APSB found this story dumbfounding in today's safety culture. The story talks about a company had reoccurring accidents that burned workers. After the third time, the government took the company to court. Here is the story:
A European based aluminium casting company has been prosecuted after a man was burned by molten metal at its factory.
The worker was operating a die cast machine at when molten metal sprayed from the back of the machine during the middle of 2010. The government safety court heard that 650 degrees celsius molten material burned through clothing after landing on him.
The worker suffered serious burns to his right arm, shoulder, leg and face and was unable to work for two months. The worker has been left with scarring on his hand and leg. The worker is still receiving treatment for his burned skin.
A safety government investigation found the rear of the machine was unguarded and, while personal protective equipment is not a substitute for effective guarding, the operators' overalls and eye protection were unsuitable for the amount of molten metal spray.
The safety court heard there had been three similar previous incidents of molten aluminium blow backs at the factory, one of which caused serious injuries to another employee seven months before the incident involving the most recent worker..
Speaking after the hearing, the health safety inspector said,
"Despite three previous incidents, one of which caused serious injuries to another worker, the company failed to learn from them and did not follow the recommendations of its own investigation.
"Although blow backs of molten aluminium are potentially foreseeable, when they do happen, they are unpredictable events. A blow back happens when the tip of the ram used to inject the metal into the casting fails. They always pose a high risk to workers because liquid metal under pressure can be thrown over a wide area around the machine.
"The company's risk assessment had identified blow backs as a danger but did not include any measures to remove or reduce the risk. As a result of the company's failings, a man has suffered serious injuries which could easily have been avoided."
The company pleaded guilty today to violating the applicable government safety law, and was fined $12,000 and ordered to pay $9,000 court costs.
3 comments:
Interesting that they do not tell you the company's name and/or the country of occurrence.
Thanks for the comment! the APSB mission statement has "It is not this blog's intention to place blame on either company nor worker(s), but the hope that awareness of these accidents brings education and prevention of re-occurrence". With that in mind the names of injured or killed workers would be omitted from the posts, and with that the names of the companies would be omitted too (where applicable). Also, a concern in that the blog might be used by members of the legal profession looking for new clients.
I appreciate that - it makes sense in a puritanical way. But, as a means of understanding and therefore being capable of using it as a "lesson learned", we would have to know the laws involved (country) and the company's history. Otherwise it reads like a "I heard this from a coworker today" and does not hold the punch required to allow for people to understand, empathize and (hopefully) take action to prevent such an occurrence where they are.
I appreciate the standards - most especially protecting the employees from the harm of public scrutiny... however...
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