Worker ‘was immediately incinerated’ after falling into molten iron, feds say

[Street Glider]

She's a female.

Great, some entitled little bitch with a chip on her shoulder...

 

[Mott the Hoople]

I hope his family sues too, there were no guardrails or restraint systems to protect workers from falling. A horrible way to die too?!!

When this happen in the old steel foundry's, they would pour out the molten metal, as in not use it.

[FONT=&]A 39-year-old employee on their ninth day of work at a Caterpillar foundry in Illinois fell into a melting pot of iron “and was immediately incinerated,” authorities said.
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[FONT=&]The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigated the June 2 fatality and found that the worker’s death could have been prevented, according to a Nov. 9 news release.
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[FONT=&]The melting specialist was removing an iron sample from a furnace when they fell into the pot of iron heated to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, authorities said. The worker was employed at Caterpillar’s Mapleton foundry.
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[FONT=&]“A worker’s life could have been spared if Caterpillar had made sure required safety protections were in place, a fact that only adds to this tragedy,” OSHA Regional Administrator Bill Donovan said in the release.

“Producing more than 150,000 tons each year, Caterpillar’s foundry is one of the nation’s largest and they should be acutely aware of industry regulations to protect workers using smelters and other dangerous equipment.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=&]Authorities said Caterpillar did not install the federally required guardrails or restraint systems to protect workers from falling.

“If required safety guards or fall protection had been installed, the 39-year-old employee’s ninth day on the job might not have been their last,” officials said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worker-immediately-incinerated-falling-molten-175548041.html
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​

Immediately incinerated wouldn’t be the correct term. It’s more like immediately vaporized.

 

[MAGA MAN]

Cool!

 

[Mott the Hoople]

And how was it that this facility had not been inspected prior to now ? OSHA does do periodic inspections.

The only real answer is that required restraints were removed. That will cost Caterpillar dearly.

RIP worker.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the workers themselves that removed them. I’ve seen them do stupid shit like that because the safety controls are “inconvenient”. Not that it’s an excuse fir management. I bet every white collar worker in that chain of command responsible for safety in that department has lost their job and probably a few who weren’t.

The fact that it was a willful violation not only means 7 figure fines it means they will lose more than that in the civil wrongful death suit the deceased family has probably already filed.

At least it was a quick death for the poor guy. Poof! Vaporized.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

What would've been the benefit to removing them?

It's not like Caterpillar is some fly-by-night operation. I have a really difficult time believing they'd remove things like that...

Often employees remove them because they make your work more difficult in what is already a very difficult job or because they cause serious discomfort. It’s up to management to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I was the HSE manager (among other duties) at a company that was operating essentially a glass kiln with operating temps above 2,000 deg F. I had a fairly lengthy list of safety violations that would get you fired or suspended.

For example if a caught an employee working in operations without their safety glasses, hard hat or the prescribed safety shoes I would fire them. To be fair they had documented training on safety and new that was the consequences. I did it in a pretty cold manner to. I wouldn’t say anything to them when I witnessed the violation. I would instruct their supervisor to tell them to put their hard hat on. Then I would call plant security. When security arrived we would approach the employee I would tell them their employment was terminated and then asked security to escort them off the site. Which they did.

Now we weren’t completely heartless about a hard hat violation. We would discuss the employees violation in context to their work and our culture. If we agreed it was a one off incident we would inform them they were suspended without pay for two weeks and they would need to take a 40 safety training seminar at the local junior college at their cost. Quite a few who did that were deemed high risk of screwing up again we just let them go. That’s how serious we were about safety.

For serious safety offenses like hot works permit, lockout/tagout, permitted confined space entry, height work violations were immediate terminations. No second chance. Fortunately we had great buy in on safety from our workers and these incidents didn’t happen often. I only had to send guys home a half a dozen times for PPE violation and just fired three. One for lockout tagout. Fired our best maintenance man for removing the manway from a caustic soda tank and going inside the tank to replace an impeller blade shaft that broke. I also fired a kid who decided to tack weld some piece of equipment wearing acetylene torch goggles. Scared the hell out of me. The kid had arc blinded himself. Fortunately he recovered but you never know. It took about a whole day before his vision came back. I was sweating tears…he was sweating bullets.

So this incident had to be a systemic issue as most safety managers in a steel foundry will be inspecting regularly and would have flipped out over these kinds of safety violations. It’s hard for me to get my head around it.

 

[Celticguy]

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the workers themselves that removed them. I’ve seen them do stupid shit like that because the safety controls are “inconvenient”. Not that it’s an excuse fir management. I bet every white collar worker in that chain of command responsible for safety in that department has lost their job and probably a few who weren’t.

The fact that it was a willful violation not only means 7 figure fines it means they will lose more than that in the civil wrongful death suit the deceased family has probably already filed.

At least it was a quick death for the poor guy. Poof! Vaporized.

Yes, going to be very costly. Last thing Caterpillar needs but they let it happen.

 

[Walt]

OSHA does do periodic inspections.

That must be a new definition of periodic, and inspection that I was unaware of. Using my definition, OSHA does very few inspections, about 25,000.

https://www.osha.gov/enforcement/2021-enforcement-summary

You can expect an OSHA inspection about once every thousand years. A location like a metal foundry could expect it ten times more often... That is not periodic.

The reality is they do self enforcement. Seriously Celticguy, have you ever had a job? Do you really think OSHA inspector are coming by weekly at any job?

 

[Matt Dillon]

Dubya Bush eviscerated OSHA, and it's never been properly restored.

FMLA, also. for that matter.

Republicans loathe regulation, but an adequately regulated private sector is an absolute imperative in a civilized nation.
One hopes that we become one eventually, but there are no encouraging signs.

OSHA sucks balls anyways, but I, like Street Glider, can't see any benefit for CAT to not make sure their producers are reasonably safe.

 

[Matt Dillon]

Often employees remove them because they make your work more difficult in what is already a very difficult job or because they cause serious discomfort. It’s up to management to make sure that doesn’t happen.

I was the HSE manager (among other duties) at a company that was operating essentially a glass kiln with operating temps above 2,000 deg F. I had a fairly lengthy list of safety violations that would get you fired or suspended.

For example if a caught an employee working in operations without their safety glasses, hard hat or the prescribed safety shoes I would fire them. To be fair they had documented training on safety and new that was the consequences. I did it in a pretty cold manner to. I wouldn’t say anything to them when I witnessed the violation. I would instruct their supervisor to tell them to put their hard hat on. Then I would call plant security. When security arrived we would approach the employee I would tell them their employment was terminated and then asked security to escort them off the site. Which they did.

Now we weren’t completely heartless about a hard hat violation. We would discuss the employees violation in context to their work and our culture. If we agreed it was a one off incident we would inform them they were suspended without pay for two weeks and they would need to take a 40 safety training seminar at the local junior college at their cost. Quite a few who did that were deemed high risk of screwing up again we just let them go. That’s how serious we were about safety.

For serious safety offenses like hot works permit, lockout/tagout, permitted confined space entry, height work violations were immediate terminations. No second chance. Fortunately we had great buy in on safety from our workers and these incidents didn’t happen often. I only had to send guys home a half a dozen times for PPE violation and just fired three. One for lockout tagout. Fired our best maintenance man for removing the manway from a caustic soda tank and going inside the tank to replace an impeller blade shaft that broke. I also fired a kid who decided to tack weld some piece of equipment wearing acetylene torch goggles. Scared the hell out of me. The kid had arc blinded himself. Fortunately he recovered but you never know. It took about a whole day before his vision came back. I was sweating tears…he was sweating bullets.

So this incident had to be a systemic issue as most safety managers in a steel foundry will be inspecting regularly and would have flipped out over these kinds of safety violations. It’s hard for me to get my head around it.

You sound like a real prick.

Our "Safety Meetings" involved joints.

I mean, you could not wear steel toes on the job, but it's not a good idea, and it's your toes. If something falls on 'em, it's gonna hurt.

Also, we always had real welding masks.

 

[Celticguy]

That must be a new definition of periodic, and inspection that I was unaware of. Using my definition, OSHA does very few inspections, about 25,000.

https://www.osha.gov/enforcement/2021-enforcement-summary

You can expect an OSHA inspection about once every thousand years. A location like a metal foundry could expect it ten times more often... That is not periodic.

The reality is they do self enforcement. Seriously Celticguy, have you ever had a job? Do you really think OSHA inspector are coming by weekly at any job?

Worked at a plastics plant. We got inspected.

 

[Walt]

Worked at a plastics plant. We got inspected.

Are you sure it was OSHA? Seriously, there are so few OSHA inspections they are virtually like Big Foot sightings.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

You sound like a real prick.

Our "Safety Meetings" involved joints.

I mean, you could not wear steel toes on the job, but it's not a good idea, and it's your toes. If something falls on 'em, it's gonna hurt.

Also, we always had real welding masks.

I was and I had no choice or I would have been fired. When I was working at that steel mill I personally witnessed 3 workers getting killed. It would have been four had not one of my coworkers thought on his feet and saved a man’s life when everyone else, including me, froze.