I worked at a Chrome smelter plant, six furnaces strong, each furnace tapping tons and tons of molten Chrome into sand-ingots measuring 2 meters by 2 meters by 800mm deep. A process much similar to what you see on the tele when they pour Gold... Except 50 times bigger. These were normally run in a sequential order of around 12 units, creating a 'train' roughly 3.5 meters wide by around 25 meters long. Each 67% pure Chrome ingot weighs in at around two/ three tons, only forming a solidified 2" crust after around 2 hours. One of our intrepid gene-pool conveyors though intelligent, somewhat lacked pacience, and decided instead of walking around the 'train' of molten Chrome to reach the other side, he decided to hop-skip and jump to the otherside, attempting to do this with a one-foot-on-the-crust motion.... Needless to say, he DID indeed complete his mission, only leaving his foot, ankle down, and saftey boot nicley preserved within a 1400 deg celcius cooling-off ingot of chrome. There was obviously NO blood, the veins being severd clean by the intense heat. What intrigued me was his ultra resiliance, showing up for work two months later with crutches a bandaged stummpy and a strong urge to continue his work.... This is all true I tell ya. The Plant Is situated just outside of a town called Rustenburg in South Africa. The company, Xtrata Chrome Smelters. Furnace number three if my memory serves me correctly...

Submitted on 10/07/2009

Submitted by: Sherrif
Reference: Experiance- 2003

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
OUCH! If ever there was an anecdote for NOT cutting corners this is it. Thanks, Sherrif! If only you could find some verifiable news reports about this accident it would make for a perfect HM.

Shadow said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
As Bruce said a worthy personal acct!

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