"pinned him between the crane hook and dip tank load bars...."

This is a follow-up to an earlier post of a fatal incident. Here is the story:

A Midwest USA aluminum extrusion company faces over a €165,000 fine following an investigation into the death of a chemical technician in the summer of 2016.

The worker was killed after a crane accident at the aluminium extrusion company.

Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators found company officials failed to adequately guard machines to prevent workers from coming in contact with operating parts, did not protect workers walking on working surfaces or provide adequate personal protective equipment and did not sufficiently train workers about hazardous chemicals in use at the facility, a release said. OSHA investigators issued the company ten safety violations on in early December 2016, a release said. The company president, said in a statement the company is working with outside parties to correct officials' safety concerns.

"More than 90 percent of the fines were unrelated to the accident and allege infractions such as a missing railing and missing labels on a few containers among hundreds of properly labeled ones," the company president said. "We take these alleged infractions seriously, but think the citations and penalties were overstated on these items."

OSHA officials say an automated crane pinned the worker between the crane hook and industrial equipment as it moved product to different tanks on an anodizing line, a news release said.

“A man died tragically, leaving his family, friends and co-workers to suffer an overwhelming loss,” said the OSHA area director. “(Company) must improve its safety and health programs and procedures to protect workers at all its facilities.”

It's unclear why the deceased worker was in the location on the machine at the time of the accident, the company president said.

The company has 15 days from when it received the citations to comply with the fine, request an informal meeting with the OSHA area director or contest the findings before an independent commission.

The company president said he is "confident" the citations will be resolved quickly. "(The company) cares greatly about its employees," the company president said. "Year after year, we continuously improve and invest heavily in the safety of our workplace, recognizing that we have a responsibility to our employees and community."

We offer our sincere condolences to the worker’s family, friends, and coworkers. We pray that they will remember their loved one, friend, co-worker as he had lived and not as he died. We hope that the aluminum extrusion company had offered counseling to the coworkers and specifically to the workers who first came upon this horrific incident.

The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog omits the company name and location when an incident involves an injury or fatality. We do that for a myriad of reasons including not placing blame on the company. It is our sincere hope that by bringing awareness to these incidents that companies can use these posts are learning tools, tool box talk topics, etc.

We acknowledge that the tone of our comments on our posts can be interpreted in many ways. So we try (and occasionally fail) to remain neutral or to not place blame on the company nor the worker. With that said we are a little bewildered on the quotes listed above from both OSHA and the aluminium extrusion company. First, we have noticed a troubling progression over the past few years of the harsh or aggressive tone of OSHA statements after an incident. I acknowledge the seriousness of every fatality, but do the statements from OSHA have to be some damning/convicting to the company and the workers? We don’t know. Maybe in response to the OSHA quote above the company president provided a quote that left us shaking our head.

The editors of the APSB on occasion speak to company executives on various topics. One presentation is titled on “How to Respond After an Incident”. We provide examples of real incidents showing what to say and what not to say. By reviewing these incidents company executives realize quickly the importance that a public statement can have upon their company and their workers. Whether or not the incident involves an injury or fatality. The quote released by the company should be simple and to the point. We acknowledge what had happened, we pray for the worker’s physical recovery or sadden by the loss of the worker. Anything else may reflect poorly upon the company. It’s true that the best of intentions can have the opposite result. All too often we read a company’s statement after an incident or fine and question why it was put out. Our industry should acknowledge that a defense of a company through public statements is a losing battle. All too often those “defensive” quotes are used by the news media to prolong the story.

Please comment.