PSA to our young/just starting out auto technicians

Expect the unexpected.

How often does a person think "I'm heating up this rusted bolt on a spindle/control arm, I should put on hearing protection"? I never would have thought I needed it for that job. I was helping out a family member who needed a ball joint replaced in his subaru that he was fixing up (the ones with the pinch bolt going through the spindle).

The ball joint was shot (rust would fall out of it every time you turned the wheel), no boot left, no grease, and the bolt was rusted solid. So I started warming it up so it wouldn't break off. BOOOM the ball joint exploded (apparently there was a little grease left in it, and it somehow formed a high pressure pocket when I started heating the bolt). My roommate had just got back from the sandbox, he came running and tugged me away from the car, thinking a grenade had went off. Might as well have been one, because the ball joint completely removed itself from the control arm and spindle and I was picking shrapnel out of my jacket. Hearing in my right ear is pretty much gone now.