You know it's going to be a bad shift when.............

........one of the first things you end up having to do is help remove one of your co-workers thumbs from his glove. Unfortunately the glove is at the machine and he is in the medical room waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

Holy hell........just getting ready to go on break now. Things are calmed down here now that the paramedics and police have left. One of the guys here was clearing a jam on a machine and had a guard open which is common. This time it went wrong. The fellow lost his left thumb at the first knuckle. It was crushed and torn right off. Does not look like reattachment is possible. The girl he was working with went home.....too upset to work. After paramedics arrived I went looking for the glove and thumb but it was in too bad shape. Oh well I guess the night can only get better. I hope.

Going for break. I need one. Hopefully Pat ends up OK.

Nick23 said:

Where do you work? When I worked at a grocery store we had the same stuff happen in the meat department. Butchers lost arms, hands and fingers. Only got worse when the butchers had the young bagging clerks clean their machines.

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If those bagging clerks were nkt trained on the machines and had machine locks they NEVER should have been touching them. Pat made an error in judgement I guess. He did the same thing a thousand times before as did others however this time it went wrong.

I work in a manufacturing facility and the line he was working was producing egg cartons. It was an auto-stacker that ran continuously flipping and stacking cartons. It started to make a mess I guess and the cage guard was slid out to access the stacker. Not sure why he did not use the hook but perhaps like everything else it was not there when you need it. Then again sometimes you can't get everything with a hook and you need to use your hands. Not sure if he was tired or got the end of his glove snagged or what. I am sure the shit will fly. We have a vwry strict policy on lock out tag out. Well as long as it benefits the company that is. Sometimes you get the feeling that the company thinks not taking the time to shut down and lock out is better as long as notning happens but if it does happen YOU are to blame. I say F it and always lock out the 480 volt heater supply as well as the machind drive. They can't fault me for following labour code regulations regardless how long it takes.

From what I hear from others including my cousin that lives in Maryland labour laws seem much stricter here than there including harassment over being out sick legitimately after surgery as she was. It would seem that even in non-union places we have more protection and rights than you guys. Again it at least seems that way.

359 said:

Was there an interlock on that guard?

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No. Not possible to do. It would have to stop the individual machine, one of three in parallel, several conveyor belt systems including one running over a hundred feet thru a HUGE dryer, and the rotating molding machine at the other end of the plant. At the rate they jam up due to imperfect cartons there would never be any production made if that were to happen and you cannot simply just stop the molding machine at the flip of a switch. there are vacuum air lines and blow off air lines to be closed as well. I suppose you could dump the line, which is actually done at certain points. It's one of those things that should not have happened if everything was followed according to policy.

I'm still not fully aware of exactly WHAT happened but I certainly can see how it COULD happen if one was to be the slightest bit distracted or something.

The cage guard was there to prevent easy and instant access. There is a hook to remove debris. The machine can be dumped and stopped if absolutely necessary. All we really know at the moment was the guard was slid out to allow access and the machine was not shut down. Sadly it looks like the fault was with the operator and policy was not followed. It does not matter how much attention is put into guards, lockouts etc if they are not utilized.

359 said:

Expect a lawsuit and a future interlock on that "guard" that was "slid" out of the way.

A guard that gets moved out of the way in lieu of safety in the name of production is not much of a guard and is a production engineering problem.

I think North America is above production over life/limb.

But I digress, as I certainly don't know the particulars.

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This is why I should have never posted anything. People have NO idea WHATSOEVER of the particulars. People have to take responsibility for their own actions in some cases and defeating safety mechanisms is one such case. Believe it or not there are some cases where you cannot instantly stop the process by having an interlock in place. In this case the operator clearly removed a guard, failed to use proper equipment, and placed himself in harm's way. There will be no lawsuit unless it is a case of the dept of Labour charging HIM for unsafe practices nor will there be an interlock installed. That I can guarantee. You can't see the operation nor do you understand the process flow on that line. It is easy to say that this should be interlocked and that should happen when you do not understand how the system runs and what is involved in stopping the machine. Bottom line is the operator was in error of not following proper procedure.

555 said:

Here Comes OSHA

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m42duster said:

Not in Canada.

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Simply referred to as Labour Canada up here.

BTW looking at the worker's Facebook site this morning I see that he is likely to be charged by Labour Canada for unsafe actions resulting in personal injury. Bottom line is that there were safety precautions in place and a policy to follow. Apparently he violated both of these and has to answer for it. Interlocks and lockouts are only as good as the person using them. I can't believe the number of times I see millwrights or electricians not lock out the 480 volt 1200 amp, yeah that's 1200 amp, supply for the heated dies on some machines we have.They do so out of shear laziness I think. Either that or just plain apathy. I always lock it out and the machine drive as well. My life is worth an extra 30 seconds.