Has anyone ever....

[pErvinalia]

...chopped into their foot while competing in wood chopping competitions? I don't know if you get them overseas, but they're pretty common here. Massive fat/muscley people stand on a block of wood and hack through it in not many strokes with a super sharp axe, while wearing Dunlop Volleys...


Don't miss the bathtub derby at the end...
[Youtube] http://youtu.be/QMCHIR3nDLs[/youtube]

[JimC]

...chopped into their foot while competing in wood chopping competitions? I don't know if you get them overseas, but they're pretty common here. Massive fat/muscley people stand on a block of wood and hack through it in not many strokes with a super sharp axe, while wearing Dunlop Volleys...


Don't miss the bathtub derby at the end...
[Youtube] http://youtu.be/QMCHIR3nDLs[/youtube]

Whenever I have seen those competitions on TV, I've always thought that they are one missed stroke away from being an amputee...

[pErvinalia]

It must happen. No YouTube videos verifying it, though..

[Hermit]

It must happen. No YouTube videos verifying it, though..

And it does, in this case to a three time world champ, even.

From an article about the history of wood chopping competition:

...a widely reported event on the north coast in the 1920s. There, an eighteen-year-old competitor in the standing log caught his trouser leg on a splitter as he turned and swung; the blow, already in motion and unstoppable, severed his leg

Apparently the first recorded wood chopping competition took place in the backyard of the Sprent Hotel in Ulverstone, Tasmania in 1870 between Joseph Smith, a local vet, and Jack Biggs, from Warragul, Victoria (for a £25 bet plus bragging rights) behind a pub in Tasmania. It finished up with a fee for all brawl.

The article makes for an entertaining read.

[pErvinalia]

Ouch...

“He'll be right; he'll be back chopping in a month or so.”

Fucking idiots. Don't know why they wouldn't wear steel caps. Twits.

[Hermit]

Lumberjacks are good at chopping wood. The one's that are not bright enough for anything else become so good at it that they enter wood chopping competitions.

Another extract from the article I linked to earlier. The topic is to regulate the comps with a view to increase safety.

The new regulations weren’t too popular – many were used to performing bare legged and bare chested, just as they worked and trained. Through the loud speaker system axemen were threatened with disqualification if they failed to comply.

Officials had to stay vigilant. In 1951 a New Zealander, Joe Julian, turned up to cut in bare feet. Eventually he did as demanded and put on shoes, but to make them more comfy he cut out the soles

[tattuchu]

My childhood friend severed his thumb while splitting wood with a gas-powered wood splitter. His father told him to lie to hospital staff when he was rushed in to have the thumb sewn back on, as he was too young to be operating such equipment. On the one hand, it was kind of cool that the father treated his kids more as adults than kids and gave them such responsibilities. On the other hand, the father wasn't one for safety precautions and was also making my friend rush through the job when great care should obviously have been used when operating such a dangerous device. The father cared more about getting the job done than the safety of his own son. When my friend got grievously injured, his father was upset. No, not upset that his son was injured. He was angry with his son for being so clumsy, and angry that the wood splitting job was now going to be so far behind schedule

[Rum]

Should have given him a gun to play with. He might have accidentally shot his excuse for a father.

[pErvinalia]

Libboland. Gotta love it.

[RESiNATE]

I thought 'chopping wood' was a euphemism...

[piscator]

A friend tells a story about his first day on a seismic survey crew, aka "Oil exploration"...

They flew in a helicopter out to the Alaskan tundra about 60 miles away from the nearest road, handed him a Sandvik and told him to clear out some willow brush along a stream bank.
About his second swing, he swung through a branch and his boot and buried the sandvick blade in his right foot, between his big and second toes. Encouraged by the smell of blood, the Arctic mosquitoes soon began to gather...

About a half hour later, after he had pried the blade out of his foot, removed his boot, and wrapped things up with some flagging tape, one of his crew members came along to check his progress. "You stupid fuck. This going to cost us a half day of production!"