Posted on 02/12/2019 8:07:34 AM PST by oh8eleven
I worked in plating inthe early 70s. Dangerous low-paid work. Open vats of deadly chemicals and only rubber aprons over street clothes. Company owned by hypocrite who violated EPA and common sense rules except when inspectors present. Quit to save my health.
I’ve read of some horrible accidents of steelworkers who fell into molten vats of steel. Good Lord.
I worked in a plating plant for a time in my youth. Because I was low seniority, I had to walk the flange of the acid tanks at the end of shift, with a long pole with a magnet and ‘fish’ out the parts that fell of the racks.
In the last 10 years of our company, we had one death at our Philadelphia plant and one at our Detroit plant. Both were a result of the employees ignoring the established safety procedures.
The Detroit death occurred when an electrician climbed a ladder at the back of the press shop to work on a control box about 20 ft. up on the wall and failed to lock out the overhead crane. He was hidden from the view of the crane operator on the shop floor who was moving a pallet of steel to the back of the shop. He was crushed against the wall by the crane.......
This was on a Saturday and it just happened that the plant safety manager was in the plant when call went out and he had to climb the ladder to get the employee down. The two had grown up together and were best of friends..........
There are times when putting a man out of his misery might be the kindest choice. Illegal, perhaps immoral but after a man is fully submerged into a vat of 160 degree sulfuric acid, he's not coming back from that and his suffering in those last moments had to be horrific if he was at all conscious.
Nope. Men don't do these jobs because they always dreamed of doing something difficult and dangerous. They do them because they pay a premium over other jobs requiring a similar skill level and they calculate that the pay advantage is worth the risk. Women almost never choose to take the higher pay when it has that sort of risk.
For all the whining about "toxic masculinity" the truth is that if men disappeared tomorrow then based on Bureau of Labor Statistics breakdowns of what sex does what, there would be nothing manufactured, nothing built, nothing repaired, nothing installed ever again.
Used to work around this same type environment, surrounded by huge vats of heated acids and other chemicals.
Instant death....................
Yes, but before that the metal must be etched and ‘cleaned’ .......................
Smother Brothers routine:
“I fell into a vat of chocolate and nearly drowned.”
“Wow. How did you get out?”
“I yelled, “Fire, fire!”
“What? Why did you yell ‘fire?’”
“Well, nobody was gonna come if I yelled, “Chocolate!”
Instant death?
Reading the story it sounds like he was still alive when they pulled him out. SHUDDER.
Where I worked the temperatures were in hundreds of degrees, and the liquids were molten solids.....................
Pardon me while I cringe...
I cringed a lot, especially since I was the one who took the temperature readings and maintained the recorders.....................
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I still remember reading the Novel “Shogun” years ago where the poor Sailor was repeatedly dunked into a Boiling Vat of Water over and over again by the Samurai.
They made his death long and tortuous.
Creeps me out to this day.
Prayers to his family and his co-workers. Not a way to go.
I have no idea about the layout of the place, but there should have been a safety barrier of some kind to prevent simple slip and fall accidents. Did that fail? Was it missing? Was he taking a shortcut he shouldn't have been taking? Guys can get very casual about stuff they constantly work around. Then bad things happen.
“The company will be sued into near bankruptcy”
The corp. will be dissolved.
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