Knocked off his feet, Chris sprawled against the cardboard box, sending hundreds of beer bottle tops scattering across the floor for the second time.

At first Chris thought that he had been attacked from behind, however, when he looked up there was no one standing near him.   So he decided that something must have fallen from the ceiling and thought, ‘I’m probably lucky to even be alive!’

But then, pulling himself to his feet again, Chris saw the other machinists running to the assistance of the man at the threading machine behind Chris’s.

The man, whose face was as white as a sheet, was still standing, although he was shaking slightly from side to side.   Holding the stump of his right hand up to eye level, he pursed his lips as though asking Chris what had happened.   Blood poured from the stump like water from a faucet.

One of the machinists switched off the man’s machine while someone else began to tie a tourniquet, torn from somebody’s shirt above the man’s elbow, to attempt to staunch the flow of blood.   However, while the tourniquet was still being tied, the initial shock began to wear off, to be replaced by almost unimaginable agony: the living pain of dozens of severed ligaments and shattered nerve endings.

The man began to lash about with both arms, screaming at his helpers, trying to push them all away from him.   The crowd stepped back for only a moment, however, that was long enough for the injured man, maddened by pain, to dash through an opening and run full pelt toward the front of the section, streaming blood across the machinery on his right-hand side as he ran.

Chris was shocked at the thought of the man’s injury, yet at the same time he marvelled at the big man’s ability to run full pelt through the slender gaps between the machines.

The crowd of would-be helpers started after the injured man, however, were unable to match his pace.

The injured man reached the fronted of the section and was almost hit by a forklift, which pushed its way through the centimetre-thick rubber double doors.   The driver slammed his foot onto the break causing the forklift to buck wildly; sending dozens of metal templates skating across the greasy, concrete floor, miraculously just missing the injured machinist on both sides as they skimmed passed him.