Warning, mildly gruesome.
I expected this week to be hellish, but I received an unexpected and unwanted dose of perspective this morning. Yes, we had scheduled to perform a capacity analysis of the plant this week while also hosting a customer audit of our facility. No big deal. But when my boss and her boss decided to move up the end of the year on site review to this week instead of next week I felt a touch put upon. Going in early to finish up the deck for the presentation was the icing on the cake. Or so I thought.
When I got to work this morning, we had an emergency that made it clear just how petty an inconvenience such things are. One of my co-workers that drives a lift in the warehouse had an accident. He managed to catch his foot between the fork lift and some racking. He was letting his foot dangle off the lift despite training to the contrary. He all but severed his four largest toes. In shock, he walked into the shipping/receiving office and explained things.
A call to 911 and a ride to the emergency room later and the hospital called in a couple of surgeons. They have attempted to reattach the toes, but we won’t know if it worked for a couple of days.
It bothers me that this guy may lose his toes over the kind of careless decisions we all make every day. He’s a good guy, a long time employee, and a hard worker. He normally does things correctly and safely, but one split second of not paying attnetion and his life may be altered forever. It sucks and I really hope the surgery works and he is back on his feet soon.
My mom cut off one of her little toes in a lawn mower accident. She had the presence of mind to wrap her toe and partially severed shoe in a towel and drove herself to the ER about 30 minuts away. Her reattachment was successful so here’s to your employee’s good healing!
I really hope the surgery goes well for the guy but one thing that has stuck with me out of all the safety videos I have watched over the years is this :
Do Not Ever Break A Safety Procedure.
FWIW the video where that point struck home was a talk by a guy working for IIRC a cola company. He had to carry out a procedure that he had carried out hundreds, possibly thousands, of times. He did not take the two seconds to pick up and don the safety goggles that were hanging within arms reach before he went to carry out the procedure. On this occasion a blockage caused a pipe to blow and he was showered in caustic chemicals. They got him to the emergency shower in time to save his life but he lost his sight.
That “careless decision” means he doesn’t get to see his kids grow up.
Do Not Ever Break A Safety Procedure.
You cannot foresee everything that’s going to happen but please just pause and make a decision right now that you will never, ever, break a safety procedure and you will go a hell of a long way towards reducing the chances of a life changing accident like either of the above.
Yep, thats why you Do Not Ever Break A Safety Procedure.
Here endeth the lecture, best wishes for a full recovery to your workmate and be safe, guys.
That is pretty gruesome, Sundrop. My husband is a construction safety officer, and I get to hear some stories of things that happen on the job site (or that he hears about), and nearly ripping your toes off is up there (the de-gloving of the testicles of a guy who didn’t have his fall arrest harness on properly is his favourite story, I think).
I don’t quite get the mentality of people who take chances like that; maybe I’m actually lucky that I’m a bit accident prone, because it strongly encourages me to use all my safety equipment, every time. I have no illusions about whether or not something might happen - I’m pretty damned sure it WOULD.
Damn, Cat Whisperer, that made me scrunch up all fetal like and I don’t even have testicles!
Sundrop, that’s gruesome and sad. I hope that at least they can give him a big toe. I gather that it’s really hard to re-learn to walk after losing toes.
Late summer afternoon, and my husband is finishing up some body work on one of his hobby cars, using an acetylene torch. He had taken off his safety gear, and then saw just one little thing that needed a touch. He came into the house saying “I burned my hand.” I was busy in the kitchen. “Well, run it under some cold water and I’ll get some ice for you,” I replied. “No,” he responds, “I BURNED my hand.” The skin was literally dripping off in sheets. Never mind, we’re going to the ER. It had been too much trouble to take that one minute to put the safety gloves back on. Since he was tired from working several hours already, of course that was the time something slipped and the torch hit his hand instead of the metal it was aimed at.
When people are tired is, of course, when this sort of thing is most likely to happen. Also when they’re just finishing up for the day and it’s annoying to have to drag out gear you’ve already put away because of that one little thing. Or you’ve got a head cold or didn’t sleep good the night before. Really, anything that diminishes your alertness or energy even a little increases your risk.
At my present job grinding metal is part of the deal. The boss has supplied ample safety glasses at every station where this is done. Nonetheless, I wound up buying my own goggles because the ones supplied didn’t fit over my eyeglasses properly and were terribly uncomfortable. The ones I bought for me fit much better and, while not enjoyable to wear, aren’t the distracting nuisance the others were - and the better fit and more comfortable safety gear is, the more likely you are to wear it every time.
Hope the OP’s co-worker heals up well from the accident. I’m pretty sure he won’t make that mistake again.
Just an update. The surgery went well, and the four smaller toes were reattached and seem to have blood flow. The big toe was never in danger.
According to the doc, it was fortunate that he was wearing composite-toe boots instead of steel-toe, as that would have mangled the toes/foot too badly to repair the damage.
They did another surgery again tonight to try to clean out some tissue that was damaged and to try to prevent any infection. Not out of the woods yet, but if they can keep it from getting infected he should recover. They’ve already got him doing PT and walking small amounts on it. Several of us, both the folks in his department and various parts of the management team have gone by to see him, and he is in good spirits so far, but lots of pain.