Things I hate… and a Galician story

Explanation from a Galician bricklayer to the insurance company, who couldn’t understand, given the nature of his injuries, how the accident could have happened. This is a true case whose transcript was obtained from an archived copy held by the insurer. The case was heard by the Court of First Instance of Pontevedra.

Most honorable sirs,
In response to your request for additional information, I state the following: in item no. 1 regarding my participation in the events, I mentioned: “trying to carry out the task and without help” as the cause of my accident. In your letter you ask me to provide a more detailed statement, so I hope the following will once and for all clear up your doubts.

I have been a bricklayer for ten years. On the day of the accident I was working without assistance, laying bricks on a wall on the sixth floor of a building under construction in this city. When I finished my tasks, I checked and saw that approximately 250 kilos of bricks were left over. Instead of carrying them down to the ground floor by hand, I decided to put them in a barrel and lower them using a pulley which, fortunately, was attached to a beam in the ceiling of the sixth floor.

I went down to the ground floor, tied the barrel to a rope and, using the pulley, hoisted it up to the sixth floor, tying the free end of the rope to a column on the ground floor. Then I went up and loaded the bricks into the barrel. I returned to the ground floor, untied the rope, and held it firmly so that the 250 kilos of bricks would descend smoothly (I should indicate that in item no. 1 of my statement to the police I declared that my body weight is 80 kilos). To my surprise, my feet left the ground and I began to rise quickly, pulled by the rope. Because of the shock, I lost my presence of mind and, without thinking, gripped the rope even tighter as I shot upward at great speed.
Near the third floor I met the barrel coming down at roughly the same speed I was going up, and it was impossible to avoid the collision. I believe that is where my skull fracture occurred.

I continued rising until my fingers became caught in the pulley, which stopped my ascent and also caused multiple fractures of my fingers and my wrist. At that point, I had regained my presence of mind and, despite the pain, I kept holding onto the rope. It was then that the barrel struck the floor, its bottom broke, and all the bricks spilled out.

Without the bricks, the barrel weighed approximately 25 kilos. By a very simple principle, I began to descend rapidly toward the ground floor. As I passed the third floor, I met the empty barrel coming up. In the resulting collision I am almost certain I broke my ankles and my nose. That collision fortunately reduced the speed of my fall, so that when I landed on the pile of bricks I only broke three vertebrae.

I regret, however, to report that while I was lying on top of the bricks, in unbearable pain, unable to move, and looking up at the barrel, I once again lost my presence of mind and let go of the rope. Since the barrel weighed more than the rope, it descended rapidly and fell onto my legs, breaking both of my tibias.
Hoping I have definitively clarified the cause and the course of events, I remain faithfully yours.