At 10:35 a.m. on December 2, 2024, Employee #1, 18, was performing maintenance on a sensor inside a robotic enclosure. As he entered the area, the robot was stopped by the entrance sensors. While he was cleaning the sensor, a coworker reset the machine from the control panel, unaware that Employee #1 was still inside…...
At 11:00 a.m. on June 7, 2024, an employee, 50, working as a machinery maintenance technician for a frozen food manufacturer, was troubleshooting a ring remover since food trays were getting stuck. The employee bypassed the magnetic safety interlock gates and crawled underneath the conveyor. A coworker, the machine operator, was not aware that the…...
This stunt has to be one of the riskiest I have seen in my 30+ years in Process Safety. They knew it was a live line, but why it was live is anyone’s guess. It looks as if this may be a “Demolition” job without a pump down, or maybe the plant was just down…...
On October 21, 2015, two mechanical technicians were involved in an incident while attempting to remove a blind flange from supply piping on a Magnet Cooling Water (MCW) System. The mechanical technicians were assisting a welder in obtaining final measurements to make the final connections from the MCW system to a new Cell 14 cryostat…...
Some industries’ RAGAGEPs will call out the risk of using a butterfly valve as an energy isolation device due to its propensity to “leak by”. In this incident, the valve catastrophically failed, releasing NH3, resulting in a worker and a contractor being hospitalized. I do not know if the valve was locked out, but that…...
On March 5, 2025, at 10:55 a.m., a welder, 57, with over seven (7) years of mining experience, died when he became entangled in a belt conveyor tail roller. The accident occurred because the mine operator did not de-energize and block the No. 12 belt conveyor against hazardous motion. GENERAL INFORMATION The mine is a…...
Recently, we had the never-ending debate about locking out valves being used as energy isolation devices. Somewhere/Sometime ago, a vicious rumor/practice found some legs, and we began seeing the practice during our audits. The unsafe and non-OSHA-compliant practice of disconnecting the power source from a Fail-Safe Closed valve and locking out the valve’s power source…...
I have debated this many times and finally just gave up on the industry to do the right thing. And yes, there is a line item in NFPA 350, that I have requested the NFPA to address. But for me, in all my years, we would evacuate the NH3 from the condenser coils and lock…...
A 25,000-gallon tank used to store nitrogen or carbon dioxide at 250 psig needed maintenance that required the removal of a four-foot diameter, 500 lb manhole cover. The tank was evacuated to 0 psig using the manually operated relief valve. Once the workers no longer heard air flowing through the valve, they released the stick…...
1910.147 says the following regarding contractors performing LOTO inside our facilities: 1910.147(f)(2)(i)Whenever outside servicing personnel are to be engaged in activities covered by the scope and application of this standard, the on-site employer and the outside employer shall inform each other of their respective lockout or tagout procedures.1910.147(f)(2)(ii)The on-site employer shall ensure that his/her employees…...
Several clients design Double Block and Bleed (DB&B) isolation into their process, especially when they know they will regularly enter certain Permit-Required Confined Spaces (PRCS). When these DB&B arrangements are part of the design, the isolation valves and the bleed valve are near one another. This allows us to use a single lock with some…...
We often encounter an organization that conducts LOTO training annually. They do this because they believe OSHA requires annual LOTO training. However, the standard, 1910.147, does NOT require annual training! The standard requires each authorized employee to be “inspected” annually. If they fail that inspection, the standard requires the authorized employee to be re-trained. OSHA…...
