New York lumber worker killed in cutting machine accident

[Viva_La_Revolution]

Source: Reuters

A worker at an upstate New York lumber company was killed on Monday when a colleague mistakenly turned on a cutting machine as he was changing the blades on the equipment, police said.

"It was an accident. They were both longtime employees," said Chief Eugene Conway of the Dewitt, New York Police.

Police responded to a call at 5:30 a.m. and found Thomas Pelton, 35, of Camden, dead inside B&B Lumber in Dewitt, just outside Syracuse.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/07/us-death-lumber-idUSTRE7165LG20110207?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

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Always, Always, ALWAYS tag out your machine before sticking body parts inside.

[DrDan]

1. or cut power . . . . somehow I think someone screwed up by missing critical procedures

[HereSince1628]

4. maybe not "or," maybe 'and"

I cleaned commercial heating plant boilers for a summer and I have to say it was very spookey thinking I was in a place that would turn me into very fine ash if the burners were on.

[DrDan]

5. good point - "and cut power"

[roguevalley]

8. my dad lost three fingers when someone did that. A friend of our

family was pushed into an industrial woodchipper and they found 20 pounds of him. Terrible thing for both the living and the dead.

[Mopar151]

7. Abbreviated

Lock Out Tag Out - OSHA mandated procedure, well defined. Bad employers can't be bothered.
A plant manager or owner should go to jail over this, but they'll get a fine which can be negotiated away. Workmen's Compensation laws protects them from lawsuit for negligence.

[Toon Me Out]

2. Details of the investigation...

...are a little underwhelming. Were they concluded in under an hour?

[BetterThanNoSN]

3. unreal...

when will these companies adopt lock out/tag out? anything short of that is insane. people who work on equipment w/o lock out/tag out surely put their lives in the hands of others, literally.

[XemaSab]

6. Lock out/tag out

is one of the few things that REALLY stuck with me from HAZWOPR.