OHIO FOUNDRY WORKER KILLED IN STEEL PIT

AP News ^ | 9 June 2006

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

What a way to go. The other employee should be named as he is a hero and truly risked his life trying to save Hickman. I don't know if I could jump down in a pit about to be filled with molten steel to save someone -- makes my skin crawl just to think about it.

[Larry Lucido]

I worked as a rent-a-cop at a steel mill in downriver Detroit. Someone accurately described it as Dante's 7th circle of hell.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

I believe it. What a harrowing thought to have to "wait until the steel cools" to recover what's left of the guy. Yaaaaaah....

[Graybeard58]

I worked in a foundry for 5 years - it gets kinda warmish in there.

[DB]

Why can't they have an emergancy shutdown that would have stopped the system before it poured?

[Anti-Bubba182]

""wait until the steel cools" to recover what's left of the guy."

Nothing is left of that guy!

[edpc]

Was it this guy?

[kylaka]

When the steel cools, there won't be anything left of the guy. He's vapor now.

I find it interesting that there are scores and scores of industrial accidents being reported in the press, coal mines etc., when usually there are none reported. They just aren't newsworthy in most cases. Could it be that the media would like us to believe these accidents are happening because Bush is cutting breaks to his corporate buddies? The press did it with homelessness during the early Reagan administration until they were ridiculed into submission by the facts. I think the bastards have just moved on to the next streotype in their DNC playbook.

[Max in Utah]

Nothing is left of that guy!

He's just a carbon inclusion now.

[edpc]

He's been encased in carbonite and will decorate the den of an intergalactic menace!

[P-40]

when usually there are none reported.

The media seems to run as a pack...and sticks to a genre as long as they can. If they can create an 'epidemic' then they can retain viewer interest. That's my guess anyway.

[CFC__VRWC]

Probably not that easy to just turn off the spigot on several tons of molten steel. Good God, what an awful story.

[metmom]

I sure hope the poor guy was not conscious.

I worked with a guy who did steel mill work one summer and he said someone there committed suicide by jumping into a vat of molten steel. There was nothing left of him either.

[mwyounce]

Direct link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/3953474.html

[Beagle8U]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/STEELWORKER_KILLED?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

There is a working link to the article, don't even need to go to drudge and fish for it.

[DB]

I know it isn't easy. But when someone's life is on the line one would expect to have some extraordinary measures in place to save it. An alternate "pit" to dump it in in case of emergency for example.

[Max in Utah]

I read the story on the AP Breaking News list just below the foundry accident:

Police: Woman Hits Breeder With Chihuahua

ST. PETERS, Mo. (AP) -- A woman angry that her new puppy had died pushed her way into a dog breeder's home and repeatedly hit her on the head with the dead Chihuahua, authorities said.

Couldn't have hurt too much, I suppose. Now a beagle, on the other hand...

[Max in Utah]

Woman Hits Breeder With Chihuahua

[xJones]

It wasn't clear whether Hickman, of Homeworth, was killed by the fall or survived until the steel was poured.

Let us hope that the fall killed him. Imagine looking up and seeing all that molten steel pouring down.

[Bazooka]

I think that better training and more safety infrastructure, in combination with more stringent monitoring, is more effective. It was, in my line of work.
Sad that a worker left home to do an honest job, and did not come home. He would not have suffered for a long time, though.

I wish his relatives all the best and hope they can come to terms with this terrible loss.