Landracing Forum
Tech Information => Safety => Topic started by: entropy on January 29, 2015, 08:22:16 AM
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A friend who Land Speed races bikes in Findland/England just sent me the story below.
MS is a serious, careful, experienced, very successful asphalt LSR competitor.
His accident rang my bell...
karl
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"I had an accident at home and got burnt pretty bad, 19 days in icu. It`s been 4 months now on medical leave which of half went in hospital.
At first i have to tell you about the place i live, this is Finnish countryside and nearest neighbour is 400-500m away and we can`t see there because the forest, although partly cut, is blocking the view. This is my parents old place and since my dad was a hunter and fisherman, i got used to do it yourself stuff.
i had some trash from the bike garage and was supposed to burn them in a barrel, but being wet it didn`t catch fire. I had some old ethanol in a can that i`m using in both bikes and poured some into other side of barrel, where it didn`t yet burn, as i have done it with gasoline many times. Lesson here is, ethanol evaporates much easier than gas and the fumes got to fire and "blammo", neighbour heard the sound mile away, some liquid was thrown on me and clothes started to burn. We had a big water reservoir for watering the garden, i ran there and took a shower, too many seconds went and 32% of skin burnt. My mom was inside and i went to tell her to call ambulance, which was nearby, for some reason. Next memory is 2 weeks later in hospital.
At first the ambulance crew estimated 49% of burnt areas, but my face was ok, although it was black and eye brows burnt off. Now i have one spot which may, or may not bleed anymore. I can`t lean on legs or hands too hard to keep the skin intact, nerves are damaged in hands, four fingers not feeling like normally. But everything is changing for better every week.
I think that methanol is acting bit different than ethanol, not sure, it should burn more calmly.
But sure, you can tell my story to anybody who seems to be too careless with fuels.
I should have known better when we saw the effect running the bike in dyno. One time the tuner said, after couple hours running to have a break and fill up the tank. I was pouring and suddenly it was full, ethanol was flowing on the side of tank and frame. I ran to get some rag to clean it up, but when i came back it was already evaporated from hot frame and tank surface
So, if you see guys at the pits playing with ethanol based fuels, give them some strong advice."
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My sister is a head nurse in a care unit that specializes in burn victims.
The care necessary to keep burns clean and to promote healing is incredibly tough on the patient, and it can also be quite unnerving for the caregiver. Anything close to complete recovery is virtually impossible.
I love my sister, but I don't want to visit her at work.
I know I've caught myself being careless at times, not thinking, or startling myself when I look up from grinding something only to realize that I've been raining sparks down onto a can of lacquer thinner or onto an oily shop rag.
It's often too easy to get focused on the task at hand, and forget that combustion doesn't always occur in the engine.
Thanks for the reminder on this.
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Wishing you a speedy and full recovery. I too have been on fire...I give open flames a very wide berth now. JB.
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It is ALWAYS going to be OK,
JUST THIS ONE TIME . . . . . . .
You just can't take a second off from safety, or else.
We have all been "lucky" one time or another . . . . .
Let's all work hard to be "smarter".
Hope the person in this tale has a complete recovery.
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Alcohol fuels have much wider flammability limits than gasoline, which is why you can run them so rich to make more power than gasoline on the same air flow.
Good reminder!
Percent by volume with air
fuel ...... lfl ............ ufl .... difference
ethanol 3.3% ------ 19% = 15.7% range
methanol 6% ------- 36% = 30% range
gasoline 1.4 ------- 7.6 = 6.2% range
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I watched what a good friend went thru after getting burnt on the legs. The body wants to heal from the outside but it needs to heal from the inside. What they do is have a bar that drops down for them to hold on to. They put gauze on dry and every 2-3 hours come in, put a mouth piece in the patient and proceed to rip the dry gauze off. They wouldn't let me stay in the room during this and I didn't want to but I heard the noise. Then they put them in a hot tub type device with salt water in to remove whats left. This was 40 years ago and may have changed by now. This went on for 3 weeks until he was healed enough to go home with support hose on his legs. Without skin theres nothing to hold your legs up which I didn't know. I learned a whole lot more about burns then I ever wanted to but its a lesson Ive never forgot
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Fire, electricity and things up on stands all need special attention.
Methanol is the feared one in my neck of the woods. I've seen what it does.