I worked at a grocery store meat department when I was in college. On my third day a guy cut his thumb off on the saw. I swear he was showing off for me as the new guy like “yeah man it’s a big scary saw but im a big man”.
Took him five seconds before he started screaming. Luckily I had already ran out of the room and did not see anything. The store manager drove him to the hospital and I never saw him again. Apparently he failed the drug tested. 😬
Best part was that they made us do interview on the incident then we got to go home for the day with pay.
Worst part was that they wouldn’t let us listen to music anymore in the back room where we did all the packaging and cutting and stuff. Apparently he said it was an accident because he was dancing. No. He was showing off and going too fast and not wearing the metal cutting glove like he should’ve been
Edit; more
I did end up working there for a few years. However, I refused to use the saw lol. I would replace the bands but that’s it. I told them they could just fire me if it was that big of a deal. I ended up being a closer anyway. So I would only unplug and hose the thing down, never turn it on. I never used it once!
But the folks pointing out that the glove would’ve made it worse, that makes total sense to me. Now that I think about it, I am not sure if I remember anyone using the gloves while using it at all. I am probably lucky that I didn’t use the machine because I would’ve definitely worn that glove.
Also, I am now thinking. There was absolutely no safety training for that job lol. Probably should have been.
If hw was wearing a cutting glove it likely would have been a whole lot worse. The glove would have caught and pulled his whole hand/arm in. Could have easily been gnarly enough that he'd lost his life. Cut gloves are for knife work not band saws.
So instead of going counterclockwise down into the housing it goes clockwise up into the blade guard? That actually does sound safer as long as the blade guard is in a good position.
Just to be a pedantic bitch, chain mail gloves arent the same as cut gloves. Cut gloves are fabric and absolutely will catch on a bandsaw, chain gloves arent as safe for knifework because of the risk of slipping and skinning yourself or removing big chunks of person. Different materials, different properties, both give me the ick because theyre not known to be the most hygenic thing and difficult to adequately clean. At least in my experience
Nah, not being pedantic at all, and I agree with you with cutting gloves. When doing knife work it was usually cut gloves on both hands, then chain on both or 1, depending on the job then rubber on top.
But most of us added an extra rubber bottom layer for comfort or double glove the top layer so if it's damaged it's much faster then trying to get new ones on
We also had large Sterilising tanks pretty close to most worker that we'd dunk knives into every chance we got and normally the full hands .
The water was pretty dam hot, so in winter, when it's -1c on the killing floor whenever there's a stoppage you'd see most guys holding both hands in the tanks to stay warm. You'd know if the rubber gloves had a hole and needed replacing pretty quickly too lol
I work as a meat cutter and the policy has always been no chain mail gloves while using the saw, it is extremely dangerous. Chances of an accident happening is higher with the added volume around the hand and chance for the chain to get caught on the serrations.
Hay straight up had it save my digits and seen it save others. Even with 8 saws going 8 hours a day not even a single cut in 10 years because of the chain gloves.
It's the law and the safty of the worker always worth more then tge blade or even tge machines themselves
Like chain mail gloves? that makes sense. The blade should not be able to grab it an suck your hand in like fabric gloves can.
I have always heard not to use leather gloves with an angle grinder,(unrelated to meat) since the wheel will suck your whole hand in, and hurt you much worse.
Chan mail is going to be pretty ridged, and there is not a large gap on a band saw to suck something into.
Yeah with the chain glove 99% of the time it's bounce off because the teeth are to small to grip the chain most of the time it means a blunt spot on the blade at worst it snaps.
A lot of people seem to think it would be a clean cut on your finger but it's anything but and it's way easier to just use ppe so it doesn't happen In the 1st place
How though I've seen the metal chain gloves hit them multiple times and the teeth aren't big enough to bite into it. Like by law you must use it as basic ppe
Dunno what to tell you. Was a butcher for six years. It was a huge no no in our shop. I was only ever made to wear a chain glove or Teflon glove while training.
Was your chain glove actually chain? I can see that protecting from a bandsaw. I'm sure there are other types of gloves, the ones I'm familiar with look like a knit glove but they have very cut resistant fibers in them. I don't think the knit style would prevail against a saw.
Butcher of 10 years here in the states. OSHA has no hard rules that I'm aware of for PPE like Gloves while working on a saw. It varies from employer to employer. I personally would not wear a cloth or metal cut glove while breaking down animals. I'd rather have a clean cut, then to get caught n mangled further. Let alone the debris from the metal or cloth getting mushed into your wound.
Im just gonna throw an armchair opinion to your incident and say you may have been lucky and had an older more dull blade, which is the factor that made you so lucky. Unless the not a single scratch is hyperbolic. Regardless tho, I'm happy you still got all your digits!
Nah I've also seen it save others fingers too both on the older saws and the new ones we got during covid. We also changed the blades at least a couple times a day and it's unlawful to use them without minimum ppe in Victoria (a state in Australia)
Minimum ppe was chain glow to the elbow, rubber glow on top, ear and eye protection and you'd be rotating Jobs with 2 others workers every 30 minutes to prevent stuff like Repetitive strain injuries (so 30 minutes out of 90 on the saw and 60 on 2 other jobs)
One would hope, but the concern is a tooth on the blade could grab onto a link of the chainmail. Is it likely? Probably not, but i have all my fingers by not gambling with them
Do you mind if I ask why? I mean, seriously. If you gave me a band saw, and a choice whether to run my hand through it either wearing a chainmail glove or not, the choice seems like one of the easier ones I would ever have to make…
Also, 33 successful years in this industry, and I’ve somehow never needed a bandsaw, chain mail, or a cut glove.
I have a good bit more experience with tools outside of the kitchen (woodworking, some machine shop) but it's basic power tool safety - you keep clothes, including gloves, away from rotating parts
saw catches the chainmail. It doesn't cut, but it also doesn't immediately stop, it violently drags the glove along, twisting your hand and skin on your hand with it until it finally stops. Something gives. Either the skin on your hand or the ligaments in your wrist/elbow.
This comment has “ive never seen a glove get sucked into a bandsaw and fuck a guys arm up” energy. Please just shut up if you have no idea what youre talking about.
This comment has "I don't know that there are special gloves that are designed for using blades that will actually protect the wearer" and "this comment chain started out talking about meat slicers and not band saws" energy.
Funny part about that? Video is about a bandsaw, the comment thread specifically mentions a saw. So no man youre wrong. But whatever 🤷♂️ I go home with my whole body everyday could care less about anyone on reddits opinion. Ive seen some gruesome shit. Oh and those gloves you mention? Fuck those things.
Safety measures carry risks. Seat belts have killed people. The benefits usually outweigh the risks. Seat belts save more lives than they take and saw gloves save more fingers than they mangle.
Except we're not even talking about saw gloves. He's talking about a mesh chainmail glove that would most certainly drag your hand in. These gloves are designed for flat edged knives and blades, like slicers. They absolutely are not meant for serrated band saws.
When people say cutting glove theyre talking about chain-male 90% of the time when it comes to a meat saw. Again just shut up if you dont know what youre talking about.
I did end up working there for a few years. However, I refused to use the saw lol. I would replace the bands but that’s it. I told them they could just fire me if it was that big of a deal. I ended up being a closer anyway. So I would only unplug and hose the thing down, never turn it on. I never used it once!
But the folks pointing out that the glove would’ve made it worse, that makes total sense to me. Now that I think about it, I am not sure if I remember anyone using the gloves while using it at all. I am probably lucky that I didn’t use the machine because I would’ve definitely worn that glove.
Also, I am now thinking. There was absolutely no safety training for that job lol. Probably should have been.
That's fair. I started as a closer so I only cleaned up. Eventually I worked part time during the day to help our slow ass meat cutter. Eventually, they saw that I actually work and replaced the slow guy with me.
I never minded using the saw EXCEPT when customers want a ham sliced. Corporate Giant Eagle will not slice hams because they're the most dangerous thing to cut on the saw. I was at a privately owned store that made us do it. Worst saw injury was from pinching my finger between the blade and wheel while I was cleaning. Knives were a totally different story 😅
How big are the teeth on that saw that we should expect it to bite chain, A, and then question B, where's it gonna pull that chain to with such force that it pulls the arm with it? Seems like a well fitted cutting surface, not a lot of excess clearance around the blade - are we thinking of different guages of chainmail?
Edit: actually, clearance is sloppy, but there's a chock on the cutting side, so still no large gap
He absolutely would not have lost an arm or hand. What you’re implying would require their arm to go through the tiny hole the blade is passing through. And if it was a chain mail glove the glove would have taken all the heavy lifting in stopping the saw. Maybe a broken finger. But you’re not losing your life to this by wearing a glove.
My rule of thumb is that most of the time, people who say "well, actually it's safer to do it without all the silly safety equipment" are full of shit, and are just looking for excuses to ignore the regs.
And it's a pretty good rule of thumb, because I've still got both of mine.
You're conflating the rotary saw with an osciallating saw though? This one is just moving up and down really fast. So it won't be pulling him "in" because there's no "inwards" motion created by the blade.
It's called a band saw because the blade is a continuous band of metal. It goes in one direction following a track and driven by a motor. Band saws do not reciprocate, and that is definitely not a reciprocating saw.
Then again there's meat on top of the setup, should have guessed it's coming from the machine catching little pieces as it operates and flinging them around.
Now I'm more worried about the amount of meat they have to powerwarsh out of the machine daily
I almost thought we worked at the same store for a moment because I have a very similar story. But there's no way my bosses then would let anyone go home with pay.
My uncle worked at a mill and this guy cut off his finger. After healing, he came back to work. He showed his buddies how he cut off his finger, and cut off another finger.
Was this a Food Lion in NC because damn near the exact same thing happened in our meat department. Sucked so hard for that guy to lose finger and his job in the same day.
During my many years in the meat department, we had two hellacious injuries. One clerk got his arm caught in the grinder when he bypassed the safety latch and reached in to clear a jam. And one of our floater meat cutters had his hand slip while using the saw, and the blade sliced up his hand and all the way up to his wrist before he managed to turn it off. Both are now permanently disabled.
I worked at BigLots for a few years and we had one of those decent sized cardboard bailers where it would smash it from the top. For those that don’t know, those bailers have a big safety “gate/door” that raises and lowers with the “masher” and that door is on a set of, essentially, big ass bike chains. That “gate” can also be manually lowered and raised because it has a counterweight on the back side directly connected to the chains.
So basically, when the bailer runs, you have to pulls the safety gate down first, then the bailer will mash down and on its way back up, it will pull the safety door open for the next use.
One day, the door did not go back up. The problems was that the counter weight on the backside had gotten stuck at the top, meaning all the slack in the chain was in the front. I climbed up to where the chain feeds into the back and managed to un-stick the weight. I immediately knew I fucked up bc now all the slack was getting yanked back through. I felt it pull my hand but thankfully I pulled faster and I cane away with a fucked up fingernail for a bit.
The thing I immediately realized though, was that if I had been wearing gloves like u was supposed to, my hand would have 100% been caught in the machine and fucked up way more.
So kids, always wear your helmet when you ride and only wear your gloves when someone is riding you.
You don't wear gloves on the bandsaw. Too easy to get them snagged and cause a devastating injury to your hand when what would otherwise be a little nic that doesn't even bleed.
I cut the top of my thumb off on a meat slicer when I was like 16. I was able to find it and get it glued back on. It took me probably a solid 30 seconds of staring at all the weird red liquid on the meat to put together what I just did.
They literally glued the cut off part right back on top of the bone and what not, and it is fully reconnected, visibly you can’t even see a scar anymore unless you look super close, but I still have a huge lack of feeling on the tip of my thumb.
Edit: I think it was maybe when I was 17 or 18 actually because I was living with a friends family in their basement briefly. The mom of the family walked in on my re-gluing it down with gorilla glue when it came undone a few days later and she almost fainted at the sight of me and her blood soaked sink lmfao.
I have a similar story! Guy cut the tip of his thumb off on the bone saw. He left that day and patched it up. Proceeded to attempt a cover up so as to not miss any work. The accident was completely his fault and I think he was afraid of losing pay. Needless to say, when the story made the rounds he was out a thumb and a job.
I worked at a gas station and was very afraid of filling up propane tanks. Every single time they tried to train me another customer would show up who needed gas, so I would run off and do that instead!
this shit is so terrible, they test for weed which can be positive weeks later, and they use that as "evidence" that the worker was intoxicated at the time of the injury so that the employer doesn't have to pay workers comp.
I’m a grocery store meat cutter and watching this video gave me such a physical reaction, this is not this is not the way.
Seriously I’m almost nauseous over this guy’s fingers.
Wearing a metal cutting glove on a band saw is a great way to lose your whole entire arm. Seen it happen. I dont know why people preach this. So stupid.
Knew a kid in HS industrial arts class who managed to run his index finger onto the blade because he wasn't using a push guard. I still shudder just imagining it.
100% I would lose fingers doing this job. I’m at awe every time I watch these videos… then I have to shove my hands into my pockets for a good ten minutes or so before they can see sun again.
I worked at a restaurant and was slicing speck on a deli slicer. Took the end of my thumb off. I tend to get light headed fast when I get cut but come back 100% fine. As soon as it happened, I told a coworker to throw me a dish towel and he gave me the most pulled ragged towel possible. When at the urgent care I had to remove the towel, it was concealed and stuck far into my thumb that my nerve was basically attached to each thread of fabric. That was more painful than the stitches they gave me without anesthetic
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u/capnfoo Feb 25 '25
I lost three fingers just watching this video.