"pronounced her dead there..." UPDATE

After an incident involving a fatality, we’ll reach out to the company on what had occurred. Why do we want to know? Prior to the pandemic the editors of this blog would visit many aluminium plants. On these plant visits we have the opportunity to speak to countless workers. Prior to the pandemic we were invited to speak to over ten thousand workers this year. No matter the safety topics we always use past incidents to emphasize the seriousness of a hazard. We never mention the company name nor location. Why? Because in our opinion only two parties care about the company name after an incident. The family members of the deceased and lawyers. All we care about is that we can use an incident, not be disrespectful to the worker(s) who died or injured to educate workers and hopefully prevent a recurrence.

We contemplated why we do this blog. When we break it down. We do this out of respect for the dead and injured. We do not want a fatal incident or serious injury incident to mean nothing. If a fatal incident only meant pain for the family, friends, and coworkers that would be a shame. That is why we have been invited to speak to workers after incidents. We are always respectful to the dead. What we tell the workers is if that want to honor their fallen coworker(s) they can. By simply following their training, never skip steps, and not making assumptions. Those three points in someway are associated with almost every incident we post on this blog. No doubt there are some incidents where the worker(s) were at the wrong place and the wrong time but it is a rarity in our opinion.

Here is a recent incident emphasizing the hazard of moveable equipment.

A woman was killed at work one day during the week of December 13, 2020 when a forklift struck her at an aluminium company in the USA.

The female employee was working at the smelter when she was hit, local coroner said.

The aluminium smelter said that emergency responders tried to treat the injured worker at the facility, but pronounced her dead there.

Update:

We found a transcript of the CEO of the Aluminium company discussing this incident: 

Before we get started, we are extraordinarily sad to report a fatality at (location omitted) that occurred in December. The incident happened outside the cast house in the loading area, those of you are familiar with these facilities can picture that where that location would be. The victim was a longtime employee and a cherished colleague and friend. She's sorely missed by her family, by her colleagues and by the entire community. This tragedy reinforces our commitment to take an unbiased look at absolutely everything we do and commit to improve where needed without condition. It requires dedication and leadership from every part of our organization and personal commitment from each and every individual. We all know, we must hold ourselves to the highest of standards and demonstrate our promise to keep ourselves and each other safe. Not just talk, but we need to demonstrate that each and every day.

We offer our sincere condolences to the deceased worker’s family, friends, and coworkers. We have typed that previous sentence countless times. With it and every incident we post a promise to use this tragedy to prevent a future one from occurring. That is all we can do.

With the update we do now know what department this fatality occurred in, the casthouse. That knowledge alone will allow us on our site visits to bring this incident up and highlight the hazard of moveable equipment and pedestrians.

The Light Metal Age magazine had an article on this hazard. It can be found here.

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