What everyday objects can pose a danger to our health and safety?

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Evo said:
Dangerous items: shoes, pillows, furniture, wall corners, doors...
For Evo, dangerous items include bubble wrap, sweatshirts, comfy slippers, Styrofoam insulation, life-jackets, potting soil,... Shall I continue? There is nothing that this woman cannot use to injure herself, including cotton balls and bath towels.
 
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lisab said:
Does she hold it with her front paws, bite your ankle, and kick with her back legs...? That's what my Sweet Miss Phoebe does...I love her so much :!) !

My moms cat used to like to run under and around peoples feet while they walked. I don't know how many times I almost fell on my face trying to avoid stepping on her. I think she finally got tired of getting kicked around though.
 
For Evo: The damned strangest things, or everything just to be safe.
 
lisab said:
Does she hold it with her front paws, bite your ankle, and kick with her back legs...? That's what my Sweet Miss Phoebe does...I love her so much :!) !

No, she likes to rabbit kick when she attacks my hand, but my feet are dedicated to ankle-biting.

They are so much fun. :biggrin: But I told Tsu that I know why they are so cute: They have to be or we would kill them!
 
Ivan Seeking said:
No, she likes to rabbit kick when she attacks my hand, but my feet are dedicated to ankle-biting.

They are so much fun. :biggrin: But I told Tsu that I know why they are so cute: They have to be or we would kill them!

And the irony is if we were the size of a rat, we'd be their dinner !
 
lisab said:
And the irony is if we were the size of a rat, we'd be their dinner !

It would probably be humiliating to know what goes on in their little heads. I am sure that we rank about as high as a paper bag and a bowl of food.
 
B. Elliott said:
When I was young, my grandfather was a pepper enthusiast and had quite a few different types in his back yard. One day I decided to check out a few of the peppers, so I proceeded hold a few of them and spin them around while still on their stems to get an up close look. Well, I was pretty allergic to pollen at the time, so at one point I gave both of my eyes a pretty good rub. WHAM! I don't think I've ever experienced a pain like that before. I remember laying on a couch for hours with a wet rag on my eyes, crying out because they stung so bad.

I literally hated peppers up until my early 20's where I, out of nowhere, seemed to develop a taste for them. Now I just about can't eat anything without straight peppers or at least pepper seasoning on it. The hotter the better!

While disecting peppers, exercise caution if you require a bathroom break.
 
Phrak said:
While disecting peppers, exercise caution if you require a bathroom break.

And don't pick your nose.
 
wolram said:
Stop eating candy christina, it will ruin your complexion.

lol, I used to eat candy until I found that it was so dangerous.
 
Borek said:
At first I though it is Evo related thread...

Open door can be a killer thing. In the dark, when you think you are just moving parallel to the wall and you hit door edge with your head. I broke my teeth last year this way.

Well, I broke this teeth over 20 years ago, so this time it was more pricey than painful.

ow...I hope it was just one tooth?

I seem to try to go and open the light and I swing my hand over and...slam it on the adjacent wall. Hand goes numb for awhile.
 
~christina~ said:
ow...I hope it was just one tooth?

I seem to try to go and open the light and I swing my hand over and...slam it on the adjacent wall. Hand goes numb for awhile.

I always wonder why it hurts so much when we hit things unintentionally.

When, I hit wall on purpose, I don't feel any pain but moving in dark and hitting object[pointy ones particularly] gives big pain!
 
rootX said:
When, I hit wall on purpose, I don't feel any pain but moving in dark and hitting object[pointy ones particularly] gives big pain!

I have to say that it might be due to us knowing that we are going to hit something so we are mentally prepared for the hit as opposed to us hitting something unintentionally.
 
rootX said:
I always wonder why it hurts so much when we hit things unintentionally.

When, I hit wall on purpose, I don't feel any pain but moving in dark and hitting object[pointy ones particularly] gives big pain!

when it is intentional, you
1] brace yourself, turning the muscles into more efficient shock absorbers
2] use a part of your body (such as the flesh-padded side of your fist) that won't feel as much pain as another part (such as your toe).
3] may unconsciously recoil, hoping to avoid pain/damage
 
The most dangerous object in the world - in the dark
http://www.richmond.ac.uk/images/resources/itav/av-equipment/uk-plug.jpg

And an early example of it's use
http://www.geocities.com/barensteel/SH12-7.gif
 
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~christina~ said:
ow...I hope it was just one tooth?

One. But it was already a troubled one. I have a weak teeth. As we say in Poland - teeth like pearls, hole in each. Or more like filling in each.
 
Borek said:
One. But it was already a troubled one. I have a weak teeth. As we say in Poland - teeth like pearls, hole in each. Or more like filling in each.

lol

Can I say that this is a reason not to eat candy?
 
Borek said:
One. But it was already a troubled one. I have a weak teeth. As we say in Poland - teeth like pearls, hole in each. Or more like filling in each.

Oh, so I should blame the Polish side of my family for that? I thought it was the British side. Or maybe my Polish mom and partly British dad just doomed me to bad teeth from the start. :rolleyes:
 
~christina~ said:
Can I say that this is a reason not to eat candy?

You mean - candy like a dangerous everyday object? :smile:

I am just back from my dentist BTW. But it is not that bad now. Somehow the worst time was in my University times, I wonder if it was not because of chemicals.
 
~christina~ said:
I find that many objects are hazardous. (they seem quite harmless until..)

Doors...
Back when I had the Health and Safety introduction at the place where I work I was quite surprised by the fact that they spent so much time talking about doors, mainly about how we should avoid hitting someone in the face when opening one.
The weird thing is that it turns out that the doors ARE the most dangerous "tools" where I work (and I work at a research institute where we handle cryogenic liquids, high voltages/currents, radioactive samples, nasty chemicals etc). The thing is that there are a LOT of doors where I work, whoever designed the building really went to great lengths to reduce the risk of a fire in one of the labs spreading via the corridors. However, this also means that you spend a lot of time opening doors (I have to open 12 doors just walking from from my office to the lab) and when people are in a hurry they tend to just push them open (there are no handles) as fast as they can, meaning loitering in front of a closed door is a really bad idea
So far I have been hit twice, and according to the annual incident report I am not the only one...
 
f95toli said:
Doors...
The weird thing is that it turns out that the doors ARE the most dangerous "tools" where I work (and I work at a research institute where we handle cryogenic liquids, high voltages/currents, radioactive samples, nasty chemicals etc).

Me too - we had a nice old quaint little lab in a 150 year old building, with real mercury barometers until HSE found us.
They insisted on replacing the glass in our glass panel doors because it didn't meet standards, then it was decided that the replacement solid doors were dangerous because you could hit someone, so they put back the original doors with all the panels except one replaced by wood. In a university of course this took most of a year.


My best story, I was working in a government lab that handles really dangerous stuff ( smoking crater dangerous), the management of the lab was going to be handed over to a private contractor so it suddenly had to meet safety standards (the government is exempt!)
We had to have an extra fire door fitted to our upper story lab - which they did.
But the building exterior was still government managed and they didn't have to fit the fire escape.
So fire exit door -> 20 foot drop.
So we locked the door and put tape across it, "Do Not Use" Signs etc...
Next safety audit = can't have a locked/blocked fire door.
As far as I know it's still there.
 
One time i had to change a motor on one of the machines, to change the motor one has to wriggle inside it through a door at floor level, there are all manner of things in the way, any how when extracting my self half in half out my hand slipped and i caught my back.
The accident report said, hand slipped on floor hurt back.
 
Borek said:
You mean - candy like a dangerous everyday object? :smile:

Yes, that candy that does this =>http://www.thegreenhead.com/imgs/voodoo-knife-holder.jpg
I am just back from my dentist BTW. But it is not that bad now. Somehow the worst time was in my University times, I wonder if it was not because of chemicals.
That's good but:
oh no... is it because of improper handling of chemicals? :frown:(starting to think about the hazards of lab and if it's safe to pursue a chemistry occupation*)
 
~christina~ said:
is it because of improper handling of chemicals? :frown:(starting to think about the hazards of lab and if it's safe to pursue a chemistry occupation*)

Don't compare safety standards in the contemporary lab in US and in the lab back in eighties in Poland.

My feeling is that most of these todays lab regulations save 1 life in a year, impeding thousands of experiments at the same time. Overregulation is a word that comes to mind. Signum temporis.
 
mgb_phys said:
Me too - we had a nice old quaint little lab in a 150 year old building, with real mercury barometers until HSE found us.
They insisted on replacing the glass in our glass panel doors because it didn't meet standards, then it was decided that the replacement solid doors were dangerous because you could hit someone, so they put back the original doors with all the panels except one replaced by wood. In a university of course this took most of a year.


My best story, I was working in a government lab that handles really dangerous stuff ( smoking crater dangerous), the management of the lab was going to be handed over to a private contractor so it suddenly had to meet safety standards (the government is exempt!)
We had to have an extra fire door fitted to our upper story lab - which they did.
But the building exterior was still government managed and they didn't have to fit the fire escape.
So fire exit door -> 20 foot drop.
So we locked the door and put tape across it, "Do Not Use" Signs etc...
Next safety audit = can't have a locked/blocked fire door.
As far as I know it's still there.
Doors are only a safety hazard for dorks.

We had a stairway door that opened into a main hallway with the same regs about the door not having a window. If finally occurred to someone that if the door were moved to exit out the side of the stairwell, the door would open into a much less traveled hallway around the corner with almost no difference in how far you have to travel to evacuate.

Our CE folks were very efficient and they completed the entire job in one weekend. The new doorway was installed and looked like it had been there forever. You had to look very close to even tell there was ever a door opening into the main hallway.

The following Monday morning was hilarious. A lot of second floor folks (and even some third floor folks) took the stairway instead of the elevator each morning. Well over half figured out something was drastically different before they reached the old doorway. Some tried the door to the left of the old one, but weren't very surprised to find it was only the door to the broom closet. Most correctly figured out that they were more likely to find the door around the corner.

The funny ones were the ones that realized there was no door at the point they were walking towards and seamlessly adjusted their path to the door on the left. Just a normal Monday morning until they open the "stairway" door to find a broom closet. :bugeye:
 
f95toli said:
Doors...
Back when I had the Health and Safety introduction at the place where I work I was quite surprised by the fact that they spent so much time talking about doors, mainly about how we should avoid hitting someone in the face when opening one.
The weird thing is that it turns out that the doors ARE the most dangerous "tools" where I work (and I work at a research institute where we handle cryogenic liquids, high voltages/currents, radioactive samples, nasty chemicals etc). The thing is that there are a LOT of doors where I work, whoever designed the building really went to great lengths to reduce the risk of a fire in one of the labs spreading via the corridors. However, this also means that you spend a lot of time opening doors (I have to open 12 doors just walking from from my office to the lab) and when people are in a hurry they tend to just push them open (there are no handles) as fast as they can, meaning loitering in front of a closed door is a really bad idea
So far I have been hit twice, and according to the annual incident report I am not the only one...

Did they put in doors that swing both directions? (You said no handles.) :confused: Fire regulations everywhere I've lived require that doors open out toward the direction of the exit. So, if you have to pull a door toward you when trying to evacuate a building, turn around and go the other way.

But, if they swing both directions, that 1) gives you no hint which way to walk unless you've memorized the building map and 2) makes it completely unpredictable which way a door might swing if you're walking toward it.

As for people who stand and talk too close to doors, one should always open the door with as much force as possible. That way they are thrown clear from the doorway when you hit them and don't become a trip hazard too. :approve: :biggrin: I don't know why people do that, but it seems a lot just stop and stand behind doors to chat. Where I work, for some reason, students seem to stand in the stairwells behind the doors to talk on their cell phones. This I really don't understand, because I think the worst reception is in the stairwell, they're clearly in the way of the flow of traffic in the stairwells, and if they were seeking a place to have a private conversation, I'm not sure that having it travel up all 8 floors is any more private than if they just stepped outside or stayed in the hallway. :confused:

By the way, windows in doors are useless when they are that tiny square window placed about 5 ft from the floor...too high for us short people to see through, or be seen through. :rolleyes: A long window near the edge that opens is more useful.
 
Borek said:
Don't compare safety standards in the contemporary lab in US and in the lab back in eighties in Poland.

My feeling is that most of these todays lab regulations save 1 life in a year, impeding thousands of experiments at the same time. Overregulation is a word that comes to mind. Signum temporis.

I don't know about that, but my relatives are very old and they have worked in the chemistry backround for a long time and are now retired and are okay still.

We don't use masks so I don't know how to avoid getting the chemicals in contact with ones teeth. We do however, use Nitrile gloves in the lab.

Can you also define Signum temporis? I looked it up and I still cannot find the meaning/definition.
 
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~christina~ said:
Can you also define Signum temporis?

A sign of the time.
 
Moonbear said:
A sign of the time.

Thanks Moonbear