Looking at the image above, surely many of you will already know where this is going. The threaded rod in the drill along with the nut on it that is held by the wrench had some corrosion, and were not turning smoothly by hand. So I decided to try to speed it up with the aid of a drill. On max torque. And on the high speed setting. Surely it is no surprise that the nut suddenly bound onto the threaded shaft, flinging the wrench which just so happened to have a tangential velocity aimed squarely at my forehead. The drill of course did not stop because it was on the maximum torque setting.

This resulted in an injury many would describe as my forehead being "split open". After some profuse bleeding and some stupidity including cyanoacrylate I am now left with a ~3/4" vertical scar right above my right eyebrow. It's not as noticeable as another scar on my face, but knowing I did this to myself bothers me. This was almost a year ago, but I was too embarrassed to talk about it before lol.

This is by far the worst accident I have had in my basement ever (not that it was that bad of course). But no matter how horrible the situations are that I get into, it never seems to change my attitude. I only wear prescription glasses which are not at all a substitute for safety glasses, I only wear socks and constantly drip molten solder on my feet and get copper wire fragments stuck in them (glass too), and I am always cutting myself whenever I use a sharp object. Electrical safety is not much better, I have an isolation transformer but it's 3kVA so I never want to lug it around to use it. Plenty of accidental contacts with 120VAC among other things, more than 30 times for sure. If I have already had this many idiotic experiences when I'm only 18 I can only imagine what's coming for me later.

How do you all motivate yourselves to think about safety? When I am very excited about a project (or angry that something is being a pain in the neck), I tend to do very very stupid things. I know if I saw someone else doing these kinds of things in front of me I would know it's dangerous, but in the moment when I'm doing it everything always feels right.

Whoa You gotta to be careful with these tools when you are using.

I do have prescription safety glasses due that I work with inside these computer guts.  Yes, it is wee bit expensive but well worth it.

Ouch, I made a silly mistake with a drill a couple weeks ago.  I slipped while taking a measurement, and as I put my hand down to catch myself the drill which I had set down absentmindedly was positioned such that the bit jabbed my arm, and being only a 3/32 it easily punctured the skin.  If I had taken the time to remove the bit and/or set the drill off to the side further from where I was working, it wouldn't have happened.  Although I feel like I'm good about taking precautions while using tools, I'm not good about taking the time to put them away properly.  Usually this results in me searching all over for where I left this or that, but this time it actually caused an injury.

Okay, everyone got some scars over time for doing something stupid, well including myself, trust me

If this scar bothers you really, you can have it surgically removed and move on. Or you can just move on. At least a lesson learned if you have a deep cut on something that really matters cosmetically (a face) you better have it surgically closed ASAP. Modern medical tech like hydrocolloid plasters also does wonders for wound healing and scar minimizing, ask how I know ))

For something truly dangerous, like a neon bombarder, you have to really stop and concentrate every time. In this case, strictly 'don't touch everything and run by a button from a distance'

Note truly dangerous accidents can always arise from some seemingly benign things just with some probability. I was just cutting some pieces from that ubiquitous 1/10 inch golden pin headers on a board at work with wire cutters and that damn thing landed just right in the center of my eye pupil! I visited an ophthalmologist promptly, fortunately healed quickly, no long time scarring here.

Note truly dangerous accidents can always arise from some seemingly benign things just with some probability. I was just cutting some pieces from that ubiquitous 1/10 inch golden pin headers on a board at work with wire cutters and that damn thing landed just right in the center of my eye pupil! I visited an ophthalmologist promptly, fortunately healed quickly, no long time scarring here.

Absolutely. I have soldered for years with tin/lead solder. With the lessened availability of that stuff at professional suppliers, i now am starting to try out lead free types of solder. I found a really nice Felder solder made to a Fuji patent with trace amounts of germanium in it. For hand soldering, it is close enough to tin/lead to be completely useful. The 250g stock of leaded solder is gonna stay at work, for repairs on vintage scientific equipment that sometimes needs it.

All was well until i was working on some tiny component with my face pretty close to the work piece. The solder spat a droplet of boiling hot flux at my face! And again! Somehow, this type of solder tends to have bubbles of solder shooting from the flux core once in a while. It would suck BAD if a >250 degree C droplet of flux got into my eye and solidified on there. I NEVER expected to be hit in the face with a flux bubble when soldering.

Because i might unconciously bend over and get closer to the joint, i now wear safety glasses while soldering with that specific type of solder. You should wear those anyway if you do PCB Assembly because in the same vein, once in a while if you cut off the component legs on the solder side, a leg sometimes shoots across the room unpredictably (i might just close my eyes for that one though... I am not holier than the Pope even though i take workplace safety much more serious than most of my coworkers).

Make safety convenient.

I have more pairs of safety glasses than i need. They always sit out somewhere right in view. Get some sun shades style glasses and you forget about wearing them (i've been spotted at work with one pair on my eyes and one on my head because i forgot i had them on my head...)

I am careful enough with mains that i don't randomly get shocked. Literally never touched live mains wiring. But put your isolation transformer in a permanent place and put non-grounded outlets hooked op to the transformer onto your workbench. Or get a smaller portable one. Mine is 5kg or so, i use it for AC/DC radios if i gotta measure voltages in those while they are turned on.

Make it easier to hold workpieces by buying 'nice' vices and clamps. Just putting that nut in a vice would already have solved this issue, and doing it like that is easier too. But the best way to clean up threads is to just get the RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB - a tap and die set, and chase the threads with the die.
Still get a vice to put that bolt into though. Holding everything with your hands sucks.
At work i have nice clamps for use on a big drill press. At home i don't. At work i've never had a work piece spin around on the drill press. At home i've had strips of aluminium being flung around because the drill got stuck in the chewy aluminium. Never got hurt from that because aluminium typically isn't that sharp, but if that happens with a strip of steel it would do its best impression of a lawn mower blade.

My grandpa died from lung emphysema (and heart issues) after a life time's exposure to nasty paint fumes and cigarette smoke. I don't want my last year to be like his last year. I solder a lot, it's part of my job, though not full 8hr days of exposure. But i make sure that i have a solder fume filter on the bench pulling away the fumes, so i don't breathe them all the time. My system is not ideal (not a HEPA filter) but it is better to at least dilute the particulates rather than literally having the flux vapor waft into my face at every joint i solder.

When i use the lathe at work, i make sure that i leave the work shop door open if no one else is in the shop. That way someone might be able to hear my screams if the lathe is particularly hungry that day, and turn it off before i'm completely eaten by it. It has a foot actuated emergency switch added to it, but god knows if i'll be able to hit that if something goes truly wrong. Lathes are no joke.

Watch safety videos on youtube. I knew table saws were dangerous but i did not know the different ways kickback could happen. A guy at work who always is telling tall stories told about it happening at the shop at work - i though 'eh, just another tall story' until i saw the actual hole in the wall left by a chunk of wood being shot at the wall by the table saw.