I just heard someone got killed at the place I used to work.

[hedgehog]

It's hard to figure out exactly what happened from the news stories, but I think a pipefitter was killed trying to connect a water line to the side of a roll stand. There was NO reason for this stand to be running while he worked on it, it should have been shut down!

http://www.syracuse.com/crime/index.ssf?/base/policeblotter-1/123209977022440.xml&coll=1

[norepubsin08]

1. hope this gets looked into

my condolences, my best friend is a pipefitter

[hedgehog]

2. This is a steel mill run by a bunch of people with no idea what they're doing.

I was laid off six years ago because I made too much of a fuss over safety; I wouldn't let someone crawl into a tunnel furnace until a pipefitter broke the line supplying CO gas. What bothers me about this accident is I used to supervise the maintenance people in this department. I did the best I could, but I know there were hazards out there that I didn't recognize. I just hope this couldn't have happened on my watch.

[hedgehog]

3. I was talking it over with my husband trying to piece together what

could have happened based on the brief story in the paper and my knowledge of how that equipment works. I think OSHA is going to find out that there is no lock-out procedure for this routine job. There is NO reason whatsoever for the mill to have been running. The area has a lot of water spraying around and it would have had ice due to the extreme cold weather we were having. Dollars to dounts they just got everything up and running when the pipe burst and they didn't want to shut anything down.


The company will probably try to pin it on the victim and accuse him of failing to follow procedure.