"A hydraulic line severed, causing the bucket to come down on man."

On our travels around the globe we talk to management about the importance of training workers on how to operate machinery and/or moveable equipment using the machinery or equipment manual. To many readers the previous sentence makes perfect sense. But there are many plants in our industry who ask the current operator/driver to train the new worker without using the manual as the primary tool. When an aluminium plant fails to use the equipment/machinery manual as the primary tool for training workers are less safe. Why? Because current operator either unknowingly or on purpose teach the new workers the short cuts. Short cuts kill and injure too many in our industry on an annual basis. Here is a recent incident where a worker took a shortcut and it cost him his life.

A 27-year-old man was killed this morning during an accident at a scrap metal yard in the USA.

At approximately 9:20 a.m., officers responded to a report that a man had been pinned under a bucket loader. Upon arrival, members of the local police and fire departments located the man under the bucket of the loader unresponsive.

He was subsequently pronounced deceased at the scene. Through the investigation it was determined that the victim, an employee at the scrap yard, was attempting to dislodge a piece of metal that became lodged between the bucket and the tire. Upon doing so, a hydraulic line became severed causing the bucket to come down on him. The victim’s name will not be released pending notifications.

We pray for the deceased worker’s family, friends, and coworkers. We weep for the fallen worker. We pray that by bringing awareness to this and every incident we post that we can prevent recurrence. That is our sincere hope.

We apologize if the tone of this post is harsh. But, if the harness of this tone will make the reader remember the importance of never skipping steps or be the reason for the safety initiative then we can accept this harshness.

So what happened in this incident? A worker was driving a front end loader and some scrap got stuck under the bucket. When the worker was pulling out the scrap a hydraulic line was severed resulting in the bucket coming down upon the worker. We do not believe this was not the first time scrap got stuck under the bucket. Possibly in the past the operator was trained to either lower the bucket on the ground. Or place the bucket on top of something that cannot depress. Those two methods would have prevented this incident. If the operator was trained to do that. We can only wonder why the operator did not place the bucket on the ground or rest it on top of something that could not move.

Front end loaders are very common in our industry. For companies who feed their furnaces with scrap this incident could be reproduced in their plant. For those who have front end loaders in your plants. What are your operators supposed to do when they get scrapped stuck under the bucket?

Please comment.