Tag Archives: SEB Safety Tips

SEB Safety Tip: If you’re going to light your socks on fire, don’t stomp on gasoline soaked carpets.

Posted on by
1
Pic of idiot with his sock on fire.

This is not the stupid teen from this story, but a completely different stupid teen doing the same thing.

Not that I can imagine a situation where you would have a need to set your socks on fire while wearing them, but if you do then it’s probably a good idea to not do what this idiot did:

The boy admitted he lit his socks on fire, which he said he had done several times before without incident, and when he stomped his foot to extinguish the flame it ignited a carpet soaked with gasoline from an earlier spill.

The boy and his friends attempted to extinguish the fire, but the garage burned down, police said.

via Court rules teen’s sock fire not arson – UPI.com.

Again, this seems like something you really shouldn’t have to tell people not to do, but there you go. In this case the teenager was arrested and charged with arson for his stupidity, but apparently the judge felt he was just being your typical stupid teenager.

“(He) was 14 years old, and although his intelligence appeared to the (Youth Court) judge to be average, average 14-year-old boys may do things without any thought of the risks involved, even when they have been told about the risks on other occasions,” Justice Jill Mallon said in the High Court ruling.

Checking Google it appears that this isn’t an uncommon thing to do among the young and stupid.

Wow, it seems we’re having a flood of SEB Safety PSAs today. What’s with all the sudden stupidity in the world?

SEB Safety Tip: Clogged snowblowers should be cleaned with a stick, not your hand.

Posted on by
5
Pic of snowblower warning.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM!

Unlike the previous SEB safety tip, this is one that some folks might need to be told about.

If you have a snowblower and it gets clogged on heavy snow, which they are wont to do, you should never stick your hand into the chute to clear the clog. That’s a lesson this poor kid learned the hard way:

At 14, Kenny McGill was a veteran snowblower user, taking on the task of cleaning off the driveway and sidewalk of his family’s Plainfield home for the last three years.

So his mother, Sheila McGill, was shocked when she got a call Dec. 10 saying the teen had mangled his hand while doing the job.

Kenny lost half of his index finger, and surgeons had to reconstruct the middle finger of his right hand. He told his parents he used his hand to clear clogged snow out of a collector chute, and an unseen blade caught it, his mother said.

The teen faces physical therapy and a long healing process.

via Snowblowers offer winter help, but blades pose hazard – Chicago Breaking News.

Most of the bigger snowblowers will come with a tool specifically for this purpose, but if yours didn’t then improvise with something other than your hand and turn the damned thing off before trying to unclog it.

Sure that means you have to start it back up again, but at least you’ll have all your fingers to yank on the starter cord with.

SEB Safety Tip: Don’t try to clean your fireplace while you still have a fire in it.

Posted on by
Reply

Pic of bag head on fire.There are some things you’d think you wouldn’t have to tell people, but you’d be wrong:

COLORRADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A Colorado Springs man who tried to clean his natural-gas fireplace while it was still lit nearly roasted himself over an open fire. He was hospitalized with second-degree burns.

Colorado Springs fire authorities say the unnamed man received facial burns Thursday night after using an aerosol cleaner on the lit fireplace. Fire Lt. Tom Ruane tells The (Colorado Springs) Gazette that the aerosol cleaner produced “a big fireball.”

via Colo. man burned while cleaning lit fireplace – The Denver Post.

So remember kids: Be sure to turn off the gas fireplace and let it cool down before attempting to clean it. And you should probably use something that isn’t highly flammable itself to clean it with. If you’re not sure what you’re doing then perhaps it’s worth the expense to hire a professional chimney sweep.

Of course, if you’re as big a dumbass as this guy was then you’re probably not going to listen to this sage advice anyway.