|
|
"It was just a strange thing that happened," Ocean View Police Chief Kenneth McLaughlin told the News-Journal, "a very, very unfortunate accident." The young carpenter died at the Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, Md., after being evacuated by helicopter.A nail-gun accident in Mississippi had a happier outcome, reports the Biloxi Sun-Herald. Stone County, Miss., contractor Duncan Hatten was crouching down to nail a 2x4 block onto a column when he lost his balance and fell against the nail gun, which fired two quick nails into his heart. "I just figured I was gonna die," Hatten told local TV station WLOX. "I told my airtoolsnailers coworker to tell my family that I loved them." But the two framing spikes had narrowly missed major blood vessels, and surgeons were able to remove the nails from Hatten''s heart in a two-hour operation. A series of accidents involving air-powered nail guns last summer brought home the fact that the productive and powerful airtoolsnailers and airtoolsnailers tools are also highly dangerous and need to be handled with respect. In the most tragic case, a framing nail punctured the heart of carpenter Camillo Juandelos on a home construction site in Ocean View, Md., in July, ending the man''s life at the age of 25. Police said Camillo''s brother Jesus was holding the gun that fired the deadly nail.According to reports in the Delaware News-Journal, the accident took place as the two men were framing airtoolsnailers new homes in a development airtoolsnailers in Ocean View. Jesus airtoolsnailers had been bending over a stud wall using the air nailer, and then straightened up and turned to call his brother. But Camillo was not on the airtoolsnailers other side of the room as Jesus thought; he was already standing right behind his brother. Camillo made contact with the nose of the nail gun, triggering the bump-nail mechanism and taking the nail in his chest. The smallest, brad nailers which shoot brads up to 1-1/4 in. long, often sell for well under $100. You might be better off buying one.Roofing nailerCOST: $50 per day with compressorBENEFITS: Easy as pulling a trigger and faster than a platoon of hammer-swingers.Driving thousands of roofing nails with a hammer is like scrubbing the floor at Grand Central Station with a toothbrush. Don''t put asphalt shingles on anything bigger than a doghouse without a roofing nailer. For wood shingles, speed up the job with a roofing stapler.
|