"(he was) kneeling....inside the shredder when it restarted..."

The importance of “never skipping steps” is always talked about when we meet with maintenance workers. To emphasize this point we talk about specific incidents that have been posted on the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog. We find that when worker's can read (e.g., slide), view (e.g., tv news video) and hear of a recent incident they can put themselves in the injured or deceased workers place it reinforces the safety message that their employer is putting forth. Here is a recent story that will be discussed on our future travels:

A United Kingdom recycling company has been fined after a worker was injured whilst repairing a shredder.

The Magistrates’ Court heard how, in Fall 2013, a plant mechanic employed by the recycling company in the process of repairing a shredding machine after the metal plate forming the roof of the hammer drum had become detached. The worker was kneeling on a conveyor belt inside the shredder when it restarted and he was thrown from the machine. He suffered a fractured right leg and left arm.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the company did not have adequate or suitable systems in place to protect the health and safety of their employees, including failing to enforce the ‘safe stop’ process which should be followed when using dangerous machinery. The company had allowed unchallenged poor practice to become the norm.

The recycling company was fined over £300,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

We pray that the worker has fully recovered from his physical injuries. We also hope the injured worker was offered mental health counseling to deal this traumatic incident. Hopefully the recycling company corrected their training and procedures to prevent an incident such as this from occurring again.

We explain to all workers who have to perform safe isolation or lock out tag out procedures that one skipped step may result in themselves being injured or killed. Or worse yet their mistake could result in the injury or death of a coworker. This realization that a worker’s action can kill someone else can be a sobering fact. But it's true. Sadly, we know of numerous incidents where a worker’s unintentional actions result in the injury or death of their coworker(s). Those unintentional actions occurred when a worker failed to follow their training, skipped steps, or made an assumption. That is why we always highlight the importance of following your training, never skip steps, and never make assumptions. Finally we show this animation in our presentations to emphasize the simple action of pushing the on/off button to confirm that the lockout procedures have eliminated the potential stored energy.

The simple action of pressing the on/off button could have prevented numerous injuries and fatalities involving lock out tag out.

The Aluminium Times Magazine had an article about this hazard:

For our Portuguese readers:

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