{"id":1632,"date":"2006-12-11T12:21:45","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T17:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2006-12-11T12:22:47","modified_gmt":"2006-12-11T17:22:47","slug":"job-hazards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2006\/12\/11\/job-hazards\/","title":{"rendered":"Job Hazards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"imagelink\" href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Boom_Truck_033.jpg\" title=\"Boom_Truck_033.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"image1631\" src=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/12\/Boom_Truck_033.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Boom_Truck_033.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>(Found on the web for illustration purposes.)<\/p>\n<p>More decking. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all I work with,  but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a run on decks. This time the load was big enough to require a boom truck and I arrived after Tim had placed my planks on the ground. <\/p>\n<p>The truck he operates is forty-two feet long and like a kid, he loves sitting back on the boom seat and operating the long mechanical arm. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never met Tim before but his ready smile and looks of a young Sylvester Stallone invited conversation.  Soon we were talking about job hazards, and he told me three hair-raising stories. This is the first. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I got electrocuted once.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do tell.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was in Newton. I was working for Basic Wallboard and the salesman had sold the job as an easy delivery.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Salesmen suck. They have no clue.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This one didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. He looked around and thought \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcNo problem,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but I had to run the boom along high tension wires to get my sheetrock through the window of the new house.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What are you talking about?  You touch the wires with that metal boom? That can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be true.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to bring the load back and it works sometimes. This time it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. I guess I scraped through the insulation. All of a sudden I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m feeling heat. Real hot, from the top of my head to the ends of my toes. Like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m on fire. Then the boom begins to arc. I yelled down at my partner to turn the truck off.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What would that do besides insure you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t die alone?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thinking clearly. I thought this was the end. I began thinking about my wife and kids. My partner yelled back that he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going near the truck. Then sections of plastic cowling began exploding off the boom. You could see lightning bolts flaring off those rear stabilizers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean to laugh, but this is a hellava story.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pull the boom off the wire. It would arc and weld itself. Finally I caught a moment between arcs and moved it off.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You tell this story like it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not then, I got off the truck and tired to light my cigarette but couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.  My hand were shaking like this.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Found on the web for illustration purposes.) More decking. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not all I work with, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a run on decks. This time the load was big enough to require a boom truck and I arrived after Tim had &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/2006\/12\/11\/job-hazards\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecourse.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}