worked more than a half-hour to release his "lower extremities"....

We make assumptions at the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog. Because of our experience (and amount of gray hair). Most times we are correct. Most of our assumptions are focused on the side of caution so as not to place blame on the worker nor the company. Our hope is by bringing awareness to these incidents we can hopefully prevent recurrence. Here is a recent story:

Officials said an employee of a local business was seriously injured but survived after being caught one day during the week of October 2, 2016 in fabricating machinery at a metal fabricating plant in the Midwest USA.

The worker was flown to a local hospital in a medical helicopter that landed in the rear of the factory, according to the local Fire Chief.

Paramedics, who were called at about 10:30 a.m., worked for more than a half-hour to release the man's "lower extremities" from a piece of steel-rolling equipment, the local fire chief said.

"He was taken by helicopter in stable condition," the fire chief said. "We're hopeful he's going to be all right. He was talking to us" on the way to the helicopter.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog prays that the injured worker recovers fully from his physical and mental injuries. We hope that the company provides onsite counseling to the workers who aided their trapped coworker. We can only imagine the anguish the workers must have felt waiting for the ems department to arrive. We have experience in being near a worker who was trapped and awaiting to be rescued. Though it was 30 years ago, we can remember details like it was yesterday. That incident provided the basis for how we view safety on this blog.

We forgot, our assumption. We assume that this equipment was older and lacked the current safety mechanisms that would be installed if the equipment was brand new.

Please comment.