echanic Mayhem 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
Here's the offical company response:
A Large Aerospace Firm Offers Condolences to Family of Employee Fatally Injured in Auburn
Seattle, Jan. 15, 2002. _____________ extends its sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of the employee who was fatally injured this morning in an accident at its Auburn, Wash., site.
The employee, who worked for _____________, was performing routine maintenance on a machine in the Integrated AeroStructures (17-45) building, when the incident occurred. He was immediately transported to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he later died.
The cause of the accident is under investigation. We are deeply saddened by this very difficult and tragic event.
The rest of the story:
The guy performing the maintanence work has been doing this type of work for nearly 20 years. The machine he and a partner were working on is a giant computer controlled machine that makes parts out of huge blocks of metal, using hydraulics to control it's movement. The hydraulic lines can have in excess of 20,000 psi, even when it is shut off. Despite triple rudandancy in safety proceedures, tags, warning signs and a 2nd person working with him, he ignored all of that. He reportedly was a real SOB much of the time. Instead of relieving the pressure in the lines per the proceedure, he starts to remove one of the lines. You only remove these bolts when you are replacing a line, which they were not. The bolts were so tight, he had to go elsewhere to find a 4 foot long piece of pipe to attached to the end of his ratchet to give him enough leverage to loosen the bolt (like, duh??). There were high strength 4 bolts attaching this line to the machine. He had 3 bolts removed, and managed to loosen the 4th bolt and start taking it off... when BOOM! the bolt snapped. Inside the hydraulic line was a foot long, 3 inch diameter brass sleeve (to prevent the hose from kinking). It shot out with such force that after striking our fine mechanic in the forehead (he never knew what hit him), the brass tube continued on it's path hitting the ceiling and overhead crane with a loud bang, and then fell back to the ground less than 20 feet from our victim. The force threw him backward about 8 feet. And the building is a 'high bay' building, so the ceiling is 50'-60' high.
Please, don't use the company name or my name if the story get's used!! I put them there just to verify the authenticity only. 'Large Aerospace Firm' would work great.
I know it's wordy, so edit as you please.... Submitted on 05/13/2002
Submitted by:
Anonymous
Reference:
Personal Knowledge, Jan 15 2002
Copyright © 2002 DarwinAwards.com
Reader Comment: "This story is so far off of what really happened
it's pathetic. The only thing that is true is someone got killed. All the
details from the number of bolts, to what they were holding, to the how
high the building is, to the so called "safety procedures", are wrong."
-Craig Oen
|
