached the picture of a pit for reference, though it's not the one at the actual place and it's not the same model.
In the pit, I would always find a piece of pork belly, discolored dark red but fresh as if it had just been dropped in there, getting jammed into the narrow crevice of the mechanism.
Sometimes people make ridiculous mistakes.
If it had happened only once, I would have accepted it as a possibility. But when it happened every single time during routine maintenance, it was a different matter. Not a mistake.
It was intentionally dropped. The culprit was soon identified.
According to a colleague who reviewed the elevator surveillance footage, it was a guy in his thirties or so. He, an occupant of the building, was always inserting raw meat into the elevator gap early in the morning on the days we were on routine maintenance.
Unfortunately, the building management company did nothing more than put up some warning posters and took no substantive action at all. But there were no problems with that. While it was hard to say that it wasn't an annoyance, in the end it was just one of many places I had to deal with, and frankly it didn't bother me much. Until that day.
Tobi-Kadachi 2023/01/09 (Mon) 22:17:00 #31050910
When I went to maintain the elevator in question as usual, there was a business-suited man standing with his back straight, his face facing the elevator door, clutching raw meat tightly in his right hand. The distance between his face and the door was like only a few millimeters, and he didn't move a muscle.
When I asked him what the heck was wrong, he probably thought I was asking about his condition, and he started talking fast about the aforementioned incident, showing me his left hand while his back was still turned to me.
Clearly a crazy guy, right? He was definitely the fresh meat dude, and his story wasn't the kind you should suddenly tell to a person you've never met before. But then, I also ended up saying something I shouldn't have asked a stranger.
Because he had no fingers on his left hand except for his thumb.
"Yeah, I cut off them once more. With the circular saw."
"I kind of wanted to make a shelf. After enduring long, long workdays, I went to a home improvement store on the much-awaited weekend and bought the materials. Put a carpenter's square on the board, drew a line, and then realized something wasn't right the moment I started to cut it with the saw. I had hated DIY carpentry ever since that day. So why was I now trying to cut this board along the line, while holding it in place with my poorly-functioning left hand?"
"It happened in a moment. My right hand, which should be in good health, was not moving as I want it to. The saw's safety mechanism was broken. Why did I still have such a thing in the first place? I couldn't remember, and I was not sure anything. My fingers were on the line."
"It was painful."
"All four of them were chopped off at once. My body stiffened and jerked the saw, causing them to be cut in a zigzag pattern. I don't know how to say this, I think it must had gotten a taste of me. Must had thought I was easy prey to catch."
Tobi-Kadachi 2023/1/9 (Mon) 22:21:01 #31050910
It was when the elevator arrived with a ding. No one was on board. He squatted down to insert the fresh meat into the gap, then turned around.
"As long as you do this, you'll be fine. I have to move out of here, so I was waiting to meet someone to tell this to, I thought I should."
As he said so, the guy looked like a totally normal person, and had none of the psycho vibe that I had felt a few seconds earlier. He seemed pleasantly cheerful, and with a slight smile on his face, he bowed out and left in a humble manner. I think that's why he really made an impression on me. I can remember every detail. And now I think more strongly that his words must have been right.
Perhaps it's largely because my job made his misfortune no stranger to me. There are times when, in a familiar task, you hardly use your brain, and your body just does the motions ingrained in it on its own. Sometimes people make ridiculous mistakes. Machines know that and let us do it on purpose.
I was removed from my position in charge of elevator maintenance there several months later. I guess it was inevitable.
Tobi-Kadachi 2023/01/09 (Mon) 22:22:17 #31050910
| Incident Description | Location | Incident Circumstances | Machine Type | Extent of Injury |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A worker's left hand was caught between the elevating lift and the floor of the building's second story. | Iwate Prefecture | Entangled / Caught in between | Elevator | Amputation from left wrist to the end of the hand |
It was painful.