Close Calls

[aitm]

1987, I owned a small masonry company in Melbourne Fl, had a crew of five on a Friday morning to lay the second floor of a house on the beach. It had rained hard that night. The contractor has the floor joist installed and decking and all of it was braced very well with floor jacks cause we had about 12 tons of block sitting on top.

Waiting for the masonry sand to arrive, we checked out the shoring and had a couple ciggies talking about what we were doing tonight after work. the wind changed slightly and we got a nose full of bacon from the little store across the road. "Lets' get some breakfast" 10 yards out of building the entire thing collapsed.

We stood very quietly, I looked at one of the laborers, "Bobo, when does the bar open at the Inn"
"Not for another hour at least"
I gave him a twenty, "go get us a case then and we will go there and wait."

And we did, drank till noon, went home.

But Monday came and not one of them went to church, (good catlics too) but we all talked about getting laid that weekend.

I still can feel the rush of wind , the blast of sand and the sound, you would think there would be some cracking and a type of delayed response as some jacks would last longer than the others, but no, it just went, WHOOM! and the blast of sand to the back of our head.

[Baruch]

When I was 17, I was doing roofing work on a new apartment complex with my best friend.  We had set up a simple pulley hoist on top, so that one could load at the bottom and pull it up, and the other could unload.  About four floors up.  We traded places, he came down, I went up ... and when I got there, the hoist was gone.  I looked over the side, to see what had happened ... and there it was, on the ground next to him.  The other construction workers had unbolted the hoist from the roof, and when he pulled on it, with a load, the hoist came over the side and down at him.  Missed by inches.  Those were the days!