- Joined
- Apr 23, 2015
- Messages
- 930
Sitting in the lunch room today the three of us heard yelling and screaming from the shop. After a, "What the hell," and a few blinks we all got up and ran to the shop. A guy had his hand stuck in a 30 ton break. I ran across the shop and the people there were trying to figure out what to do. He had hit the emergency stop but too late. The power button was around the side. I yelled to turn on the power to some confusion. A guy from the other shop who trained me came over and I said, "hit the power," which he did, then he ran around and reset the height before lifting the break. It's a tricky old dinosaur. You can't run it through the cycle because it would continue to press to a prescribed pressure, but you had to lift the blade as if it was an errant press you wanted to abort. Long story short the damage was done. I had them call 911. He was white as a ghost and in total shock. He asked for water and someone gave him a cup, which shouldn't be done for shock, but I let it slide. The hand was totally mangled. He just told me last week he wanted to move to Williamsburg, VA with his brother and try to get work as a turboprop aircraft mechanic. That's out of the question now. It's a shame but was totally due to negligence. The company manager came to speak with me and asked, "What happened?" I had to be honest. He was putting a 90 degree bend in a 28"x2" piece of steel (longways). I said, "He was working through lunch after working 7 hours, big mistake. The mind needs a break from the monotony. He was doing 2 different things with his hands, further dividing concentration, he reached across the metal strip after the bend to remove it from the machine, placing his fingers between the blades (huge mistake), and he failed to remove his foot from the pedal between presses. He reached across to retrieve the piece, while his left hand was getting a new piece from the table, and his foot touched the pedal; releasing the break." "How do you know he had metal in his left hand," the manager asked? "Easy," I said, "he gouged the surface of the emergency brake button with it." I showed him. He panicked. He should have hit the "lift" green button, but he panicked and hit the stop button. On the floor was a piece of metal. "And he dropped the piece of steel at his feet. "You never reach between the blades of the brake under any circumstances. Multiple mistakes from a guy in a hurry to get done and leave early!" Lately people have been trying to get me to be faster on the break and even use one hand but I refused. Then I said, "The next time someone tries to get me to work faster on the break, I'm turning off the machine and taking a ten minute break!" "Life is short enough," I said, "don't be in a hurry to kill yourself, it'll surely happen in its own time!"
