Aussie tradie's lucky escape after tool mishap almost takes his ‘manhood’
The young Aussie has been told to buy a lottery ticket after his near-miss.
An Aussie tradie has been urged to buy a "lottery ticket" after his tool snapped and a shard of it flew into his pants — missing his "manhood" by centimetres.
Alastair Candlin, a Queensland tradie, was using an angle grinder — a tool used for cutting or sanding — when part of the sharp disc broke off. He was sitting on the ground with the metal he wanted to cut in front of him and his legs bent up on either side of the grinder, a position questioned by many who watched the video he shared online.
This meant when the piece of disc launched at him, it went straight for his crotch. Unbelievably, the shard of metal stopped short of coming into contact with skin and only penetrated his pants.
"I thought it got me, but surprisingly it didn't even scratch me," he told Yahoo News Australia. "Just a rip in me pants and that was that."
One important piece missing from the picture
Aussies were quick to point out one bit of safety gear missing from the video — a guard. "Things like this don’t happen when you use the guard," one person said, a detail mentioned by many.
Others believed the disc itself was on the wrong way which also contributed to the freak accident, but Alastair adamantly denied this.
"The guard should've been on that's for sure," he said. "The blade was on the right way but that doesn't stop it from breaking as you could see".
Following the incident, Alastair put the guard on immediately and will continue to use it "from now on".
Do you have a story about a close call at work? Contact reporter Laura Koefoed at laura.koefoed@yahooinc.com
Not the first grinder to nearly injure an Aussie tradie
Bizarrely, a similar incident happened just last year, also going viral on TikTok. A tradie shared a shocking video of how he almost lost an eye while using a grinder and part of it seemingly broke off and flew towards his face at high speed.
The video showed the shard lodged in his safety goggles, and if not for them it could've sliced into his left eye. "I guess that’s why you wear safety glasses," the man said at the time.
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