Be careful with those monster tool boxes.

The lady that runs the upholstery shop across from us is a bit of a tool nut. The Snap-on guy visits her often. She has a couple of their large tool cabinets. She opened one too many drawer on one of her cabinets the other day and it fell over on her. She was trapped under it for a little over two hours before someone found her and dug her out. No major injuries, but she is pretty beat up from mid belly down. It could have been a lot worse. She's a tough old gal, but that put the hurt on her in a major fashion. 

I know a lot of us beat around in the shop by ourselves all the time. We always tout jack stands and such, but we might want to watch those tool boxes as well. Mine wouldn't trap me but it sure would hurt if I turned it over on me. 

I almost flipped mine over doing the same thing,  but caught it in time.  It was definitely a wake up call.

I've had a crappy harbor freight tool cart fall over before, that was bad enough. I can't imagine a real box. The clean up is almost as bad as the potential injuries in my mind. 

I have seen a few flip over, always messy. Glad she is ok overall.

yeah glad she is okay.  do tool boxes come with obligatory wall ties?  I know that at least one of my two inexpensive garage shelving thingys came with what I assumed were that.  

I almost killed myself when i was about 7, pulled out too many drawers from my dad’s craftsman chest and woke up in the ER some time later.  Every once in a while i have a vision of the toolbox coming at me.  

I tipped my 72" Matco box over a while back. Luckily noone was underneath it. We were rolling it down a ramp out of a pickup bed. 2 people is borderline trying to control a loaded 72" box on a ramp. Luckily most of the damage i did to it was on the backside. 

Odd this comes up. I was at Sears last week and caught a box as it was tipping over onto one of the employees. Luckily it was a small one.

Scary.  Isn't this why many tool boxes will only let you open a single drawer at a time?

January 20, 2004:  I shattered my left wrist when I tried to stop my smallish bottom box from tipping over at the bottom of a too-short ramp.  I didn’t have time to let go of the push handle, and I ended up on my knees in the driveway with the back of my hand on the back of my forearm.

two valuable lessons:

1.  Lower the box from above, not below.

2.  Let that E36 M3 fall.  It’s easy to pick up with two good hands.  It’s not so easy to pick up with one berkeleyed up hand.

In reply to ProDarwin :

My office filing cabinets are like that, but my tool boxes will let you open as many as you want to clean up off the floor. 

In reply to AngryCorvair :

Holy Ouch. That makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. 

My  big 6'+ toolchest has my wood overhead shelves (tire racks) above it just close enough that if it tips forward, it will get stopped by the front beam. And i know from experience, it works.......

Daylan C said:

I've had a crappy harbor freight tool cart fall over before

I have the HF $379 one that I felt was really narrow for the size it was - I never gave this any thought.  Gracias for the tips, Bro. 

I remember years ago, the Snap-On tool catalog had pitchers of the tool sets arrayed in the chests they came with the drawers all open to display them and there was a big disclaimer on each page: "Do Not Open More Than One Drawer At A Time. There is a Danger of the Toolbox tipping over. These are shown for display purposes only." I think about that anytime I open more than one drawer on my boxes at a time.

ONE DRAWER AT A TIME, PEOPLE!

Maybe we need a version of the Johnny Cash song to drill it into people's heads.

Protip: open the bottom drawer first.  It will act as an extra leg in the event the box starts to tip over.  

ProDarwin said:

Scary.  Isn't this why many tool boxes will only let you open a single drawer at a time?

I was thinking they did.  Apparently not.  The file cabinets we have at work definitely do not.  

ProDarwin said:

Scary.  Isn't this why many tool boxes will only let you open a single drawer at a time?

Nope, that's filing cabinets.

Reminds me of my friend Yonkers in college.  He's drunkdrunkdrunk, and goes to the Student Union in the middle of the night to buy another pack of Marlboros from the ciggy machine.  If you're old enough, you remember how these work.  Smoker puts in the coins, and then pulls a big pull handle towards him/herself, hard, to drop the pack into the tray.  Anyway, he's so drunk (natch) he can't count the coins right, thinks the machine ripped him off, keeps yanking the handle in a fury, and winds up flipping it over on himself.

Spent the night lying on the floor under the machine with a crushed pelvis and broken legs.  Lucky to have lived, really.  Months of rehab, still limps.  Races go-karts, last I heard when I saw him ten years ago.  Hey, come to think of it . . . Randy?  You here, man?

I just pay a guy with a rollback wrecker to move mine. There's too much money at stake to risk turning it over or damaging the box.

Why mine is strapped to the wall.... 

ya'll Remember Jerry Glanville A Coach For the Falcons  few years Back,

Jerry also tried his Hand a Stock car Racing,  After ariving Late at a Practice/Qualifying at Nashville Super Speedway the only place left to unload was WAAYY down track in an area that was the Begining of the Turn Banking,  some Crew Person's that were the size of NFL Linebackers tried to unload the NASCAR size Tool Box's and with 4 of these Guy's being DRUG down the banking to the Bottom It Finally turned Over on a Couple of them

.yes it hurt them.   It took awhile to pick up and sort out 30 thousand dollars worth of tools dumped out on the tarmac,

It's actually sorta surprising that tool boxes don't come with any sort of anti-tip device for the back of them.  They're on pretty much every stove/range and most of IKEA's furniture.  

I subscribe to the one draw at a time but I also try to keep all of of the heavy tools down lower just in case.

I also don't roll mine around much. 

As for trackside; I bring a minimum of tools as I don't run cars that routinely need major work done trackside. Even if I had an enclosed trailer and the space to bring my spare motor and tranny I seriously doubt I'd be inclined to swap them trackside. So due to that I don't need to lug around big tool chests.

If your not Ready to race when you Get to the Track , You really don't Have a Chance.

Can't Rely on Luck.