Some jobs have more risk than others

[D2Cat]

 

[GrizBota]

Yup. A cofferdam for a bridge foundation. I spent the winter of ‘91 inside of one with the river lever 40 ft above. I made $13/hr.

These photos are a bit more recent than my early years. Winter of ‘22. That’s a 300 tonne barge crane picking a 200 tonne crawler crane to set it on a drilled shaft platform that resulted in a 12 ft diameter, 200 + ft long shaft for a bridge foundation. Tonne = 2200 lbs or 1.1 tons. 200 tonnes is equivalent to about 6 semi trucks at legal max load with two trailers.

 

[woodman55]

Awesome, fantastic pictures.

 

[Bmyers]

Back in 1991 when I first started on the ambulance, I was making $5.75 and we got to go down inside cofferdam on the bridge that was being built to pull out injured employee (had to do this twice). Yet, I was young and dumb, thought it was cool at the time. The older I got, the more I realized just how dangerous things can be.

 

[D2Cat]

GrizBota, when I look at things like this I quickly realize the things I tinker with are SO simple!!

 

[Flintknapper]

Back in 1991 when I first started on the ambulance, I was making $5.75 and we got to go down inside cofferdam on the bridge that was being built to pull out injured employee (had to do this twice). Yet, I was young and dumb, thought it was cool at the time. The older I got, the more I realized just how dangerous things can be.

^^^^^^

Me too.

But with the passage of time.....I was able to get over being 'young'. The other, not so much.

 

[Biker1mike]

Back in 1991 when I first started on the ambulance, I was making $5.75 and we got to go down inside cofferdam on the bridge that was being built to pull out injured employee (had to do this twice). Yet, I was young and dumb, thought it was cool at the time. The older I got, the more I realized just how dangerous things can be.

Young, fearless and invincible on the nozzle inside a burning mobile home protecting the search team. All made it out !
Family was lucky that the FD was doing weekly check out and the rigs were all on the apron with full crews. On the road before the siren stopped.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Not sure which one has the most dangerous job. The plumber or the electrician. Lol!!

 

[Biker1mike]

Not sure which one has the most dangerous job. The plumber or the electrician. Lol!!
View attachment 108093

I see a green grounding wire so it must be safe.

 

[GrizBota]

Not sure which one has the most dangerous job. The plumber or the electrician. Lol!!
View attachment 108093

Looks like one of the two has little respect for electricity. I suspect both were installed by someone that sort of knew how, but not really.

 

[GrizBota]

Back in 1991 when I first started on the ambulance, I was making $5.75 and we got to go down inside cofferdam on the bridge that was being built to pull out injured employee (had to do this twice). Yet, I was young and dumb, thought it was cool at the time. The older I got, the more I realized just how dangerous things can be.

Things are a bit safer now, but early in my career cofferdams did fail on occasion. Usually with the bottom coming up into the cell and flooding it. So a life vest and NOT being tied to something were the key to being around to fixing it after the fact.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Looks like one of the two has little respect for electricity. I suspect both were installed by someone that sort of knew how, but not really.

Probably installed by the pressure washer contractor

 

[xrocketengineer]

In the early days of the Space Shuttle Program, our offices were located in the third floor of the low bay of the Vehicle Assembly Building, the smaller white box section below the NASA meatball. Our office had no windows but it a had a permanently shut door with a small window facing the transfer bay (large open door). There was a about a 50 foot step down from that door that during that Apollo time led to some access platforms, no longer existing. The contractors had it worse since some of their "office space" was right in the high bays, where the Space Shuttle was stacked. They would have an "I" beam crossing at 45 degrees in front of their desks.
We use to have regular fire drills and every time there was some kind of new "enhancement" to the evacuation process which was always a mess and slow with the crowd going downstairs to clear out.

It turned out that the concern was with the solid rocket motors getting ignited inside the building with a static electricity discharge. We eventually were moved out to trailers because even if the solid motor did not blow up if ignited, the solid propellant burn rate would fill the building with poisonous fumes in six seconds. No matter how much we practiced in the fire drills, nobody would make it out alive.

 

[Flintknapper]

Not sure which one has the most dangerous job. The plumber or the electrician. Lol!!
View attachment 108093

Everyone knows that should be a 'Ground Fault' plug. Well....maybe not 'everyone'.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Everyone knows that should be a 'Ground Fault' plug. Well....maybe not 'everyone'.

I was giving the benefit of the doubt that there is a GFCI elsewhere in the circuit. Maybe. Lol!

 

[mcmxi]

View attachment 108084

I've worked inside cofferdams in a previous career as a diver/welder working in the construction industry. We often had the job of cutting the sheet pile to grade once the work inside the dam was completed. Not a particularly dangerous job unless the crane or rigging gave out when most of the sheet pile had been cut.

I found myself in much more dangerous conditions doing other diving/welding/construction related jobs. Boarding a Chinese freighter at night in 30ft seas via a rope ladder comes to mind, or working hundreds of feet up a 36" outfall on SCUBA, or standing in 12ft or deeper holes waist deep in water and mud running a pile cutting machine without any shoring.

 

[Daren Todd]

In the early days of the Space Shuttle Program, our offices were located in the third floor of the low bay of the Vehicle Assembly Building, the smaller white box section below the NASA meatball. Our office had no windows but it a had a permanently shut door with a small window facing the transfer bay (large open door). There was a about a 50 foot step down from that door that during that Apollo time led to some access platforms, no longer existing. The contractors had it worse since some of their "office space" was right in the high bays, where the Space Shuttle was stacked. They would have an "I" beam crossing at 45 degrees in front of their desks.
We use to have regular fire drills and every time there was some kind of new "enhancement" to the evacuation process which was always a mess and slow with the crowd going downstairs to clear out.

View attachment 108094

It turned out that the concern was with the solid rocket motors getting ignited inside the building with a static electricity discharge. We eventually were moved out to trailers because even if the solid motor did not blow up if ignited, the solid propellant burn rate would fill the building with poisonous fumes in six seconds. No matter how much we practiced in the fire drills, nobody would make it out alive.

View attachment 108114

I used to have photos of my F550 service truck parked next to the crawler that moved the shuttle out to the launch pad at Canaveral.

My F550 service truck looked like a Tonka truck

 

[xrocketengineer]

I still have my pictures and the truck on my last work day. Fortunately for me, both Atlantis and Endeavour where at the pads and fully visible at the time.

 

[Outnumbered]

Back in 1980 and 19 years old I was making a whopping $4.10 per hour as a first year electrical apprentice at a power plant. We were working on installing a precipitator on a coal fired generator at a power plant I volunteered to help run the cable tray for the power up the side of the precipitator hanging from the basket of a crane up to about 250 feet from grade. I did it for the money (high pay) another $2.50 per hour as it was like time and a half all the time. I am in my 60's now and wonder what the hell I was thinking. I saw some crazy crap on that job and unfortunately one fatality.

 

[GrizBota]

I still have my pictures and the truck on my last work day. Fortunately for me, both Atlantis and Endeavour where at the pads and fully visible at the time. View attachment 108189 View attachment 108190 View attachment 108193 View attachment 108196

Wait a minute…. I thought it was a Tundra that towed the space shuttle.