The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has
posted incidents where a momentary lapse in judgment has horrific results. Most
times our safety systems prevent or mitigate the hazard. Other times the
momentary lapse in judgment is when workers disregard or ignore current safety
systems. Either way this recent story emphasizes the continued need for safety
education.
A man was killed in an industrial
accident at a metal shredding plant in the Western United States one morning
during the first week in September.
The local police spokesman described
the incident as a tragic accident. “There was one male who was working at this
metal shredding company where they were bailing what I believe was metal and in
the process I guess the machine malfunctioned. He went to fix the malfunction
and in the process the machine activated and he lost his life,” police
spokesman said.
The police spokesman said the man,
who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene. Local authorities
will conduct an investigation into the death. It’s also expected that the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration will conduct an investigation.
The Aluminium Plant Safety offers our
sincere condolences to the deceased worker’s family, friends and coworkers.
Only time will lessen the grief that is shared by the deceased workers loved
ones. But, unfortunately that grief will never end.
The news media story provided little
information on this incident. Nevertheless, the APSB will make an assumption that
this incident may have been prevented if a lock out tag out program was
utilized when the bailing machine “jammed”.
The Occupational Safety & Health
Administration has useful information regarding Lock Out Tag Out programs. It
can be found here.
The Health & Safety Executive has
some useful information regarding safe isolation systems. It can be found here.
In addition the APSB has found some
useful safety videos on Youtube regarding Lock Out Tag Out programs. Here is
one that the APSB found useful.
Please comment.
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