"Employee dies in explosion...."

This blog was started at the request of several aluminium veterans over a decade ago. We initially thought editing the blog would be easy. We were so…very wrong. Every incident that involves and fatality or serious injury resonates within the editors of the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog. Though we do not know the workers who are killed or seriously injured. We nevertheless have empathy for the workers’ families, friends and coworkers. That empathy results in us weeping for the lost and praying that the incident will be used to prevent a future incident. If that can happen then maybe just maybe this blog has been worth it. Here is a recent incident. We will comment at then of the story.

 

Man had more than 90% of his body burned and was intubated in the ICU of a private hospital (30 km away from the smelter), but he couldn’t resist and died (the following day).

 

The 40-year-old employee who was hit by an explosion at a smelter in the Southern Hemisphere, died one morning during the week of February 20^th, 2022. The accident took place around 1 pm.

 

The worker had more than 90% of his body burned and was intubated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a private hospital 30 kilometers away from the smelter. However, he could not resist and died on Thursday. The company said he had worked there for 19 years.

According to the president of the metalworkers' union the explosion occurred in a furnace and parts were thrown about 50 meters away. Images sent to (a local tv news) show what the factory room looked like after the explosion .

The employee, who was working on a bridge, was also hit by liquids. Also according to the union president, the service he was performing at the time of the accident was not commonplace.

According to former employees, inside the room where the explosion took place, the temperature is between 60°C and 80°C, but the ovens work at 900°C to cook the alumina. Each room has 120 ovens, and the accident was recorded in room seven.

The incident was not registered at the (local city, and provincial) police stations. The union asks the factory to create a commission to verify what happened and make a report, in addition to an expertise in the oven.

 

In a statement, the aluminium company said that the causes of the accident are being investigated.

We offer our sincere condolences to the deceased worker’s family, friends, and coworkers. We pray that the worker’s wife and child were able to see their injured husband and father prior to his passing in the hospital. We have reported on hundreds of fatalities over the past decade. We pray that our knowledge of these past incidents can be used to prevent future incidents. Sadly, this incident hits close to home. We had scheduled a visit to this smelter two weeks ago but it was postponed by a Covid outbreak. Though this incident occurred before our scheduled visit. We would have offered our sincere condolences to the company in person. We would have requested aa meeting with the deceased worker’s coworkers. As we done many times before we would have talk about the incident and about their coworker. We would have elicited stories about their lost coworker. The deceased worker had been employed at the smelter for nearly 20 years. His coworkers were his friends. We would have ended the conversation with the dead workers friends but offering a challenge. This challenge has been delivered by us too many times. But with all sincerity we say. If you want to honor (insert the name of the deceased) you can that by one simply action. By living. By not dying in this workplace. By not dying within these smelter gates. Your life nor anyone’s life should end here. If you can do that you will honor your fallen friend. We have challenged thousands of workers and we pray that they honor that challenge.

To review this incident the news article which was provided with information by the workers and not by the smelter itself. States that the incident occurred in a potline. It stated that “the service he was performing at the time of the accident was not commonplace.” We would respectfully disagree if we were at this smelter. Why? Because even though the task might have not been common. It was a task nevertheless that the worker should have been trained for. A hazard assessment should have been performed on that task as well as every task in the potroom. We assume that the worker was burned electrically and then something fell into the pot to generate the molten metal explosion. Or the molten metal explosion was the result of an electrical current that forced the molten metal to explode. We will ask our contacts for further information and post it when it comes forth.

Again, we challenge the readers, and reader who has a potline to print this post and allow potline management to review it. Why? Because this can be a valuable training tool. By simply reviewing the post and photos a company can challenge their management and supervisors on how to prevent a similar incident. We acknowledge this posts lacks clarity in root cause investigation findings. Regardless, this post has enough information for a potline to ask. How could this happen here? When companies ask that simple question they begin the process of becoming safer.

Please comment.