It happened AGAIN... *****************

[CreamyGoodness]

Preventable, but this wasnt the fault of the child (assuming she had been waved across the street by the driver). Its the fault of the motorist who hit her, because gosh schoolbuses make her late (grr).

 

[unionrdr]

This gave me a flashback to 1970 & my youngest brother. Me & my big mouth. He wanted to do his 1st sleepover at a friends house that we knew was a bit wild & irresponsible. Everyone chimmed in no with mom & dad. But I insisted he should be able too,as the boy only lived a short ways up on the corner. My sis & I were picking wild strawberries about a mile away on the undeveloped center of Hamilton Circle Dr. I heard a loud skid & a sickening thump. I figured somebody bought it,& finished picking.
We got home to find that little Michael (just shy of 10) had been hit so hard by a Lakewood plumbing & heating truck,that his shoes were knocked some distance over his head. Brain damage,etc with swelling took him some 5 days later. I still just can't forgive myself for changing their minds. So be sure brain is engaged before puting mouth in gear. I wouldn't want any of you to be forced to live with something like this. He was a good kid that wore his heart on his sleeve.

 

[Darwin18]

Preventable, but this wasnt the fault of the child (assuming she had been waved across the street by the driver). Its the fault of the motorist who hit her, because gosh schoolbuses make her late (grr).

Nope, apparently the school bus was still coming down the street when she ran out across the road. It was pre-dawn and visibility was poor. The driver who hit her was not charged. It could have been prevented if she had looked both ways before crossing the road....

 

[Darwin18]

This gave me a flashback to 1970 & my youngest brother. Me & my big mouth. He wanted to do his 1st sleepover at a friends house that we knew was a bit wild & irresponsible. Everyone chimmed in no with mom & dad. But I insisted he should be able too,as the boy only lived a short ways up on the corner. My sis & I were picking wild strawberries about a mile away on the undeveloped center of Hamilton Circle Dr. I heard a loud skid & a sickening thump. I figured somebody bought it,& finished picking.
We got home to find that little Michael (just shy of 10) had been hit so hard by a Lakewood plumbing & heating truck,that his shoes were knocked some distance over his head. Brain damage,etc with swelling took him some 5 days later. I still just can't forgive myself for changing their minds. So be sure brain is engaged before puting mouth in gear. I wouldn't want any of you to be forced to live with something like this. He was a good kid that wore his heart on his sleeve.

Sorry to hear that Unionrdr.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Nope, apparently the school bus was still coming down the street when she ran out across the road. It was pre-dawn and visibility was poor. The driver who hit her was not charged. It could have been prevented if she had looked both ways before crossing the road....

Ok, yeah. Still a horrible accident. The big difference is that there are safe and reasonable times to cross a street. It is NEVER EVER wise to cross the tracks in the NYC subway system. Unless you are a transit worker working on the tracks, the only living thing to touch them that is not IN the train should be the rats and roaches.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

This gave me a flashback to 1970 & my youngest brother. Me & my big mouth. He wanted to do his 1st sleepover at a friends house that we knew was a bit wild & irresponsible. Everyone chimmed in no with mom & dad. But I insisted he should be able too,as the boy only lived a short ways up on the corner. My sis & I were picking wild strawberries about a mile away on the undeveloped center of Hamilton Circle Dr. I heard a loud skid & a sickening thump. I figured somebody bought it,& finished picking.
We got home to find that little Michael (just shy of 10) had been hit so hard by a Lakewood plumbing & heating truck,that his shoes were knocked some distance over his head. Brain damage,etc with swelling took him some 5 days later. I still just can't forgive myself for changing their minds. So be sure brain is engaged before puting mouth in gear. I wouldn't want any of you to be forced to live with something like this. He was a good kid that wore his heart on his sleeve.

I do hope you know that that is in no way your fault. What a tragedy, I'm really very sorry to hear.

 

[unionrdr]

Well,it wouldn't bug me so much if I wouldn't have spoken up & had them all change their minds. Not to mention,instead of coming home the next morning,they went galavantin around & we heard the crash. I guess he was easily talked into runnin around with that kid.

 

[TNGabe]

Well,it wouldn't bug me so much if I wouldn't have spoken up & had them all change their minds. Not to mention,instead of coming home the next morning,they went galavantin around & we heard the crash. I guess he was easily talked into runnin around with that kid.

Don't question what you did Doc. Life is unpredictable if nothing else. I've made decisions that contributed to the loss of a life, not of a relative, but it was hard to deal with even though it wasn't my fault. You're brother could still be alive today or could have suffered a greater tragedy, there is no way for you to know.

 

[jmendez29]

I can't say that I have ever been witness to such a tragedy. But I work with a guy who was a volunteer firefighter in his town. He told us about a story where some kids were drunk and screwing around on some local RR tracks. You can guess where this was going.

I had a hard time listening when he told me that he was one of the people who helped clean up the mess. Walking around in the dark with flashlights and buckets to pick up parts and pieces. I don't think I could have the fortitude to keep doing that job after that.

 

[mpride1911]

I used to work in a rock quarry and it was pretty common to have line-men get caught and jerked or pulled into the tail and head pulleys of the conveyor belts. It basically rips off anything they grab or pull your entire body in. Self-cleaning tail pulleys are the worst. They're basically a wheel of blades.

And then there's all the rock crushers and people that don't lock/tag out when entering a piece of equipment and the others that remove guards. Asking for trouble.

 

[Homercidal]

At plastics factories they have these things called "grinders" that... grind up plastic parts. Large parts like Facias for cars require large grinders.

So apparently, as the story goes, some guys were tossing parts into a large grinder and they got kind of jammed up at the top, so one of the guys decided press on the jam pile with his foot... And slipped.

Also, and this was a verifiable accident, a Tool and Die guy was repairing a mold that makes plastic coat hangers. If you google what an injection press looks like you can see he had to get between the platens of what I would guess would have been a 500-1500 ton press. For whatever reason, the press cycled while he was between the mold halves. Now, both of these things could have been prevented with just a TINY bit of caution. For the press, simply disconnecting the main power and using appropriate lockout procedures would have kept this man alive. But I guess the world was in dire need of more plastic coat hangers... at 1000 lbs, I'm guess that guy was about 1/2" thick when they found him.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

For the record, I DO feel bad that a young man in his prime on his birthday died in a heinous way...

So much so I am interested in making sure it doesnt happen again.

Don't feel bad Creamy, even if you put up a fence along the tracks, stupid people will climb it. Every so often somebody climbs the fence & falls into the Grand Canyon for cryin out loud. An accident is just that, an accident; but these kids were just plain STUPID. That kid actually did us all a favour; now he cannot contaminate the rest of the gene pool. Nominate him for a Darwin Award.
Regards, GF.

 

[TyTanium]

the insensitivity of this thread is astounding.

+1

 

[Darwin18]

NPR was discussing the deaths of young men in grain silos yesterday. Terrible and completely preventable as well.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Are they working in the silos or doing something truly dumb?

 

[Darwin18]

Are they working in the silos or doing something truly dumb?

I believe it was called stepping down the grain. Essentially walking ontop the grain to pack it down. Of course, there is the very real risk of the grain collapsing into a void and smothering you.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

I feel like there has got to be a better way.

 

[dkwolf]

Are they working in the silos or doing something truly dumb?

As a firefighter trained in grain bin rescues, I will say ANY work inside a silo is truly dumb. There is very little reason to be inside a bin with grain in it, yet it happens on almost every farm. They are all classified as "Confined Spaces" by OSHA rules, and as such you are supposed to monitor air quality whenever someone is inside, have a tag/rescue line attached to each person, and for every man inside the bin, there needs to be one outside. Very rarely are those safety protocol followed though.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

So what you are saying is a guy goes in to willingly jump on what could well be the manmade equal to quicksand in an environment that is, if I am not mistaken, quite possibly explosive due to grain dust? Do I have that right?

 

[GrogNerd]

So what you are saying is a guy goes in to willingly jump on what could well be the manmade equal to quicksand in an environment that is, if I am not mistaken, quite possibly explosive due to grain dust? Do I have that right?

"hold my beer and watch this!"

 

[CreamyGoodness]

just sounds like a godawful idea.

 

[dkwolf]

So what you are saying is a guy goes in to willingly jump on what could well be the manmade equal to quicksand in an environment that is, if I am not mistaken, quite possibly explosive due to grain dust? Do I have that right?

You forget potentially toxic gasses from decomposition of spoiled grain, but, yeah.

And the mechanical aspect -- on a big storage bin with a 10" unloading auger at the bottom... if you're standing on top of the grain when that auger starts, you've got less than 10 seconds to get out of the bin before you'll be trapped in flowing grain.

I'd have to look at the numbers again, but when you're knee-deep in grain, the amount of lift it takes to get you out is around 100 lbs over your body weight. Waist deep I want to say it's around 300 lbs. If you're buried over your head, it takes over 2,000 lbs of lift to pull your body out.

 

[GrogNerd]

just sounds like a godawful idea.

agreed. yet there seems to be a never-ending supply of dumb effs doing dumb effing crap like that

and cheap vidcams keep Leif Garrett, Danny Bonaduce and Tonya Harding gainfully employed on that "World's Dumbest" show

 

[TNGabe]

NPR was discussing the deaths of young men in grain silos yesterday. Terrible and completely preventable as well.

It's all week. I heard another story about it today. Sounds like a very, very bad way to die.

 

[Zuljin]

I believe it was called stepping down the grain. Essentially walking ontop the grain to pack it down. Of course, there is the very real risk of the grain collapsing into a void and smothering you.

As a firefighter trained in grain bin rescues, I will say ANY work inside a silo is truly dumb. There is very little reason to be inside a bin with grain in it, yet it happens on almost every farm. They are all classified as "Confined Spaces" by OSHA rules, and as such you are supposed to monitor air quality whenever someone is inside, have a tag/rescue line attached to each person, and for every man inside the bin, there needs to be one outside. Very rarely are those safety protocol followed though.

Limited entry and egress, not designed for continuous human habitation, probably no ventilation, or at least inadequate for prolonged stays, and for sure an engulfment hazard. Yep. Confined space.

Trains. They go on tracks. People. They do not. We get a few car vs train around here. People try to beat it. People lose.

 

[mpride1911]

While working at the quarry I mentioned earlier, I received safety training quarterly which usually was just a bunch of horror stories. One such, was two men, one young, one experienced working in a silo of a powdery substance, I forgot what kind. The powder substance had a crust on the top of it and the younger guy broke through the crust and fell in, the older guy fell in right behind and stopped chest deep but standing on the younger guy's shoulders, who was of course suffocating.

Not sure if it was true or not, but it's one of those situations which you don't want to find out for yourself.

 

[dkwolf]

While working at the quarry I mentioned earlier, I received safety training quarterly which usually was just a bunch of horror stories. One such, was two men, one young, one experienced working in a silo of a powdery substance, I forgot what kind. The powder substance had a crust on the top of it and the younger guy broke through the crust and fell in, the older guy fell in right behind and stopped chest deep but standing on the younger guy's shoulders, who was of course suffocating.

Not sure if it was true or not, but it's one of those situations which you don't want to find out for yourself.

Sounds a lot like fire service training. Most all NFPA regulations are "blood laws" -- they were written as the result of someone dying.

The story that came up during my grain bin rescue class happened in eastern Iowa just a couple years ago. Backstory: When grain spoils, it has a tendency to 'stick' together, either in clumps stuck to the side of the bin, or "bridges", which are exactly what they sound like (and exactly what happened in the quoted story above - the material crusted over and bridged).

A government grain inspector showed up at a bin site to inspect the corn in storage. He didn't bother to check in at the office before he went to check the bins. Climbed to the top, opened the upper access hatch and walked around on the surface of the grain. Did his inspection, and then reported to the office. Told the manager, "You need to get that corn out of bin #7, it's starting to go out of condition."

Manager asked him, "You're sure it was bin #7?" Inspector replied that he was. Manager motioned for the inspector to follow him, and walked out to the bottom of of bin #7... and opened the door. Told the inspector "We emptied this bin last week."

The inspector had been walking on spoiled, bridged grain.... 80 feet above a concrete bin floor. One step in the wrong spot, or if he had tried to break through the crust to check grain below it, and it would have been the end of the line for him.

 

[mpride1911]

Sounds a lot like fire service training. Most all NFPA regulations are "blood laws" -- they were written as the result of someone dying.

The story that came up during my grain bin rescue class happened in eastern Iowa just a couple years ago. Backstory: When grain spoils, it has a tendency to 'stick' together, either in clumps stuck to the side of the bin, or "bridges", which are exactly what they sound like (and exactly what happened in the quoted story above - the material crusted over and bridged).

A government grain inspector showed up at a bin site to inspect the corn in storage. He didn't bother to check in at the office before he went to check the bins. Climbed to the top, opened the upper access hatch and walked around on the surface of the grain. Did his inspection, and then reported to the office. Told the manager, "You need to get that corn out of bin #7, it's starting to go out of condition."

Manager asked him, "You're sure it was bin #7?" Inspector replied that he was. Manager motioned for the inspector to follow him, and walked out to the bottom of of bin #7... and opened the door. Told the inspector "We emptied this bin last week."

The inspector had been walking on spoiled, bridged grain.... 80 feet above a concrete bin floor. One step in the wrong spot, or if he had tried to break through the crust to check grain below it, and it would have been the end of the line for him.

Jesus.

The more I'm reminded up this stuff, the more I feel better about avoiding IEDs and getting shot at. Not sure why I'm more comfortable with that, than industrial/mining threats. Maybe because I get to shoot back, which you really can't do to a rock crusher or conveyor belt.

 

[unionrdr]

Or automation machinery. It's hydraulicly driven & without mercy. When I was young in the machining area,a guy got his loose collar on his coveralls caught in an ejector slide. tore his head off. Stay the F outta the equipment till it's shut off & locked out. And locked out by every man working on it. That's OSHA rules,but you'd be surprised how much "I can do this real quick" stuff I've seen.
One time when I first started at Ford,a main bearing cap got caught in the barrel sized milling cutter at the end of the machine that seperates the caps.
I signaled the operator to shut'er down,but didn't wait for the cutter to stop spinning. Didn't use my pry bar either,& was wearing those big terry cloth gloves. It got caught in the milling cutters,my left hand was going in...couldn't pull loose. Then I thought to hold my fingers straight out,& the glove slipped off & was shredded like a piece of meat in a gator's mouth.
Never again did I do something so stupid. Gotta be thinkin all the time,or you get hurt,real quick.

 

[jay_mack1]

I work in EMS... I haven't seen it all. But I have seen enough.

Out here in the Midwest.. open country.. we have people that try to beat the train at country road crossings.
Well ya know what they say, "If the East bound doesn't get ya, the West bound will!"

I've seen it a number of times, miraculously... most have survived.

Anyhow.. ya all have a good day!