"worker had his foot burned in the liquid aluminum....."

 

Proper footwear is an ongoing issue in many workplaces around the globe. Our opinion is if a workplace handles molten metal then all employees should be required to wear the proper boots. Here is a recent incident that may have been prevented with the proper footwear.

Another serious accident occurred at the (remelt) factory, in (a town in South America), last Wednesday, the 19th. A worker had his foot burned in the liquid aluminum. His skin came off along with the sock. Several irregular situations have been denounced by the Metalworkers Union.

The accident occurred around 7 am one morning during the month of January 2022, in the production sector of Plant 1 of the factory, during an activity that is routine, but extremely dangerous.

According to the Union, the accident occurred in one of the stages of the oven process called Dross Well. It is a long tank that is always filled with liquid aluminum where scraps are placed to melt. The scrap generates a strut on the wall of this tank that needs to be removed. A platform is placed an inch above the liquid aluminum. The baker climbs on top of this platform, which has several holes to place the hammer and break the wall anchor.

As it is very close to aluminum, this platform boils. The oven worker cannot stand still if the boot does not melt. And he still has to balance the long and very heavy hammer to do this activity, on a crooked, rusty platform, which is the same one used for many years.

It is very common for (workers) to screw their feet into these holes, because of the difficulty. This Wednesday, at the end of the shift, another employee got his foot stuck in these holes, but he ended up falling with his foot in the liquid aluminum.

The factory doesn't have a brigade, it doesn't have an ambulance, and it doesn't even have a car available to take the employee to the hospital. An employee had to leave the factory, go to (company name omitted), which is a third party that does the logistics, borrow a car to take the employee to the hospital. This morning he was transferred to the burn hospital 60 kilometers away.

We pray that the injured worker recovers fully from his injuries. This incident could have been prevented in countless ways. A simple risk assessment of the task would have flagged it as dangerous. When that occurs either training modifications or engineering controls would have been required. The other omission that this plant had was the lack of proper footwear.

The editors of the Aluminium Plant Safety Blog have visited this remelt facility once. We had a quick tour as we had spent most of our time at the nearby aluminium plant that sends their dross to this remelt facility. As with every incident we report on. When we visit a facility, we remember these incidents and ask ourselves can one of the incidents we have reported on occur at this workplace. Our goal on our plant visits is to hopefully make observations based on past incidents that will make that workplace safer.

That is our goal. On our next tour of South America we will request to visit this remelt facility and see if the task that injured the worker has been modified. We pray it has.