In 3 years, incidents included one hand crushed, 4 amputations...

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog acknowledges the line we balance on every post regarding not placing blame on the worker nor the company. Sometimes the news report that we post may seem skewed by the original author to blame either the worker(s) or the company. Regardless, our point in posting these stories is for you as a reader to use these stories in toolbox talks or to reinforce points that your plant is putting forth. If the incident involves an injury or fatality we omit the company name and location. On our plant visits we occasionally speak to workers on safety related topics. With input from the pertinent department manager we speak about the importance of following your training, never skipping steps, never making assumptions, and no regrets. To emphasize these points we typically show television news segments of specific incidents. We are always quick to say that it does not matter (in our opinion) where the incident occurred. To us what matters is for the worker to understand the importance of following their training. With that said here is a recent story that your plant could use as an educational tool.

For the fifth time since 2013, federal investigators have been called to an aluminum foundry in the Midwest USA to investigate the serious injury of a worker.

In the latest incident, a mold-tilting machine used to produce aluminum parts crushed a worker's left hand between the center core and bottom plate at the company’s facility. He now has limited use of the hand and has been unable to return to work since the March 2016, injury. In 2013 and 2015, four workers suffered amputations, in separate incidents, as a result of machine safety violations at the company facilities three facilities.

Earlier this month the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the company for two repeated, and two serious violations of machine safety standards, as a result of the worker's injury. OSHA has proposed penalties over € 194,000.

"The aluminum company has written an unfortunate legacy of failing to protect its workers from machine hazards," said the area director of OSHA's office. "All too often, OSHA finds employers are complacent with machine safety features. Each year hundreds of workers suffer crushing injuries and amputations. The company needs to immediately address its legacy of worker injuries and make immediate improvements to its procedures, training and monitoring of machine safety procedures to ensure they are effective."

An investigation into the March incident by federal inspectors found the aluminum company allowed workers to service the mold table without powering it down or locking out machine parts to prevent workers from coming in contact with gravitational energy from moving machine parts.

OSHA's inspection found the company routinely failed to follow proper procedures to fully power down equipment to prevent sudden movement or starts from gravitational, hydraulic and electrical energy sources. The injured worker was training a co-worker on procedures when the injury occurred.

The company was cited for machine safety violations following injuries at one its facility in April 2015 and at another facility in March 2015. Those violations remain under contest.

Injuries were also reported at a third facility in September 2013 and another facility in August 2013. The company has settled those violations with OSHA.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog prays that every injured worker in each incident listed above recover both physically and mentally. We hope that each worker is given the necessary support from the aluminum company to rehab from the injury. If the workers cannot return to the same position they had before we hope the company will be able to assign them to a position where their salary is not decreased.

We strongly recommend that the proper lockout tagout (safe isolation) be performed every time. After every step is followed we recommend a final precaution of inserting a customize fabrication to prevent the machinery from moving. We acknowledge that the naysayers will argue that is unnecessary if safe isolation was properly performed. We counter that if safe isolation was not properly performed and there is no customized fabrication to prevent the machinery from moving the worker(s) is dead. We have posted incident after incident where the quote “the worker assumed all energy sources were turned off”. We acknowledge that using a customized fabrication piece may allow the worker to skip steps in the safe isolation protocol. But, only through proper plant education and plant enforcement can it be confirmed that a worker is following the proper procedures.

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