I was just working on a couple of Speed King restorations, using a grinding wheel on a bench grinder. I had removed the safety guards from the bench grinder because I couldn't get all the angles I needed to wire brush and polish the parts.
I'd just put on the grinding wheel, turned it on, and then moved to the work bench to get the parts, and the freaking wheel just exploded. Bounced off the wall and zinged back where I WOULD have been, at a zillion miles per hour.
The ONLY reason I'm not in the ER, waiting for a bed in the neuro ICU, is dumb luck and/or divine intervention, you choose.
The morals of this story are so obvious I don't need to say them but I will.
1. If you have to remove safety guards to use the tool, it's the wrong tool. Stop, spend the $ and get the right one.
2. Always wear protective gear, with safety glasses, etc.
3. Don't get complacent like I did, just because you've never been injured.
4. See 1, 2 and 3 above.
Sorry to bore you with the story, but I actually think of you guys as friends... and the neuro ICU sucks.