I worked at a retail store for a couple of years in my last town. In this retail store, we had what they call reach trucks. Here's a link to a picture of one.
http://www.ise.ncsu.edu/kay/mhetax/TransEq/IndusTr/Images/NA%20Reach%20Truck.gif
One night another couple of guys were unloading plywood onto the shelf. Evidently there were only a couple of pieces on, and one stepped forward to hold the plywood so the reach truck operator could back out. These forklift type trucks have a scissor like mechanism that extents and retracts. Well, the genius holding the plywood had his right arm laying in between the scissors, and he told the other guy to back up, thinking he would back up instead of retracting the forks. Other guy misunderstands, and retracts the forks. He narrowly missed amputating the plywood guy's arm.
I was halfway across the store, and I heard screaming. I came running over, and the guy was on the ground with his arm caught screaming to get it out. The operator had panicked and was running around in circles. There is a joy stick control with about 10 different buttons an directions on it to control this machine. The buttons to extend and retract the forks are on the front of the joystick and it would be easy to get them mixed up while in a pannic. Hit the wrong one, and the guy loses his arm. There was a third guy there who was doing something else, and by the time I got there he had ran up and extended the arms, freeing the guy.
I know the white face of which you speak. I've never seen a 6 foot tall guy so white and shaking so badly. He was sitting there with a shit eating grin on his face, practically drooling and wiggling his fingers, obviously relieved. I would estimate he was trapped for about 30 seconds. He had to go to the hospital and get some stitches, but another half inch and he would have lost his arm. Makes me sick to think about it, but he had violated so many safety standards that he would have had it coming if he'd lost his arm. That was not a fun night.
