So for the homework task for last week's OH&S class we were instructed to find an issue and report it here on the blog, and well I've found two that are of particular interest. The first being an accident that occurred at the McCain food factory at Ballarat, and the second being a construction site accident that ended up with a man having six bolts enter his skull. These tales of woe and misfortune are as follows.
McCain Incident
MCCAIN Foods is facing a hefty fine after a maintenance fitter lost his thumb in a machine three years ago.
The County Court at Ballarat was yesterday told that the Ballarat food manufacturing company failed to provide training to the victim, whose right hand thumb was amputated after the workplace accident on February 21, 2007.
Crown prosecutor Justin Lewis said the victim and an electrician attended a broken down potato washing machine at 4am to repair it.
He said the victim put his hand in the machine and it suddenly started operating due to an electrical overload, causing his hand to get caught in a chain and sprocket.
"The accused production supervisor thought he had been trained in the lock-out procedure but he was not,'' Mr Lewis said.
The court was told that the same machine, which was old and regularly required maintenance, had a mechanical problem earlier that day and its side guards were replaced.
"There were some isolation procedures (in place). The machine was tagged and isolated earlier in the day. The difficulty was that while this procedure was undertaken earlier in the day, (the victim) had not received any training for it," Mr Lewis said.
McCain Foods pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to provide and maintain a safe working environment.
The prosecution said the maximum penalty for the offence was $966,870, but submitted that a fine ranging between $70,000 and $90,000 on each charge would be appropriate.
Mr Lewis said the company had prior convictions, which the prosecution regarded as serious.
Defence barrister Robert Taylor argued that the fines should be on an aggregate basis and at the lower end of the scale.
He said McCain Foods had made safety improvements to the machine since the incident and there were substantial training commitments at the company, with $5.9 million spent on health and safety over the past three years.
He said a supervision system was put in place in 2006 and, since 2007, the company closed one day a year for a safety training program for its employees.
Mr Taylor said the victim received training before he returned to full-time work four months after the incident.
McCain Food's national financial director and resource manager, a production manager and occupational health and safety representative attended yesterday's plea hearing before Judge Duncan Allen.
Now this is clear cut as an OH&S issue report can be with findings going back to the root cause of the accident, lack of training and proper awareness procedures enforced which resulted in the loss of a workers thumb. The coverage of the next report is not so clean cut.
If only they had OH&S nailed down
A construction worker had six nails driven into his head in an accident with a high-powered nail gun, but doctors said Wednesday they expect him to make a full recovery.
Isidro Mejia made his first public appearance Wednesday since the April 19 accident that left him with nails embedded in his face, neck and skull. He told reporters in Spanish from his wheelchair that he does not remember much about the accident, but is grateful to be alive.
"He says that he's very happy to be alive," said Dr. Rafael Quinonez, a neurosurgeon who removed the nails at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center. "And he told me this morning that he thought he was going to die. He was happy when he opened his eyes, and he saw that he's still with us."
Mejia, 39, was building a home when he fell from the roof onto a co-worker who was using the nail gun on the second floor, Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Mark Newlands said.
The two men tried to grab each to keep from falling, but both tumbled to the ground. At some point, the nail gun discharged and drove the nails into Mejia's head.
"They're extremely powerful," Newlands said. "They've got to drive through three-quarter-inch (two centimeter) plywood."
Three nails penetrated Mejia's brain, and one entered his spine below the base of his skull. Doctors said the nails barely missed his brain stem and spinal cord, preventing paralysis or death.
"We did not have too much hope that he would survive, but we did it and he survived," Quinonez said.
Five nails were removed the same day and the sixth, in Mejia's face, was removed April 23 after swelling went down, the hospital said.
Doctors expect him to fully recover after undergoing rehabilitation therapy.
Authorities cleared the co-worker of any wrongdoing.
The underlying OH&S issues with this incident are a little harder to pin down to the direction the report took in which the co-worker firing the nail gun into the mans head is the primary focus of the news story, but before that this whole chain started because of one minor incident in comparison. The simple act of falling off the roof led to this series of unfortunate incidents which one has to ask what measures were put in place to prevent such an accident.
Well that's it for this *cough*last*cough* weeks OH&S report, there may be another one later in the week depending on how this week goes.
Stay safe, until next time folks
No comments:
Post a Comment