Posted on 11/15/2022 10:42:58 AM PST by Red Badger
True story. I worked at a factory when I was in college. They made veneer for furniture. The first step is to boil the logs. One summer there was a guy boiling the logs and somehow he fell into the vat. Not a pretty sight. Not a way to go.
I’ve been around those smelters. The heat is unbearable even from from a good distance away. I hope his demise was indeed at least mercifully quick. May he rest in peace.
They better keep their checkbook handy. The lawyers are coming.
Wait until the civil lawsuit though.
That is a FANTASTIC comment!
I used to regulate financial services. A huge case about 23 years ago; Merrill Lynch issuing crap research reports to support their underwriting efforts to bring garbage to IPO. Hundreds of millions badly invested because it went out over Henry Blodgett’s name. Merrill Lynch got fined one third of their AFTER TAX profit for ONE Quarter.
The regulatory schemes in this country are a sick joke.
I have worked for several Fortune500 food/agri companies. Lots of machinery, and also food-safety issues. Government at some level was ALWAYS around. FDA and particularly state Ag. officials would regularly show up unannounced. Any anonymous complaint by union or disgruntled worker would trigger an OSHA or State labor-board visit.
For that matter, the IRS kept a permanent office, with permanent audit staff, at our HQ
Our CEO's feared nothing greater than Government penalties and bad PR, particularly on safety issues. No plant manager would ever want responsibility for some accident, so everything was done BY THE BOOK. I have seen have shut down plants for weeks because of it.
Its why I doubt the media narrative that CAT simply didn't have guardrails over pits of molten metal.
>>It was just his ninth day on the job.
>> Rookie mistake.
He won’t make that mistake again.
It’s a hard way to go, and on a new job. I have hard time believing they would put him out there without training or safety equipment or even pair him with a trainer or experienced worker.
I had a friend who worked at US Steel Hegwish. He told stories. A smelter is a dangerous place. A little splash of molten metal in a puddle of water = big explosion. A spill and you are burned or incinerated.
Sounds to me that OSHA wasn't doing their job either.
Our manufacturing plant in Detroit was routinely inspected by both OSHA and MIOSHA and coordinated with our plant safety manager to insure safety protocols were put in place for every aspect of the jobs out in the plant.
And the money won’t even go to the family of the deceased.
I think you need to distinguish among industries.
Banks run the USA. Their products are often highly esoteric and subject to changing technology, and political and market values. There's big money at stake for political skimming and donations. Just look at recent bankruptcy of FTX crypto exchange.
On the other hand, bloated US progressives still live in their 19th century Marxist world-view. They have had 125 years to build a massive regulatory apparatus over any and all manufacturing, Ag, transport, etc...
At that temp? Probably never felt a thing. Nerves instantly seared etc.
I’m not rushing to any conclusions. Let’s wait until the autopsy.
Serious question - would they still use the molten iron that he fell into?
OSHA ha been in existence since 1970 and there is no way this facility would have escaped any safety inspections.
During college I had a summer job working the night shift in a factory. I was the only one in my department working that shift in a huge factory. When I had no more work left on the line, I was told to smelt the scrap aluminum parts in a vat that was about 900 degrees (scooped out the melted aluminum for ingots). Had a face mask and apron to protect from possible splatter which was not always effective (holes in my jeans). One night I put a load in that would take a while to melt and went on break. Came back later to find the whole area full of smoke. “Damn I’ve set the plant on fire!”
Nope, it was some of the splatter landed in a container of oily rags, smoldering and smoking. Put a top on the container, which fixed it. Close call.
Awhile later, a security guard on the catwalk haled me—”Just wanted to see if you are still alive...” Maybe he saw the smoke....
Anyway, I survived the summer with only minor burns ;o)
Those big industrial size wood chippers - fall into that or try to use your leg to unjam a couple of logs in there... suck you right in and it’s called something like complete defragmentation - zzzzzzt!!!
We had a case down in Hampton, it was a tree service owners nephew working summers and he got defragged in the log chipper and while this was going on in the news I went up on the OSHA site and looked up this phenomena and apparently it happens a couple hundred times a year. OSHA has the files online for your viewing pleasure.
Sorry no pictures only reports...
Thereby eliminating any evidence of possible alcohol or narcotic impairment on the job.
Not saying he was but it is certainly a possibility.
Extreme morselization
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