Ouch, and best of luck on his recovery.
You're absolutely correct, it's very easy to let your saftey discipline slide, and make a critically wrong choice. You need to be hyper-vigilant. I try to be as safe as possible, and even I've had my share of incidents (stabbed through my hand while carving pumpkins years ago before those safety saws were readily available, and was pinching a couple boards together with my fingers to nailgun them together but the nail hit a knot and came out the side right into my thumb). I saw my high school shop teacher cut off his big toe when he dropped a piece of steel on it, and saw a guy get his eye shot out at the paintball field because he was "too hot" and took his mask off. It happens all too quickly, so everyone please be as overly safe as possible, especially when working with tools capable of doing lots of work on materials that are much harder than your flesh.
You're absolutely correct, it's very easy to let your saftey discipline slide, and make a critically wrong choice. You need to be hyper-vigilant. I try to be as safe as possible, and even I've had my share of incidents (stabbed through my hand while carving pumpkins years ago before those safety saws were readily available, and was pinching a couple boards together with my fingers to nailgun them together but the nail hit a knot and came out the side right into my thumb). I saw my high school shop teacher cut off his big toe when he dropped a piece of steel on it, and saw a guy get his eye shot out at the paintball field because he was "too hot" and took his mask off. It happens all too quickly, so everyone please be as overly safe as possible, especially when working with tools capable of doing lots of work on materials that are much harder than your flesh.
