Posted on 09/02/2022 7:37:46 AM PDT by 11th_VA
NEW ORLEANS (WDSU/CNN Newsource/WKRC) - A baggage handler at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport got her hair caught on the conveyer belt, resulting in her tragic death.
"She said 'Mom I'm on my way to work' I said 'Okay I'll see you when you get home,'" said Angela Dorsey, Jermani Thompson 's mother.
But she never made it home.
Thompson always seemed to have a basketball in her hands.
"She was a basketball guru. She loved basketball. That was her thing," Dorsey said.
Word quickly began to spread Tuesday night that the 26-year-old had been killed in an industrial accident.
"The doctor said that her hair got stuck in the conveyer and they tried say they tried to cut her hair but they couldn't," said Dorsey. "She died on her way to the hospital."
Thompson, who was employed through GAT Airline Ground Support, was unloading baggage around 10:20 p.m. from a Frontier Airlines flight. Minutes later, her mother received the call.
(Excerpt) Read more at local12.com ...
I worked with an electrician once around 1972 who was a part-time bass player/rocker. He had hair down to his waist, always kept it tied back in a pony tail.
One morning he went off to make some 3” holes in some concrete with one of those industrial air-compressor powered drills to run some conduit in a remodeling job we were one.
Only heard the drill power up for a second or so and called out “Gary?” “HEY, GARY!?”
I walked around the corner and saw him on the ground unconscious, his pony tail sucked up into the cooling fan port (? it’s been a long time), a hand-sized part of his scalp detached, a bloody mess.
He spent a night in the hospital, healed up nicely, kept all that hair under a hat like Arlo Guthrie while on the job afterward.
In the years since I’ve seen worse, most all of them preventable.
RIP, lady.
Wait, is that the sound of a thousand personal injury attorneys slouching towards her former employer’s office I hear?
It is about leadership. I worked with some very very good and grateful people from the Congo. They were all smiles and we got chatting one day. He said "I am so happy to be here, there are no bombings every day."
Truly the type of character we need more of from people immigrating to our great USA.
Yep, no long hair, no untucked shirts, no jewelry. Very basic safety stuff but I’d be willing to bet someone was afraid to tell her because that would have been ....... racist
black privilege
Or loose cuffs, or ties, or anything else hanging off the body or clothes, and keep the fingermitten out the moving parts.
“Where’s OSHA?”
You’ll see them in court. There should always be a general shutdown for situations like this. The family and the lawyers will retire.
wy69
That may have been a place where a union would actually have been a GOOD thing.
A REAL collective bargaining unit actually holds it’s members to the CBA as well as management.
Safety included, which may have kept this woman from this terrible accident.
OSHA rules do not apply to the airline industry. Their domain is similar to hospitals. Food industry standards require no long exposed hair or any hair—see hair nets and beard nets.
A bump cap was the minimum obligatory head gear at my place of employment once. Do the monthly computer generated safety training or be flagged at the entrance until completion.
If a person objected enough, a room with coloring books was available—the Chill Room.
Her employer’s workman’s comp insurance will take a bath on this accident that was totally preventable had the most elementary safety rules been followed. As a result of the accumulative effect of these kinds of accidents, every workman’s comp company will eventually have to raise their rates. The employers will wail and scream.
“This could happen to anyone with long hair.”
But I could see how having all those braids would make it very difficult to cut the hair. But aren’t there emergency switches on things like that? I can see a lot going wrong and they are clearly very powerful machines.
We’ve gotten really stupid now. (As a society).
I am quite sure that nobody cared how she wore her hair. They should have cared enough about her safety to insist that her hair was not hanging loose around machinery.
Work places that don’t allow jewelry aren’t discriminating against married people. They’re trying to make sure that nobody loses a finger.
Safety isn’t racist. Machinery doesn’t care who you are. Dangle long hair around a conveyor belt and it might possibly get caught. It doesn’t matter if the hair is black, blonde, red, or purple.
Yes there are. Incompetent staff failed to push the "RED" button on either side of the belt loader.
I feel for her family. She was so young and had a great smile. Prays up for her loved ones.
That is a legitimate question.
Anyone, and that includes many FReepers, who have had to work around machinery KNOW that loose clothing, jewelry, long hair, etc is verbotten!
Jewelry has to be removed, and long hair secured with a net and cap or bonnet. There are many mechanics missing ring fingers because their wedding ring got snagged into machinery. People have been sucked into wood chippers when hair or loose clothing was snagged by a branch.
I feel so sorry for this gainfully employed lady. This didn't have to happen.
I blame her supervisors. But maybe they were afraid to speak up lest they be brought up on charges of "racism". This lady's dangling Afro ropes were a tragedy just waiting to happen.
“...the most elementary safety rules been followed.”
You are absolutely correct. I grew up around conveyor belts as my family owned a fruit and vegetable packing house and every one I ever saw had an easily accessible master shutdown button. Further more, hair like that would be an open invitation to a dangerous situation so why wasn’t her hair in a net? Are there no safety laws, shop requirements, or anyone held responsible for this type of possibility? A whole lot of people are in the wrong especially the victim herself. But the family collect on it.
wy69
OSHA safety rules violation. Surely, anyone who works around machinery is required to wear their hair up, or cover their head. It's only common sense. Long hair in the workplace is covered in Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 1910 Subpart I according to this web page:
OSHA Regulations on Long Hair Around Machinery
Watch her family sue for millions, and win. If this rule applied to her job, then whoever her supervisor is, will hang for not enforcing it. She's a minority. She will be made out to be the victim even if she blatantly ignored the safety rules.
She's the latest candidate for the Darwin Award.
In other news/ Never wear a long sleeve shirt around your woodchipper.
I ran into the same type of people when I worked in uniform in NY State's Correctional Services. The majority of the security problems were with the civilian staff. They went through an orientation program that stressed that security was the highest priority. Inevitably, one of them would leave their purses sitting where inmates could get access, leave their personal and/or facility issued keys laying out, etc.
The biggest problem we had was with shop instructors who were required to maintain an inventory of all the tools they issued each day to the inmates. Each shop used shadow boards, and each tool on that board was engraved with a specific number as it related to the inventory list for that class. An inmate would have to turn over his prison photo ID to the instructor, in order to get the tool he needed. He had to return the tool to the instructor, in order to get his ID back. Inmates were required to carry their ID's on them at all times. The tools were supposed to be in a secured area, but inevitably, one of these instructors would find a tool missing, and had no idea where it had gone...no inmate ID that corresponded with the missing tool. Instead of reporting the loss to the Deputy Superintendent of Administration, who was their immediate supervisor, they'd simply go out and purchase the same brand of that specific tool, engrave the old number on it, and hang it in the empty space on the shadow board. Uniformed staff would only realize that a tool had gone missing when it was discovered on area searches within the prison grounds. And even when it was discovered that one of those instructors hadn't followed the rules when it came to reporting missing items, nothing would ever happen to them. We were lucky that none of those missing screwdrivers, or drill bits hadn't been sharpened, and ended up in one of us.
The lack of security is horrific especially in your line of work. No matter where I am I constantly scan what is going on, I do not want to be a statistic.
Once you've spent a period of time in an environment that requires you to be alert at all times, and to observe what is going on around you, it's something you never forget or stop doing. I've been retired since 2003, and have never got out of that heightened state of observation and security. I'm a female, and in the early days of my retirement, I used to approach women in the grocery store who had left their open purses sitting in the grocery cart, while they were 6-12 feet away from the cart, checking out an item. I'd tell them they are opening themselves up to being a victim, because not all the criminals are behind bars. Some were grateful for the advice. Others looked at me like I was the criminal, so I stopped saying anything to people.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.