" is in critical condition after falling into a casting pit...."

Many aluminium plants have open pits around a variety of equipment and machinery. These pits pose a daily hazard that our industry has acknowledge as a concern. Here is a recent incident emphasizing the need for safety education, and engineering controls around open pits:

An employee from the aluminium plant is in critical condition after falling into a casting pit early one morning during August 2018, according to local fire (department).

The following day, a spokesperson from the aluminium company said in an official statement:

“Our thoughts are with our colleague and his family, and we offer them our support during this difficult time. We are working with the appropriate authorities to investigate the incident.”

The l battalion chief confirmed a man fell about 40 feet into the pit a little before 1 a.m. The employee's identity was not released. The batallion chief said he believed the pit was empty, but could not say for sure. He said the victim's injuries were from the fall.

We pray for the injured worker on this incident. There was one news media article on this incident and no follow-up articles. So, we just pray that the worker survived. There have been numerous incidents involving both injuries and fatalities when workers fell into a casting pit.

There are a myriad of reasons why workers fall into pits including but not limited to not following their training, skipping steps, and/or they made an assumption. Also, workers overtime become complacent when they work around an open pit. There have been incidents where workers just forgot where they were at and walked backwards and fell into a pit. That is why we tell workers never, ever walk backwards.

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