"This was a horrific incident ...."

Photo shows the baler machine where the incident happened

Older equipment is commonplace in our industry. Most lack the current safety mechanisms common on new equipment. When plants shutdown the equipment is sold by auction to the highest bidder. Buyer beware! This equipment can be shipped nearby or around the world. Wherever it ends up new workers will begin to operate machinery without the training that normally is be stilled to them at the time of purchase. Nor will the new owner know the maintenance history of the equipment. The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has a recent story involving an incident with an older machine.

A recycling firm in England has been sentenced for serious safety breaches after a worker had both hands severed while cutting metal strips on an industrial baler. 

The worker had been employed as an operative for seven months by the recycling firm when the incident happened earlier this year.

The Magistrates’ Court stated the worker’s hands were severed at the wrists when they got caught in the shear point as a hydraulic-powered baler lid lowered and met the corner of the baler. The lid had a maximum shear force of 76 tonnes. 

The worker was taken to a local hospital and later transferred to another hospital where surgeons successfully reattached both hands.  The injured worker, who has since returned home in a foreign country, will need further treatment but will never regain full use of his hands. 

 The incident, along with a second incident involving lead contamination, was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which the recycling firm for safety failings. HSE served an immediate enforcement notice on the company after the incident stopping any more hand-feeding of the metal for shearing on the baler by the workforce. 

The court heard that the injured worker and a co-worker operated the baler between them to cut the strips on the shear point, but the system used was fundamentally flawed despite it being regularly used. Crucially, there was no direct line of sight between the operator who closed the baler lid and the hands of the worker loading the metal strips.  

HSE said it had been a routine task at the recycling plant and, although the injured worker  had been shown what to do by practical demonstration and supervision, he had not seen or read the operating manual which says that baling machines should only be operated by one employee. 

HSE found recycling firm was unable to produce evidence it had carried out a proper assessment of the risks involved in the use of the baler for cutting metal strips.   

The court heard that a month later there was a second incident at the company involving a different hazard.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog prays that the injured worker whose hands were severed is given the necessary physical and mental rehabilitation to continue on with his life. The physical scars that the worker suffered may last for the rest of his life. It is our hope that the mental scars that he suffered through this dramatic experience lessen overtime. We also wish that the physical and mental injuries that the second worker suffered heal over time too.

This incident is another example of a false safety belief. Where a worker(s) performs a task repeatedly and assumes that because no incident occurs that they are performing the procedure correctly. The APSB editors were saddened to read in the news media article that the machinery operating instructions stated that this machine was operated by one person. It is unknown how long the recycling company was operating this machine with two workers, versus the one worker as per the equipment manufactures instructions. The recycling firm’s workers were operating under a false safety belief that they were safe. It was only when the incident occurred and subsequent investigation did they realize that they were unsafe all along.

Does your plant have older equipment?

When was the last time that your plant reviewed the operating manual of its older equipment?

The APSB hopes that all plants will begin a process of reviewing the operating instructions of older machinery on a regular basis and compare them to the current operating practices.

Please comment.