One mistake may either injure or kill you and/or your coworkers. |
When we have the opportunity to speak to workers we always talk
about the importance of following your training. A failure to follow your
training can and will result in something bad happening to you and/or your
coworkers. We acknowledge the previous statement is blunt, and to the point.
But, as we have seen over the years, it rings true. The following story will be
talked about in plant meetings throughout our industry. Not because of the
sadness of associated with a worker being killed. But, by the fact that is
again a maintenance worker who died.
The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog editors are invited to visit dozens
of plants and speak to the workers about safety. On our site visits we request
the opportunity to speak to the maintenance workers separately. Why? Because in
our opinion more maintenance workers are injured and killed in our industry on
a yearly basis than any other position in our plants. Maintenance workers on a
daily basis have the opportunity to encounter more hazards than regular shop
floor workers. On occasion a maintenance worker will forget his training, or
take a shortcut and be killed. We have found that the impact of our
presentations to the maintenance workers is impactful to the attendees. We pray
that we can reach at least one worker to realize that making one mistake,
taking a shortcut, forgetting their training will leave their household with
pain and sorrow.
According
to the local County Sheriff, the accident occurred one afternoon during the
week of January 31, 2016. Initial reports indicate that the worker was performing
maintenance work and troubleshooting an overhead crane around 1 p.m. when he
fell 10 meters into a pit below, suffering fatal injuries.
The
employee was pronounced dead at the scene by the local county coroner.
Three
fire departments asisted at the scene, along with an air ambulance.
An
investigator from the local office of the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) is at the automotive aluminium casting factory today and
may be there for several days.
"We
have up to six months to complete our investigation and release any citations
that are warranted," said spokesperson with OSHA. "Our condolences go
out to the family and friends of the deceased and the company and his
co-workers. This is a very tragic event and our condolences go out to those
folks.”
We offer our prayers to the deceased worker’s family, friends, and
coworkers. We pray that this incident will reinforce the importance of properly
wearing safety harnesses.
Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has useful
educational information about fall protection. It can be found here.
Youtube is another great resource to companies looking for short
safety videos that they can be shown to their workers. Here is one that we
quickly found.
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