# Shake Hands With Danger



## micromind (Aug 11, 2007)

I think back on some of the crap I've pulled with heavy machinery, I'm amazed that I'm still alive.................and still have all my fingers and toes..........

Yes, safety has gone way too far in some areas and it can be a distraction from actual safety but we still need to use basic common sense.


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## Flashedout (4 mo ago)

Throughout the years I was quick to learn common sense, isn't as common as we thought.. If I had a nickel for how many times I shook my head in disappointment with either myself or an apprentice performing simple tasks.. (well u get it).. After many years I learned to stop yelling at the younger generation to use common sense and to just teach the sense so it does become common to them..
Once we build our library of knowledge regarding safety and what not to do's... We have another enemy to fight, *complacency, *as we fall into routine we tend to let important details fall to the waste side... Which usually add up to a mistake that ends up costing us...or someone else...


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## SWDweller (Dec 9, 2020)

Danger is everywhere. I have learned that when it comes to electrical a personal lock is the beginning of safety. I have seen people who have been trained to the procedures cut locks because of some perceived exception. Something inside of them did not want to respect the procedure.
At the mine we had plastic locks, a pair of channel locks snap and they were gone. I was on the night shift alone, working as fast as I could to get all the calls taken care of. I got into a situation where the 1200 amp breaker @ 7200v would not rack out of the cell. I grabbed my brass 4 pound lock put a tag on it and locked the breaker in the open position. Some one from another group came by and could not close the breaker. So they put out a open call on the radio for someone with a sawzall to come take the lock off. I got there 10 minutes after the mine manager did. All he would say was the problem had been taken care of. Seems the other group got permission to bug off the line and use the power for some pumping that most of my crew knew nothing about. I forced the issue back through the safety department and HR, no one would admit there was a problem. I bought 3 more of the beefy brass locks even though I was told that using them again would result in my termination. At least I would be alive.


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## NC Plc (Mar 24, 2014)

The dangerous stuff I did as I was learning keeps me hyper focused on safety now. Feeling 2 legs of 480V across a hand, racking out 1kA switch gear without a moon suit on, grabbing spark plug wires on a 1MW generator's engine while it's running and finding out those electrical gloves are not rated for voltage that high, finding where a 250MCM ground wire was rubbing on the bus in a 1MW generator and it was days to months away from becoming a bomb, etc. 

The most dangerous thing I do now is climb stuff but since I'm a rock climber they don't mind when I climb 20-30' up to look at something.


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

I love that video. We pull it up on YouTube every so often for our safety meeting. Periscope films on YouTube has a bunch of other old ones that are great. I found a driving safety video the other day from the sixties that got a little dark though. It was basically a half hour of mangled bodies and car wreckage. And I'm not so sure some of them weren't real bodies. Of course I did this on the morning that HR decided to show up. They probably needed therapy after watching it.


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

mburtis said:


> I love that video. We pull it up on YouTube every so often for our safety meeting. Periscope films on YouTube has a bunch of other old ones that are great. I found a driving safety video the other day from the sixties that got a little dark though. It was basically a half hour of mangled bodies and car wreckage. And I'm not so sure some of them weren't real bodies. Of course I did this on the morning that HR decided to show up. They probably needed therapy after watching it.


Signal 30 perhaps? OSHP wasn’t fooling around when they produced that film. You have to get pretty graphic to reach a 16 YO kid in drivers ed class.


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## mburtis (Sep 1, 2018)

It was called "mechanized death" I think. It was pretty dark in today's censored world. However it made a very real world point. It was put out by like the Ohio state patrol or something. Maybe it's the same one your thinking of, I assume OSHP is Ohio state highway patrol.


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## SomeJoe (Apr 9, 2021)

Just nine days into his new job at Caterpillar’s foundry in Mapleton, Illinois, Steven Dierkes, a 39-year-old father of three, fell into an 11ft-deep pot of molten iron and was incinerated.
Now workers at the plant are blaming lack of training, poor safety protections and grueling working conditions for his death and are threatening strike action at the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer.

..

“When he died they only had us off work for two days and then told everyone to come back. The air literally still smelled like his burning body,” a worker said. “There were no guard rails, no harness procedures and nothing to ensure you wouldn’t fall into the massive holes filled with iron. As he was collecting a sample of iron with the spoon, he fell in and churned up.”
“I’m very surprised this is the first time it’s ever happened. When I worked up there, there were numerous times I thought, ‘Man, are they really gonna have me do this?’ For instance, if the iron level was low, they wanted you to try to get a sample or temp anyways, which would require you to lean over the hole a bit to be able to reach the iron. The melters are always around 2,400-2,600F, so if you fall in one there is zero chance of survival.”


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## Wirenuting (Sep 12, 2010)

SomeJoe said:


> Just nine days into his new job at Caterpillar’s foundry in Mapleton, Illinois, Steven Dierkes, a 39-year-old father of three, fell into an 11ft-deep pot of molten iron and was incinerated.
> Now workers at the plant are blaming lack of training, poor safety protections and grueling working conditions for his death and are threatening strike action at the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer.
> 
> ..
> ...


He was the second worker to die there in less than a year. Both deaths were due to lack of fall protection.

Cost of doing buisness?

OSHA cited Caterpillar for one willful violation, proposing a *$145,027 fine*


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## 460 Delta (May 9, 2018)

mburtis said:


> It was called "mechanized death" I think. It was pretty dark in today's censored world. However it made a very real world point. It was put out by like the Ohio state patrol or something. Maybe it's the same one your thinking of, I assume OSHP is Ohio state highway patrol.


That’s another bare knuckle film the Highway Patrol put out in the same era. Gruesome is an understatement.

Flying doughnut insignia on their cars.








While these guys and gals are still human with good days and bad, they are all business on duty or off. They take home their vehicles and even if they are off duty they are compelled to stop to assist (and possibly ticket) motorists broken down, ditched up, or otherwise. 
They aren’t State Police, with state wide authority, but are Highway Patrolmen with authority on highways and state property.

Story time here. Back around 1989-1990 we were all (dad uncle grandpa) loaded up on I 64 and going to the Forke Brothers auction in Louisville Ky. We nail Bambi’s mom and make Bambi an orphan and tear the radiator out of my uncle’s Town Car. It’s about this time of year and we are on the berm with steam rolling out and a Ky State Police blows by us going at least 75 mph (this is still 55 mph days) with no lights on. Then another and another with about 6 all told heading west and hauling the mail. We are baffled by this as we are accustomed to Ohio’s policies of always stopping. My uncle finally hitches a ride with a trucker to the next exit to call a wrecker. Way off in the distance heading east is a odd looking patrol car coming towards us. Dad bolts out of the car into the median waving his arms and the guy gives a small wave and passes too. We are all pretty livid by this time when the brown car with the red round light pulls up behind us. Out steps Sam McCloud with a full length Sherpa coat, cowboy hat and boots. He was a Montana Highway Patrolman heading to Charleston WVa to pickup a fugitive from justice. He kinda chuckes and says all law enforcement has a common radio frequency they monitor and he would contact the barracks for us. Do we need anything else? No we’re fine we answer. Finally the Captain or maybe Colonel of the State Police arrived to 4 pretty hostile people, my grandfather the worst (a WW2 veteran who just didn’t have a filter after all the killing he was part of). The officer finally tells us to STOP, and that he has to be careful what he says, but there’s a big union meeting in Frankfort that they all are attending. My grandfather who always had to have the last word stated haven’t you all heard of car pooling, why does every last one have to drive separately? No response, and he looked at the ground for a moment then filled out some paperwork as the wrecker was pulling in.


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## seelite (Aug 24, 2009)

Common Sense is often UNcommon. It MUST be learned. A very small example - Electric panels come in cardboard boxes (some taped) most stapled. Watched an apprentice start to tear open a box - I stopped him, showed him how simple it is to pull out the staples with a pair of dikes, and after the panel is mounted the box can be used to catch wire scrap cutoffs and avoid sweeping all that up at end of day. I didn't realize the impact but years later after I retired I bumped into this guy. What he remembered of all I taught him was this little safety item - said he never again gouged back of his hand on staples as he was pulling panel out of box. Also said he didn't have to touchup paint the scratched panels. No horn tootin but gotta admit I was proud as I always wondered if I was being anal when sharing knowledge with the new guys. Stay Safe.


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