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Thread: Chain Block Injury
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22nd November 2016, 10:24 PM #1.
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Chain Block Injury
Today at the mens shed we had a new drill mill and a drum sander delivered on pallets on a flat bed pickup.
The mill table and mill head were alongside the stand on the pallet so the top of this combo was about 1.5m high.
The items were lifted using a 1 ton capacity chain block and a pair of 2 tone straps off the truck bed onto a pallet jack.
At this point the block chain hook on the end of the lifting chain was sitting loose on top of the mill along with about 300 mm of free chain.
I squatted down to pull the lifting straps through the pallet to roll them up, and while I was doing that the two blokes on the other side of the pallet lifter raised and started pulling on the pallet lifter thus dragging the loose chain and hook on top of the mill away from the centre line.
At that point I happen to look up just in time to see the hook on the end of the chain fall off the top of the mill and swing down and hit me fair between the eyes splitting the skin and giving me a nice little headache.
Just shows - this sort of thing can happen at any time!
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22nd November 2016 10:24 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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22nd November 2016, 10:29 PM #2
Not good to hear mate! Hope you heal up quickly.
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22nd November 2016, 11:16 PM #3GOLD MEMBER
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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, BobLregards,
Dengy
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22nd November 2016, 11:30 PM #4.
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23rd November 2016, 03:03 AM #5
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.regards from Alberta, Canada
ian
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23rd November 2016, 05:30 AM #6GOLD MEMBER
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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
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23rd November 2016, 09:33 AM #7.
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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.
More importantly, the incident exposes a cultural issue.
Who was in charge of the process -- the daily shed supervisor, or no one?
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?
or was the excitement of the new toy so great that the 4 year old hidden inside every grandfather took over?.
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.
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.
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23rd November 2016, 11:05 AM #8
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.Mobyturns
In An Instant Your Life CanChange Forever
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23rd November 2016, 12:37 PM #9.
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23rd November 2016, 02:07 PM #10
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.
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.regards from Alberta, Canada
ian
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23rd November 2016, 03:17 PM #11
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23rd November 2016, 03:17 PM #12.
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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.
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.
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".
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.
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23rd November 2016, 03:38 PM #13.
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23rd November 2016, 04:03 PM #14
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23rd November 2016, 07:16 PM #15GOLD MEMBER
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I would have thought a Dog Man's Ticket would have been a prerequisite in a public environment like a Men's Shed?
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