Tag Archives: SEB Safety Tips

SEB Safety Tip of the Day: Don’t try to dispose of your Christmas tree in your fireplace.

Posted on by
2

One of the reasons I have an artificial tree is to avoid the hassle of getting rid of a live tree after the holidays are over. Granted, a lot of cities offer free curbside tree pickup these days or low-cost disposal at the local dump, but for those who don’t and who can’t just drag it out to the back of their property and toss it into the woods, there’s no quick and easy way to deal with it.

One option you might have if you have a fireplace in your home is to toss it in there. This is not generally recommended for several reasons, but if you’re going to go that route you should probably consider chopping it up first.

According to the McKinney Fire Department, officials responded to a call about a structure fire in the 4400 block of Rancho Del Norte Trail.

Officials said firefighters arrived to find that a Christmas tree had been placed into a home fireplace.

Only the top of the tree was in the fire, so the flames traveled down the tree and out of the fireplace, officials said.

McKinney Resident Tries to Dispose of Christmas Tree in Fireplace – NBCDFW
There’s a smart way and a dumb way to do this. This is the dumb way.

Damage was minimal, but one person was treated for smoke inhalation. The really sad part of this is that the town of McKinney offers Christmas tree composting services and will even pick up your tree for free.

I love that they have to tell people to remove their lights and ornaments from the tree. You know that means someone tried to have them pick up a tree with all of that still on it at some point in the past.

Learn from the stupidity of others. Don’t do this.

SEB Safety Tip: Do NOT set yourself on fire even if you see people on YouTube do it.

Posted on by
3

We’ve been over this before. Many. Many. MANY. Times. Before. Apparently I still have to say it again: Do not, no matter where you saw someone else do it or how cool they seemed when they did it or whether someone called you chicken if you didn’t do it, set yourself on fire. The Fire Challenge is a stupid thing to do and you will get burned. Just like this Michigan kid did:

Tabitha Cleary of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, told a reporter for CNN affiliate WDIV that her son, Jason Cleary, suffered second degree burns to his chin, chest and stomach after he was set on fire at a friend’s house.

“I just want everybody to know that these challenges, or whatever they’re watching on YouTube, is not worth your risking your life,” Cleary said. “My son got burned second degree, and it could have been way worse.”

Michigan boy suffers second degree burns in ‘fire challenge‘ — CNN.com

This kid was lucky. He’ll probably recover from this without too much lasting damage. Some of the other people I’ve written about previously ended up much worse off including one that had to be put into a drug induced coma because his injuries were so severe.

Don’t get me wrong, I had my own fascination with fire as an early teenager and had a couple of close eyebrow removing calls, but none of the stupid things I did with fire involved literally and intentionally setting myself on fire. My parents had to tell me not to do a lot of stupid things, but none of them was ever “do not douse yourself in flammable liquids and then strike a match to it.”

On a more general note, you should probably think twice before taking on any of the “challenges” you see on YouTube or social media. Unless it’s immediately obvious that there’s little danger of doing real damage to yourself. I’m thinking of things like the Ice Bucket Challenge that was a craze for awhile. You should at least do some research on what the risks of a particular challenge are and then, maybe, just watch the other idiots do it and not be an idiot yourself.

Oh, and even the Ice Bucket Challenge wasn’t without risk. Lots of people got bonked on the noggin pretty damn hard when the people dumping the water on them lost their hold on what was clearly more of a picnic cooler and not a bucket.

Why not try a Take A Nap Challenge? Something nice and easy and beneficial? Just lay down on a couch and take a nap. Not a couch that’s on fire, just a normal couch. I feel like I shouldn’t have had to say that last part, but given some of the stupider people out there that keep setting themselves on fire I figured I should probably bring it up.

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.