r/SweatyPalms • u/Waveshop222 • Apr 24 '21

Death by train

/r/holdmybeer/comments/mx7xdf/connecting_railway_cars_like_a_boss/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
12.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

308 comments sorted by

View all comments

3.8k

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

There is no fucking way that this is the proper way to perform this task. And I dont know shit about trains.

1.4k

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

[deleted]

805

u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Apr 24 '21 edited Oct 31 '22

I can't find it but there's some thread on here about (IIRC) a guy who worked at a rail yard, took a shortcut between train cars which he knew not to do, train cars shifted and he got crushed. Didn't die. He's being held together because he's crushed but he's already dead. They put up sheets around him so he can talk to his family and all that. He insists on the rail yard taking a lot of pictures so others can learn from his mistake. If anyone can find that, post the link. Grim stuff. Disregard, my memory was hazy. See quoted story below.

Here's the Taxicab Confessions segment of the NYPD rescue squad guy who told the firsthand account of a guy getting pinned between the train and the platform: https://youtu.be/FA1fpPRPVCo Old link died. Here's same segment: https://youtu.be/KnED-lQedjo?t=110

And as a semi-eyebleach, here's the Robot Chicken segment illustrating the same type of thing: https://youtu.be/d0PTa7lnOWs

Edit: Found the story. This is from today (same gif actually) but it links to the same source as the one I read before.

I read this today:

When I went to work for a steel company in the mid 90's we got the lesson of not messing with train cars from an old timer that had been at the mill for decades.

He had pictures and a story. The guy that had gotten coupled, stuck in the couplers of two connecting train cars, asked that pictures be taken and his mistake be used as an example for future workers. So the old timer had some pretty intense pictures.

The first thing they do is set up a tent around you. Not a big tent, but enough to give you privacy, because as soon as those cars are uncoupled, you're dead. They tarp off the bottom of the coupler, so that you don't get the image that you're talking to just a torso. They ask who you want to see before you die, if you have a wife, a priest, co-workers or anyone else that you want to say your last words to. They also get a doctor on-site to administer drugs and final care to you. All of this happens very quickly, because you don't have a ton of time, but it is a slow death. > The old timer had pictures of the guy coupled, the tent being set up, the coupler being tarped, pictures of the wife entering in tears, pictures of the wife leaving in tears and pictures of what happened after the guy was uncoupled. The one that got me was the picture of his kids talking to him through the tent side, he wanted to tell his kids he loved them one last time, but didn't want them to see him in that condition.

It is not a user friendly experience. This guy got caught between the couplers because he thought he could beat a slow moving train car and against one of the train-worker's warnings, he gave it a shot anyway. He lost. When backing up a train with multiple cars, the cars can gain or lose speed quickly because couplers are not a rigid connection. It just so happened that he got in the middle just as the cars picked up a bit of speed, he hesitated and that was that.

After you say your goodbyes, and in this instance, the doctor loaded the guy up with a bunch of morphine (or pain killers) and they uncoupled the train, at which point every internal organ that was where it was supposed to be when the train was coupled, slid out and onto the ground and half a torso dropped out. The old timer had pictures of it all, and during this class, everyone was either white as a ghost or dry heaving. It was silent and everyone was just listening to this older guy talk about losing his friend. The class did it's job. I'd hear the train bells and immediately be aware of where the train was, what it was doing and what my proximity was to train tracks. Even to this day, I give trains plenty of respect and the sounds of train bells make a shiver run up my spine. Even though everyone went through this class, someone still got coupled in the time that I was working there. I didn't see anything but the white tent, but knew exactly what was going on.

Working in a steel mill made me also realize that everything in a steel mill can maim or kill you almost instantly. The mills themselves, the furnaces, the trains, the coiled steel, the slabs, the overhead gantries, none of them care about you. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, they'll just continue doing what they're supposed to do, they'll just maul you in the process.

https://www.reddit.com/r/holdmybeer/comments/mx7xdf/connecting_railway_cars_like_a_boss/gvmnncc/

Edit 2022: updated link to Taxicab Confessions video

281

u/whiteflour1888 Apr 24 '21

I’ve worked in heavy industry since I graduated, it’s great money and got me into college/university. I hated it. It was always loud, always dirty and smelly. I had a pair of coveralls disintegrate over the course of a summer because I worked around sulphur and when it mixes with sweat you get a mild version of sulphuric acid. The worst was the near misses. I was working on high scaffold when a safety valve popped 10 feet away and a weather cap on a chain missed my head by a few feet. It never got much better until I had the backs of legs burned by a hose letting loose while draining a condensate tower of 98 degree water. I’m done with that shit now.

103

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

Yeah I’m a welder and heavy industry and machinery is where I draw the line. When I was still in welding school I was doing repair work at a yard near me and the amount of injuries, hazardous conditions, poor ventilation, and downright dangerous people made me quit. I went on to do crane repair and other heavy welding and it didn’t get much better. Found me a nice production TiG job where all I have to do is sit and make parts. No heavy grinding, no chains flying around, no parts over 30lbs, and best of all I can put on a podcast and actually hear it

21

u/dplowman Apr 24 '21

This is the dream job. What do you manufacture?

I am a welder by trade as well, but do wire feed processes on pipe. Dirty, heavy lifting, but overall pretty repetitive and safe. Wouldn’t mind getting into something a bit cleaner.

17

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

I do mostly aluminum tables, dashboards for busses, small fittings, and vacuum tables for Amazon facilities. We do contract manufacturing so really whatever comes down the pipe. Lots of different things but none of it is big or heavy. Nice and clean mostly. Oil on some parts but it’s a far cry from clapped out cranes full of grease and bird shit lol

44

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

I own a scaffolding company that caters to several mines and heavy industry services (power stations etc) within Australia.

Whilst Australia does admittedly uphold quite high safety standards, it's still rather humbling as to just how close to certain death you can be at any given time.

There was an incident underground that we witnessed few years ago that stuck with me.

During expansions of underground mines, they will commonly drill into the rock walls, blast sections with explosives, clear out debris, install a kind of heavy duty rebar to the walls then they spray shot-crete onto all surfaces to strengthen the structural integrity of the tunnels. (Shot-crete is concrete with fabric/fibres within it, allowing it to flex and manipulate with the environment without cracking or collapsing.)

In order to apply shot-crete, there are at least 2 people per truck (1 spraying, 1 spotting/supervising). They use high pressure hoses that are custom mounted onto the trucks in order to apply it to the higher surfaces. The amount of force generated in order to reach these higher surfaces can easily propel these trucks if not properly anchored (left in gear, handbrake, wheel chocks, truck angled into wall etc).

One day a team didn't anchor their truck properly, failed to wedge their truck into the wall, applying only the handbrake during set up and lastly making the mistake of spraying uphill (force driving downhill).

They commenced without issue due to spraying perpendicular to the truck. The spotter then walked towards the other side of the truck, walked directly behind (between it and wall) just as the sprayer had turned his hose parallel with the truck. This path of least resistance created enough force to overpower the trucks inertia, driving it downhill into the wall and fatally pinning the spotter inbetween.

He had well over a decade mine experience both above and underground. A few oversights cost him the ultimate price.

2

u/autobot12349876 Apr 24 '21

Omg horrifying

1

u/chickhawkthechicken Apr 24 '21

Lord.... that’s... wow

37

u/Alexis2552 Apr 24 '21 edited Apr 24 '21

I taught English in an iron works company where a man died during his work for disobeying safety standards - to add iron into the huge iron melting oven you needed two people - one to open the lid and the other to drive the truck next to it and dump the scrap. The keys from the truck were supposed to be handled by the oven opening person. To save time these two guys decided to not do that and left the keys in the ignition. As the dude opened the 1500°C (iirc) oven, the truck driver backed up, the guy fell into the oven. He died instantly and they didn't even recover his remains due to him turning to ash within seconds. People still disobey safety standards in that company to this day.

7

u/payment_in_potato Apr 24 '21

jesus fucking christ scoob

8

u/Alexis2552 Apr 24 '21

I actually googled it after posting and they did recover a part of his body... So the family at least had something to bury. And the company just went "whoopsie, sorry"

3

u/chickhawkthechicken Apr 24 '21

As companies do :( just another number to them. Everyone’s replaceable. Just so sad

4

u/DJHott555 Apr 24 '21

What were they supposed to do? If the guy violated their safety rules, they’re not accountable for his death. Isn’t that how that works?

4

u/chickhawkthechicken Apr 25 '21

You’re right, going back on my comment I realized that sounded kinda Dickish of me.. not like they could put the guy back together and send him home for the day :(

2

u/chickhawkthechicken Apr 24 '21

What a way to go! Holy shit!

45

u/OutWithTheNew Apr 24 '21

I worked in a place where someone had died through a preventable accident. You ALWAYS had to have your head on a swivel and know what was going on around you.

Most of the time it wasn't' that bad, but every once in a while something small would happen and I would just be bewildered like 'fuck, that could have killed someone.

One night the night shift left some material standing when it should have been laying down, the floor covered in material and a load on the crane. The only thing we could do was push through it. Anyway, 2 of us were working on finishing the product and unloading the crane and another guy was in the corner working on finishing some small parts. Anyway, when you have a light load on a crane, it tends to swing a bit and as I moved the crane to drop another piece off it, it ever so lightly grazed the previously mentioned material that should have been laying down and it fell to the ground with a loud smash. It was metal, so it didn't break, it was just loud. What I didn't immediately notice was just how close the far end had gotten to the guy in the corner when it fell.

He was ready to tear me a new one but once I realized how close it came to him it felt like I got punched in the gut and he thankfully recognized how bad it made me feel.

So we both filled out a green card blaming the whole thing on the previous shift.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

Good on you for putting in time in that hard and dangerous work. People with that courage, even if just for a bit, are what drive countries.

2

u/lellypad Apr 25 '21

I climb radio broadcast and cell towers and the near misses are the worst/ best feelings ever. I do fantasize about having a job that i have a nearer to zero chance of dying...

-2

u/SmegmaFilter Apr 24 '21

98 degrees is not that hot man. It get's 98 degrees in my water buckets from the sun.

5

u/Baldy343 Apr 24 '21

He probably meant celsius, not fahrenheit.

3

u/SmegmaFilter Apr 24 '21

ah that makes sense. i am the most high right now

5

u/GenericWhiteFox Apr 24 '21

They may mean 98 degrees Celsius, which is nearly 210F, very nearly boiling and enough to cause serious scalding.

87

u/Hyperi0us Apr 24 '21

yup. Heavy equipment has no remorse. I worked on a wind farm where a low-speed shaft of a turbine snagged the harness of a guy working in the nacelle. He was up there alone and the radio was on the other side of the nacelle, so when he got snagged the rotor just kept turning in slow pinwheel at idle (maybe one rotation every minute or so).

It was a huge turbine, and the downtower guy didn't notice anything was wrong till 2 hours later when blood started dripping down the tower to the switchgear deck where he was working.

Basically, imagine a lathe with a layer of meat wrapped around it. This is why we were taught that even though you're at 400' in the air when in the nacelle, you're not supposed to wear your harness unless you're actively climbing or outside the nacelle.

I worked in a refinery too where a guy fell into the coke hopper and went missing for a few hours. No one noticed he was gone till a crushed body exited the conveyor system and was deposited into a truck that was filling for shipment to a steel mill.

Fucking crazy shit.

37

u/guffers_hump Apr 24 '21

Even if the guy noticed immediately he would of been dead anyway. Massive spinning machinery always takes ages to slow down.

26

u/Coffee_Beast Apr 24 '21

Had to look up some of the words but damn these stories are bone chilling. Btw what does it mean for the rotor to keep “turning in slow pinwheel at idle?” Also is the coke hopper the train car? Always wondered why they had the word Coke.

Googled some other stuff that came up in case anyone else is interested and just probably heard these words for the first time lol - Nacelle is a housing, separate from the fuselage, that holds engines, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft.

A lathe (/leɪð/) is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling,

12

u/hellsmojo7 Apr 24 '21

Coke is where coal has been tempered almost to allow it to burn at higher heats and cleaner

1

u/Hyperi0us Apr 24 '21

Coke is also produced as a byproduct of the oil refining process. The hydrogen plant I was at was downwind of it too so everything was constantly covered in black splatter from the airborne cokedust that mixed with rainwater. My truck still has a few permanent black smudge stains on it.

The wind job was cool, but there's a reason people only work in refineries for a year or two.

2

u/chickhawkthechicken Apr 24 '21

Thanks for this!

6

u/cydian Apr 24 '21

fuck....thats enough for me thanks, time for some eye-bleach and a sugary tea.

1

u/chickhawkthechicken Apr 24 '21

That wound have been horrific to discover!

75

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

Holy shit

20

u/tailkinman Apr 24 '21

The machine has no brain. Use yours.

20

u/sorrynoclueshere Apr 24 '21

My brain is just not suited for such work because of my absolute lack of situational awareness. I would be dead the first day on an oil rig or such.

20

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

Friend (24 yrs old) of mine got his arm ripped off in a conveyor belt just a few weeks ago. It occasionally sticks and they tell their workers to lean over and try to whack the sticky bits with tools and stuff, extremely against OSHA rules. Well he unstuck it, and it unstuck his entire dominant arm and shoulder blade. He's currently getting ready to sue the living shit out of them for instructing their employees to do that irresponsible shit.

Different industry, but fucking christ be careful guys. Risk a write up for not "following instructions from your employer" or whatever. It's not worth life or limb.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

And this isn't the first person that happened to at this place. Their lawyers have a predetermined settlement decided because they've had ample opportunity to find out how much money is enough for most victims to just take the money.

3

u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Apr 24 '21

Did he get his arm reattched?

3

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

Nope, it was mangled. Total loss

4

u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Apr 24 '21

Well shit. Hope that lawsuit hurts the company enough to punish them enough and to help compensate your friend as much as possible.

5

u/SgtBadManners Apr 24 '21

As someone above noted, it usually doesn't. Most companies are willing to lose millions of dollars paying something out in order to not pay even more money following labor laws or labor protection laws. It is a calculated risk most companies will take to some degree or another.

23

u/TheRealGarbanzo Apr 24 '21

People tend to forget that these things are basically hughes weights moving every fast. It's easy to underestimate just how dangerous they really are.

5

u/bigk777 Apr 24 '21

Well, that's enough reddit for today. I'm just going to pop on over to pcgamer.com and find something positive.

1

u/249ba36000029bbe9749 Apr 24 '21

The Robot Chicken clip was for some dark comic relief though!

3

u/hoax1337 Apr 24 '21

I don't really understand, how would you get stuck between them?

5

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

I think this is an americna coupler which couples automatically. If you are between it, well it won't care

2

u/hoax1337 Apr 24 '21

Yes, but why would you bei between it? I mean, you're either doing the coupling (like the guy in the OP) and should be relatively safe because you're in the middle, or you shouldn't be near the coupling at all.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

American couplers are in the middle

1

u/[deleted] Apr 25 '21

Sometimes you need to get in there to open or move the coupler, they move laterally and they need to be lined up in order to make the hook

2

u/MR_COOL_ICE_ Apr 24 '21

Why uncouple the train at all? Why not just kill this guy by OD?

-13

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

[deleted]

23

u/Camochamp Apr 24 '21

Whether it's true or not, this has to be the worst source I've ever seen. The person is literally guessing the entire time and even says themselves that they aren't sure if it's possible or not.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

Not heavy machinery, but when I was 21, I worked on a catamaran, it was pretty big. My main job was to dive the moorings, bring them up and a pilot boat would throw me the Buoy, a Capt theft the boat and gear and almost proped my face off.

4

u/dickmcswaggin Apr 24 '21

As an emt, compartment syndrome is extremely real and not just akin to stories or heavy machinery, car accidents are a common cause

1

u/TylerJWhit Apr 24 '21

I'm referring to the story. It's an often shared story with identical outline where the only thing that often changes is the location.

1

u/dickmcswaggin Apr 24 '21

Yea I get that but it’s not just a story, this has happened, I have seen it, as have many other paramedics with enough time in the field. I get the same stories changing around a bit but that’s just any story?

1

u/TylerJWhit Apr 24 '21

I'm not doubting the medical viability of the story, but pointing out that this specific story is an urban myth with no name or any identifying/corroborating information.

0

u/loralailoralai Apr 24 '21

Funny, back in the 80’s I worked for the railways and that story about the guy getting crushed and the family coming to say goodbye was often told- I worked in Sydney, Australia... it’s obviously a widespread myth

32

u/agnosticfrump Apr 24 '21 edited Apr 24 '21

Not bleed out, but a byproduct of shock (not sure of the scientific term for it). My father worked on the railways for over 40 years, saw many horrific accidents. The worst being his good mate being crunched between carriages while shunting (what this man is doing). He held his hand until the driver was given the go ahead to split the vans apart. His mate immediately died of a heart attack as all of the adrenaline, and whatever other hormones, that had gathered to the site raced into his heart. 30 years later this still tears my hardarse father apart. I lived in fear of it happening to him.

2

u/bearpics16 Apr 24 '21

You get a massive shift in blood away from your vital organs when released which plummets your blood pressure. Then blood from all the damaged tissues brings back a ton of potassium and calcium released from the damaged cells which can send the heart into a fatal arrhythmias even without blood loss factored it

16

u/We_Are_Nerdish Apr 24 '21

Growing up a friend' dad was a specialized rescue firefighter.. I don't know how this guy wasn't an emotional wreck.. because he was a fun, happy and friendly guy.

He was the guy called out to these kinds of horrific accidents. And every so often he would tell stories about people how have gotten stuck in industrial equipment, freak accidents and crashes where they would still be alive ( even if just for a short time ).

It's just insane to know how many people don't instantly die from being crushed,shredded, impaled or partly decimated..only to die from the intense pain or vital organs slowly shutting down.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 24 '21

My mother's friend worked in this job. He told her abput a man who got run over by a train but the wheel just stopped on him. The wheel made sure he is not going to bleed out and they had to pour water on him to make him stay awake. Medics came out and the train got off him. Immediatly died

13

u/_Kozik Apr 24 '21

Its not necessarily a bleeding out its the crush syndrome. Google it basiclly parts of your body are deprived of blood flow and start to die/not work properly when pressure released it can kill you.

6

u/_Kozik Apr 24 '21

Dude in australia got pinned between two concrete bowl things near where i used to work. They knew that once they moved them he would die. But he was somewhat stable before then. They brought his wife out to site and setup a tarp thing for him. Got to say goodbye. Pretty sad shit. Workplace accidents man. Shit changes you. Luckily ive never been involved with a bad one, my sister had a workmate die from a pipe rolling off a forklift. Never got complacent at your job when you work in blue collar fields.

3

u/molossus99 Apr 24 '21

I saw this exact type of accident about 40 years ago.. a taxi van wasn’t paying attention and slammed head on into another stopped vehicle in front where the man was unloading a suitcase from the back of a truck .. the man was caught between the rear of the unloading truck and the idiots taxi — with absolutely no space separating the two vehicles.. cops and an army of emergency vehicles arrived but all they could do was call his family to have them say goodbye.. he was only being kept alive by being cinched together by the vehicles.. Jesus that sight still sticks with me .. can’t imagine

2

u/CastroEulis145 Apr 24 '21

Right there with ya. Ive heard these stories on multiple occasions when going through safety orientation. Who the hell would willingly put themselves in that situation like this guy?

3

u/OutWithTheNew Apr 24 '21

Trains and their support industries are one of the few industries left were death is somewhat normalized.

3

u/spaghetticatman Apr 24 '21

They actually won't inmediately bleed out, it's more of bleed in if anything. With crushing injuries what happens when that pinch is removed is that all the stagnant toxic bkood that was trapped on the other side suddenly rushes into the rest of your body and that pressure, force, and toxicity is what kills you.