Saw a nasty industrial accident last night

[ledhedsymbols]

As some may recall, I recently started working for Boeing in Renton WA as a CNC repair technician. I've been assigned to wing riveters kind of like this one.

Broetje-Automation: WPAC

Sorry about the pic, best I could do.

We were out on the machine swapping out a tool for a test fixture to align a camera. I hadn't ever done it before, and was being trained. One of the techs had his hand gripping the tool waiting for the other to command the machine to release it. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the machine shuttled, swapping out the tool we were removing for another tool. It happened in the blink of an eye, it pulled the technician into the machine and damn near severed his hand!

If anyone who reads this works around automated equipment, take a minute and think about what you are doing and where you are putting your paws.
All in takes is a split second lapse in judgement or a mistake by you or someone else to change your life profoundly.

It sounds like they are able to pin his hand back together and sew him up, but it'll never be right again. He might be back on light duty in a couple of months...

Scary gruesome stuff!

[mreid]

Lock out/tag out procedures? This never should have happened. Expect your friends at OSHA to be very helpful.

[scottbombedout]

Terrible accident that should never have happened.

Where were the safe systems of work? Someone might get sacked for it.

[drew1]

Glad just one of you was hurt.

[ledhedsymbols]

In my opinion, the major breakdown is something I have been trying to address since I came on-board. There are almost no written procedures for this equipment. By not having a series of steps spelled out with appropriate safe work practices for this and other operations we are being asked to do things that we don't fully understand.

Another major issue in my opinion is the lack of safety circuit on the equipment itself. The other wing riveters are all from a different manufacturer. They have a dead man switch for the hydraulics on the maintenance platform. That also could have prevented the accident.

Another problem, related to the first, is that there are only a handful of people with knowledge of the equipment. In some cases, it appears to me that they are trying to keep it to themselves so that if and when layoffs come they will be indispensable. The unfortunate result is what happened last night.

One of the first things I asked is when I was going to school or being trained on the equipment. If one has never worked in this particular industry in this particular type of process, there is no way that you could have experience with these machines. I have never understood why we didn't spend the first couple of weeks going over exactly how the system works.

In the end, I just hope that some good comes out of it and gives us what we need to do the job safely. My co-worker was simply trying to do whatever he could think of to get the machine running again to build the airplanes. Their machines are going to be down an awful lot until they get some of us trained, because I'm for damn sure not putting my hands in anything I don't know to operate.

Additionally, the culture with the "old-timers" is that lock-out/Tag-out is a joke. I got into it my first week with one supervisor who told me he didn't want to deal with my LOTO paperwork. I told him if he tried it again, I would file a grievance. My reasoning at that time was simply that I wasn't going to fail to follow the proper procedure and put myself at administrative risk, but in reality that's the least of my worries!

[911SauCy]

^the good thing is Fed OSHA will be more than helpful in helping you achieve your goals, especially when you tell them what you've been trying to do and the resistance of the culture.

I sold safety/OSHA compliance equipment for almost 4 years, this was a HUGE NO NO.

Hopefully that guy gets a reasonable amount of functionality back.

[mreid]

Good for you, led! Automated machinery that can select different tools to perform different tasks or several steps in a process have a maintenance mode that allows you to access the collet or work head to install calibration and alignment tools. Unfortunately, when you don't have a culture of safety and a strong safety team, many techs will take short cuts. Afterall, it takes time and effort to tagout, walk back to the equipment, install the test device, walk to the tag, untag, walk back to the equipment, etc.

A very unfortunate accident where I hope the individual recovers, but totally avoidable.

[A930Rocket]

Sad story, as I run a Brotje machine that drills the 47 and 48 sections of the 787.

To my knowledge, there is no LOTO procedures while doing doing maintenance on the upper and lower tools. We control the machine ourselves when changing out tools, etc. with a remote or on the machine controls. The exception or closest thing to a LOTO is someone going into the barrel or diving board, when a sign is placed on the control room console and a numbered badge is used.

[74-911]

Speaking of industrial accidents: per an article in todays Houston paper a man working at some kind of recycling facility apparently reached into a shredder which caught his hand and pulled him into it. It was apparently quite a gruesome scene.

[Gretch]

knew a guy who went through a de-barking machine at a wood mill......... he went quick, at least.

[asphaltgambler]

I grew up on a farm and one of the earliest memories concerning safety came from an old farm hand there. He said "Dont ever put your hands where you would'nt put your d**k" - Very simple but effective speech was stuck in my head for life. I never get close to something dangerous w/o having that as my next thought. Prolly saved me from injuires more than I can count.

[RonDent]

"Dont ever put your hands where you would'nt put your d**k"

Good advice!

[sammyg2]

I worked with a guy who got caught in a conveyor belt and got his left arm and left leg ripped off.

He's "all right" now.

[andyt11]

Originally Posted by RonDent

"Dont ever put your hands where you would'nt put your d**k"

There are surely some exceptions to that rule