"he suffered a shock as he was on an overhead crane...."

Here is a recent fatal incident involving a failure in the lock out tag out or safe isolation safety procedure.

An investigation has been launched after a man reportedly died in a worksite accident in the Middle East. The mechanic with a leading aluminium company, was working on an overhead crane when he was electrocuted, despite his collegue having switched off the power.

The 38 year old employee could not be revived following the accident at the company’s premises one night during the week of July 29, 2018 at around 11 pm.

According to a senior labour official, lack of supervision and failure in administrative monitoring possibaly led to the worker’s death.

“The labour inspectors could get an access to the site only today as the police ad restricted access to the site (the day before)” the Labour and Social Development Ministry Occupational Safety held told the

local newspaper.

“We were there on the day of the incident around 11pm, and we could see that the person counld not be revived with a CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and he died on the site.”

“Initial observations show that he suffered a shock as he was on an overhead crane despite his Filipino colleague ow was down having switched off the power. This is possible as there is a chance of the presence of static electricity which along with the person sweating in the heat, we believe led to the electrical shock.”

The head of the Labour and Social Development Ministry Occupational Safety (SDMOS) added the report of the “fatal worksite accident” will be referred to the Public Prosecution.

“This is definitely a fatal worksite accident which will be escalated to the Public Prosecution, after a report is prepared by labour inspectors investigating the death,” said the head of SDMOS.

“At such worksites, there should always be a written procedure on the operation, which is a primary requirement.”

“Then there should be an overseer who supervises this, which is an administrative requirement. In this case, what will be recorded will on the application of these two requirements. Based on the findings, supervisors to managers, what are responsible, could face prosecution.”

An aluminium company representative confirmed the incident to the local newspaper. “The incident happened between 10 pm and 11 pm at (the aluminium company) and an investigation is underway,” she said.

“We are waiting for a report from the labour officials based on which the company will issue an official report on the death of the employee. (Aluminium company) management and the trade union are involved in the procedures and we extend our condolences to the family of the deceased.”

We offer our sincere prayers to the deceased worker’s family, friends, and coworkers. Though we never met the deceased worker, we still feel profound sadness. We have toured this aluminium company, as we have toured 100’s of others.

We can make a number of assumptions or educated guesses. Or we can await the government report on why this happened. We will wait for the government report.

In the meantime, the importance of following the steps and then confirming that the hazard was properly isolated or locked out cannot be understated. We discount or minimize the comments regarding static electricity contributing to this incident. There are numerous readers who know exponentially more than we do regarding this hazard.

The Aluminium Times magazine covered this hazard. It can be downloaded here:

Please comment. Especially if you are familiar with electrical shocks.