Nail Gun Injuries

Brooks Schuelke

Contributor

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I’ve been around construction pretty much my whole life.  My dad has done residential and commercial construction, and I consider myself a weekend warrior.  When I read a post this morning from my friend Steve Lombardi, a Des Moines personal injury lawyer, about the dangers of nail guns, I knew I needed to share the same news he was sharing. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are 37,000 nail-gun related injuries per year.  That number increased dramatically in the 1990s due to the increased availability of the nail guns.   And those injuries aren’t just among the weekend warrior types. 

An April story in the Sacramento Bee detailed a tragic story of a carpenter who died of a nail gun injury while his young son watched and of a California Highway Patrolman who was injured by a stray nail from a construction site.  That article says that more than 42,000 people per year --- more than 100 per day --- show up at hospital rooms with nail gun injuries.  And as Steve points out, those are only the ones that show up at hospitals.  Imagine how many other people are out there that suffered other minor injuries. 

Unfortunately, many of these injuries could be prevented with a slight modification in the design of the nail guns.  We’ll look at that design in a post tomorrow.

To hear about the story of the carpenter that was injured and to hear about the injury to the CHP officer, watch the videos below.