Speaking of tough buggers...quite some time ago one of the men that worked out of a small rural power company office told us about a guy that got caught in a big round baler. It ripped both his arms off at the shoulders. Apparently when arteries are torn apart they retract and shrink in size and ended up closing off so that he didn't bleed out. It also ripped off ALL of his clothes except his workboots and socks. He couldn't drive his tractor or truck and he couldn't even work the telephone so he walked to the neighbours about 3/4 of a mile away. When he got there he went up to the house door and let them know he was there. The housewife opened and door and saw him...buck naked, armless and covered in blood. Talk about a shocking sight! He lived but was said to have become a "miserable old bastard" as the guy said who knew him and told me the story...
Another guy we all good naturedly called Lunchbucket was a Lineman and he was involved in building an electrical substation. He was sitting up on top of the A-Frame steel structure that held the buss work in preparation to setting the bay switch. The radial arm digger they used was parked close to the structure and they lifted the fairly heavy switch up to the top, about 20 feet or so. They failed to notice or underestimated the hazard of the outrigger leg being close to a foot deep trench that the 4/0 bare copper ground wire was installed in and when the weight of the machine came on the outrigger, the trench collapsed and the load dropped very quickly. It came down and the base of the switch slid along the steel 4x4 that he was sitting on and cut his leg off mid thigh like a freaking huge scissors. That guy climbed down the steel on his own with no help! They got a tourniquet, etc on him and slowed the bleeding enough to get him to a hospital before he bled out. He went back to farming after that.
I think he's the toughest guy I know.
