‘I’m in a world of hurt’

[IndianaGreen]

‘I’m in a world of hurt’

Author: John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 04/10/08 16:12

Shawn Boone did not die instantly five years ago at the Hayes Lemmerz plant in Huntington, Ind. He was lying on the floor, his body smoldering, as the aluminum dust burned through his flesh and then his muscles. With every breath he took, more of his internal organs burned. Still conscious and blinded from the initial blast, he begged for help as they loaded him into the ambulance.

Shawn and two co-workers had gone in to light a chip melt furnace at their plant, where aluminum automotive wheels are made. They stepped away from the furnace and waited a few minutes to make sure everything was okay and then went back to retrieve their tools. Shawn’s back was to the furnace when the first explosion knocked him down. Immediately after he got up a second, more intense blast knocked him down again. The copper piping in the room melted as his heart and lungs burned.

This was the story Shawn’s sister, Tammy Miser, told Congress last month when she testified at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing. Lawmakers on the committee are trying to force the Bush-controlled Occupational Safety and Health Administration to do its job and draft rules that will force industry to curb combustible dust hazards. The Bush administration is refusing to adopt such measures, now also beginning to gain some support among members of the Senate’s Workplace Safety Subcommittee.

The deadly hazards of combustible dust came to the fore again in February in the wake of a fatal sugar refinery explosion in Georgia. OSHA says it lacks sufficient data to act, even after that explosion, because the company has not yet completed its investigation.

http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/12850/1/418/

[Sam Ervin jret]

1. Waiting for the company to do its own oversight and investigation? Now that's the GOP OSHA we all

know and disrespect.

Do your jobs.

Where are the Industrial Hygienists that work for this company's insurance co.? Doesn't anyone believe in stopping accidents and tragedies anymore? Or just making money off of them?

[midnight]

2. We know better. There is no excuse for greed.

[snappyturtle]

3. "Worker" bees don't count to this administration. SO sad. K&R n/t

[Chulanowa]

4. It's time to start stinging, obviously

[freethought]

5. Explosive dust atmospheres?? This isn't anything new!!

Not by a goddamned long shot!! I can't believe this!!!

Combustible dust atmospheres go back as far back as the Industrial Revolution. Likely farther since those involved in such events didn't have a clue as to what was going on.

The early textile mills often experienced such events with fine cotton fiber floating in the air. Grain and corn elevators are often subject to the same hazards.
Metallic dusts and powders? Those are some of the absolute worst!!
I spent 12 years working in an amongst some of the worst chemicals and chemical hazards that science and industry use to do whatever it is they do. Just shy of chemical weapons and high grade radioactives.

A combustible dust atmosphere can explode like a bomb. This is nothing new at all!!
This administration is scum!!