Thread: Chain Block Injury

Not good to hear mate! Hope you heal up quickly.

Another near miss, not to be overlooked !

What safe working procedure was ignored here, for that accident to happen? what needs to be done in future to stop this sort of accident from happening again, and not necesarily at your shed, but in any workshop?

I imagine the injury could have been a lot more severe, in fact quite serious. Glad you are OK, BobL

Originally Posted by Dengue

Another near miss, not to be overlooked !

What safe working procedure was ignored here, for that accident to happen? what needs to be done in future to stop this sort of accident from happening again, and not necesarily at your shed, but in any workshop?

I imagine the injury could have been a lot more severe, in fact quite serious. Glad you are OK, BobL

The way I look at it there should always be a "stand clear" or "wait until others are standing clear" rule when any things are moved.
For example what would have happened if the load was unbalanced and I was down near the floor and it tipped over on top of me?

Hi Bob
I love reading the stories from your men's shed -- perhaps it should be renamed the "avoidable accident waiting to happen shed"
I hope the injury heals quickly.

Next time?
You could insist on hard hats being worn by everyone within 5 m of the chain block when it's being used -- I know, like likely.

More importantly, the incident exposes a cultural issue.

Who was in charge of the process -- the daily shed supervisor, or no one?
when you bent down to clear the lifting straps, did you
1. announce clearly what you were doing and request that others wait till you had finished?
2. make eye contact with your "mates" to ensure that they had heard and understood what you were doing?

or was the excitement of the new toy so great that the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather took over?


and I don't accept that "this sort of thing can happen at any time"
the chain block was still in use -- the excess chain had not been retracted and the hock and block stored out of the way. Which should have been the requirement BEFORE you extracted the straps.

Gah, that sounds awful! At least it wasn't under spring tension and coming at you at a hundred kph!

Glad you're still in a position to type about it. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by ian

Hi Bob
I love reading the stories from your men's shed -- perhaps it should be renamed the "avoidable accident waiting to happen shed"
I hope the injury heals quickly.

Thanks, there's no bruise showing this morning.

Next time? You could insist on hard hats being worn by everyone within 5 m of the chain block when it's being used -- I know, like likely.

I agree - it will go in the SOP

More importantly, the incident exposes a cultural issue.

It sure does expose a cultural issue - one I was hoping to minimise by avoiding the shed as much as possible - see below.

Who was in charge of the process -- the daily shed supervisor, or no one?

There was a shed supervisor present but I think they assumed I was in charge because I supplied the block chain.
This should have been made clear before the lifting started - i.e. put one person in charge.

when you bent down to clear the lifting straps, did you
1. announce clearly what you were doing and request that others wait till you had finished?
2. make eye contact with your "mates" to ensure that they had heard and understood what you were doing?

Yes that would have been the way to go. Goes along with a call to "stand clear before the object is moved".

or was the excitement of the new toy so great that the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather took over?.

It was more of a case of not wanting to be there in the first place and wanting to leave asap.
I was not at the shed (I only go there to work ~ half a day a week) when the gear arrived in a van as the delivery driver assumed we would have a forklift which we didn't, so the driver went back to base to put the gear on a flat bed.
The blokes at the shed called me because the block chain they had was only a half a ton capacity and one of the pieces was ~600kg and wondered if I could help.
I was at home in my shed in the middle of doing a job for the mens shed so I stopped what I was doing and drove to my former place of employment to pick up a 1 ton block chain and then drove over to the mens shed.
I was going to just drop the block chain and leave them to it but decided to stay to help and lucky I did because it turned out they needed the 2 ton straps which I keep at all times in my vehicle.
Once the gear was down on the ground I could not wait to get out of there.

and I don't accept that "this sort of thing can happen at any time"
the chain block was still in use -- the excess chain had not been retracted and the hock and block stored out of the way. Which should have been the requirement BEFORE you extracted the straps.

Complete removal of the block chain from its support overhead before we moved the gear underneath was not possible because the gear would have been in the way of placing a ladder underneath the mount point.
Besides we still had to lift the second piece of gear off the truck.

BTW we have a couple of really good ladders with a work platform at the top and hand rail around the steps and work platform.

Don't you just love helpful people!

Hope you heal fast. At least look at the bright side, the chain hook didn't hit you in an eye.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

Don't you just love helpful people!

Hope you heal fast. At least look at the bright side, the chain hook didn't hit you in an eye.

Thanks - I think my glasses took some of the oomph.

Hi Bob,

my comment about hard hats was largely in jest. Hard hats of themselves are largely pointless unless the brain underneath is engaged.

But to analyse the incident
from here it looks like "the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather took over" and the "shedders" on the end of the pallet jack started moving the jack before the hoist operator (and dog man) gave the all clear.

Originally Posted by BobL

Complete removal of the block chain from its support overhead before we moved the gear underneath was not possible because the gear would have been in the way of placing a ladder underneath the mount point.
Besides we still had to lift the second piece of gear off the truck.

I think the root cause of your injury was leaving the hook and loose chain on top of the lift rather than either retracting the hook and chain or placing the hook in a location where the chain was fully extended.

I assume that you were rescuing your straps because they would have been trashed if the pallet was moved with the straps still under it.


Having spent a good part of my working life on job sites where safety is everybody's business, I'm perhaps a little harsh in my assessment of the safety culture inside the typical men's shed. Sitting here I'm thinking "It's about time that WorkCover did over a couple of Men's Sheds big time".


Hope you heal quickly.
and that your not out of pocket getting your glasses replaced / fixed.

Originally Posted by ian

Having spent a good part of my working life on job sites where safety is everybody's business, I'm perhaps a little harsh in my assessment of the safety culture inside the typical men's shed. Sitting here I'm thinking "It's about time that WorkCover did over a couple of Men's Sheds big time".

If there happens to be a fatality in a Men's Shed, the WorkCover inspectors will be looking. Look up Townsville Gymnastics and the death of a young gymnast. The committee was fined $70K for breaches.

Originally Posted by ian

Hi Bob,
my comment about hard hats was largely in jest. Hard hats of themselves are largely pointless unless the brain underneath is engaged.

Based on the location of my injury, the peak of the hard hat would have taken the brunt of the blow.

But to analyse the incident
from here it looks like "the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather took over" and the "shedders" on the end of the pallet jack started moving the jack before the hoist operator (and dog man) gave the all clear.
I think the root cause of your injury was leaving the hook and loose chain on top of the lift rather than either retracting the hook and chain or placing the hook in a location where the chain was fully extended.

I think you are reading a bit much into the "the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather took over". I know this syndrome well having observed it many times at the uni. The most dramatic case was watching a senior professor tear into a number of large wooden crates marked "open with care", containing the parts of a million dollar, extremely delicate, analytical instrument; with a 6ft crow bar at 11 pm at night. It was sheer luck nothing was damaged.

In the case of the incident I can only really speak for myself and all I wanted to do was get out of there and go home. As I said, I was somewhat off that I had been called in the first place. The feeling I got from the other shedders was, given that it was hot, late afternoon past shed open time, and they had been waiting around for the delivery, more of wanting to get the gear off the truck ASAP so that the driver could get away, as he had been mucked about long enough, and so the shedders could go home. There was no immediate unpacking or unwrapping of the gear that one sees when "the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather takes over" and it was all left in its cardboard and plastic wrapping in the middle of the floor and shortly afterwards the shed was locked up for the day.

The root cause was more like we were in just too much of a hurry to get the gear off the truck and that's what I wrote in the incident report this morning.

I assume that you were rescuing your straps because they would have been trashed if the pallet was moved with the straps still under it.

I doubt that the pallet would have made any impression on those straps.
As I said I was in a hurry to get out of the place and wanted to get the straps out from under the pallet and ready to get the next bit of gear off

Having spent a good part of my working life on job sites where safety is everybody's business, I'm perhaps a little harsh in my assessment of the safety culture inside the typical men's shed. Sitting here I'm thinking "It's about time that WorkCover did over a couple of Men's Sheds big time".

Workcover is not going to go near them unless someone is employed, they have already told us that.
The local council who owns the building and has the lease on the land have also told the shed that they will not police any OHS issues inside the shed unless they affect the building e.g. fire protection.
Immediately outside the shed the council holds the public liability so they have a say over how things are done.
This is the main reason that I stepped down from the committee and as soon as the dust extraction system is complete I am out of the place.

Hope you heal quickly.
and that your not out of pocket getting your glasses replaced / fixed.

The glasses are fine, they're those highly flexible kind that you can drop and almost stand on and they spring back into shape.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

If there happens to be a fatality in a Men's Shed, the WorkCover inspectors will be looking. Look up Townsville Gymnastics and the death of a young gymnast. The committee was fined $70K for breaches.

Unfortunately thats afterwards it's a pity they won't inspect before someone gets hurt.

Either way I am no longer on the committee (YAY!) and my recommendations about what should have been done are in writing.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

If there happens to be a fatality in a Men's Shed, the WorkCover inspectors will be looking. Look up Townsville Gymnastics and the death of a young gymnast. The committee was fined $70K for breaches.

Yeah, I know about Townsville Gymnastics.

I would have thought a Dog Man's Ticket would have been a prerequisite in a public environment like a Men's Shed?