Summary for the article ‘Mortgage Mess’

Steve Gass, a woodwork enthusiast, lawyer and physicist was able to come up with a safer saw that prevents accidents. Although, on his own effort, he was able to sell these innovative tools quite well, few people in the business are willing to adapt it into the mainstream because according to them, “safety doesn’t sell”.

The writer starts by sharing the experience of a foreman in using the “safe saw”, showing that it was effective in preventing accidents.

The writer then uses statistics by saying that 40,000 Americans are injured by power saws every year and 4,000 of them are hurt badly enough to require amputation.

She then gives Gass’s explanation on how the saw works. Whenever it the saw’s blade was touched, its body would absorb some of the shock like a circuit breaker and it will instantly activate the brake.

Afterwards, she would talk about how surprised Gass was about the slow response to his new technology in spite of the fact that “Everybody in woodworking knows someone who’s lost a finger or had an accident.”

Finally, she points out that power saw accidents can leave you with very high medical expenses and it would be best to use this new technology to ensure safety and to lower costs.

II.   New Vocabulary

Tinkering (n.)  – an act of fiddling with something in an attempt to repair it.

Amputation (n.) –  to cut off a limb or other appendage of the body, especially in a surgical operation

Prototype (n.) – something having the essential features of a subsequent type, and on which later forms are modeled

Liability (n.) – anything for which somebody is responsible, especially a debt

Plaintiff (n.) – somebody who begins a lawsuit against another person (defendant) in a civil court