My first real car-related injury
 

So i'm at the auto-skills center here on post the night before last using a 4-post lift to fix a dry-rotted fuel line on my 525I, takes about 15 minutes to do everything so I've got time to kill and decide to check out my ball joints/tie-rods by using the bridge jack... Now I know better than to ever put my head between two big ass pieces of metal but I wasn't thinking right I guess, I set the bridge jack up (7' round air powered hydraulic jack rolling between the two rails on the 4-post weighing in at about 150lbs) and about 6 seconds after it makes contact with the subframe (so the majority of the cars weight is supported by said jack) something jumped track and the jack pivoted down with all the weight of the car on top of it smacking me in the face and throwing me into the I-beam that was directly behind my head.

I have no idea how I got away with what little injuries I did or how I got away at all going back and looking at everything, but end result is a broken nose, big ass cut right under my nose, a hole going through my lip, a huge knot on top of my head, and 7 stitches in the back of my head.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the carnage but wanted to post to give you all something to think about when you're working on your shit, be careful where you put your body, think about what could happen if something stupid goes wrong.

Oh and side note...never go to a German hospital for stitches...shit sucked :giggle:

Ouch!

What happened to the vaunted Euro gov't health care system?

I got a small tear in my rotator cuff from raising my top after installing a race seat. It's taking forever to heal.

I also have a tear in my right knee meniscus from moving a cylinder head while squatting on the floor - it's costing me $250 / mo in prolotherapy, may take 6-8 mos.

LOL, I'm US Army. I got kick ass insurance that covers everything 110%, euro gov't didn't need to do anything for me.

People die all the time from that crap. If you work on cars long enough, you'll probably have one fall off a jack stand. I always throw at least an old wheel underneath, so if it does slip there's something besides me to catch it.

Worse than being killed outright would be to be trapped for hours, or made into a vegetable or crippled. Would really suck to have a nice car and not be able to drive it.

Hope you learned from this and won't do it again. Not worth the risk.

Damn, glad you are still in one piece. One of you is enough, we don't need you broken into two pieces. :giggle: Be careful with that shit, for real. I'm probably WAY more risky than I should be. Fortunately I make Hustler look like a bitch, and I could flip the car off of me if I was pinned..... :x: (not really though)

Damn....owned. :fawk:

ouch. in for pics.

Nude pics please.

Please re-create on video and upload to site. Thanks.

Yikes... Glad to hear you are okay Brian. Just sit down to a nice brew or two. It will make you feel better (at least it does me...).

It looked eerily similar to your hood flying at my face...except that I actually got hit and instead of being a 10lb fiberglass hood it was a 150lb jack with 3,000lbs of BMW on top of it.

Definitely enjoyed a few nice beers and a rack of kick ass ribs that night after I got out of the hospital.

Good man on the brew and ribs upon getting out... Just glad you are alright.

That is one thing that I really miss about the Army. When I was at Ft. Ord we had a really nice one. All those bays and lifts and tools. The cost to use a bay for the day was nothing and you could store your car on the lot for a pittance. I thought that would be a really cool bus to own, but with liability in the silly civilian world it could never happen.

Glad to hear the damage wasn't too bad.

Ouch! Sorry to hear that. Glad you are OK.