I have had way to much experience with air nailers. I own something like 18 of the buggers ranging from mini pinners that shoot a headless 20 or 22 guage pin to a pole barn gun that will shoot a 5-5/8" inch ring shank nail into pressure treated SYP in a blink. There are new electric battery guns but they seem to only be trimmers shooting finish nailers and the Paslode Impulse Line with utilise a propane/butane fuel cell and a battery powered spark and actually function like a single stroke internal combustion engine.
Nails will penetrate skin with no problem at close range, with no spin on the nail, they get out of balance very quickly. I have had to go to the ER twice for nails. Once while adding a soffit to a kitchen (that lowered down area some kitchens hang the cabinets from) I slipped and managed to shove the contact shoe into the meaty part of my palm, letting a nail go from behind my thumb out my palm into the web of my finger and out the second knuckle of my middle finger. That one left me with a numb finger. The second one was much less painful but way funnier, I was holding door trim in line and my nephew was learning how to do things when he slipped and nailed my left index and middle fingers together. I knew he had hit the bone and that means a trip to the ER. When i get to the ER the nurse looks at me and then my fingers and then back to me, and asks, "why didn't i stop hitting the nail when it started to go in." In all seriousness. I realised she had no clue about nail guns and thought I had pounded the nail all the way thru both fingers.
I have two sheathing nailers that will fire at rates up to 14-15 nails per second. designed for drag nailling or surface contact nailing. That means you put the muzzle of the nailer on the floor and start walking. They both use coils of nails for "ammo" and will nail off subfloor or roof decks as fast as you can move. These are commonly used in pallet assembly too. when putting together large multi family or light commercial builidings, it is not uncommon for us to burn up 4-5 cases of fasteners in a day. A case may contain as many as 14000 nails. as in 100 coils of 140 7penny ringshanks. As you can see, it is easy to stitch together a building.
I have seen a lot of minor injuries from nailers, but the two worst I have seen have been foot injuries, one guy building walls flat for tip up, managed to bump fire a framing gun sideways thru the ball of his foot. shattered most of the bones from big toe side in. The second worst was done by one of my guys, attempting to fix a squeak in a floor his misguidedly shot a nail UP thru the floor trying to nail it to the bottom of a wall, instead he hit and shattered the heel bone of my foreman, also severing his achilles tendon. My foreman was off work for 5 months.
