This unfortunate event is the result of the same failure seen in nearly every industrial facility on the planet… a guarding interlock gets bypassed, and a worker pays an unimaginable price for the failure. Sometimes it’s the worker(s) who bypass the interlock, and other times they are the unknowing victim of the bypass. Here is an event from “down under” that we can ALL LEARN FROM!
Before proceeding with the event, please ensure that all safeguards intended to protect workers are audited or inspected on a regular schedule by competent personnel. I always used my Centralized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to list every interlock on machinery and my processes, and have at least an annual functional test. Some machines, where workers were exposed to hazards daily, received quarterly tests and inspections. Just last month, I did some work for a friend who is at a new facility and in just a simple walk-thru with maintenance and engineering we came across several significant issues regaring interlocks.
Here are a couple of these: