11 Comments on Michigan Postal worker killed after getting stuck in mail handling machine

  9. “Inquiries are underway to determine whether safety protocols were followed and if any mechanical or procedural failures contributed to the incident.”

    …as a long term factory electrician, if the man can go missing for 6 hours and only found when his girl complains, I can assure you they were NOT.

    First, NO ONE should be in a factory ALONE. Even if you have different duties at least you can check up on each other and a cry for help may be heard.

    Second, presumedly you are not there for love of the game, but to get PAID. Your BOSS damn well should know where youre supposed to be, what youre supposed to be doing, and when youre supposed to LEAVE…and, crucially, know if you DIDNT leave and come see WHY if you DONT.

    Its no guarentee, of course, but its better than nothing…

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  11. …I do feel I need to add a postscript here, even though it does demonstrate that it is possible to die even in company and makes me look stupid besides.

    Because by all rights, I should not be here to type this.

    …last weekend the plant was down but I had many work orders to do, little time to do them in, no help, and was time strapped by a pending great-nephew’s birthday party that afternoon, and had the planner subbing for the boss who is a giant jerk running the show besides.

    Still, I could make it work, if there were no problems.

    Which of course meant I had problems, with a drive failing in a major piece of Production equipment that had to run Monday morning so hard that it blew 3 20 amp, 480 volt line fuses.

    There was one other guy in the plant but he was in another area doing other things, and my jerk supervisor grudgingly got me the drive after spazzing for a bit, then retiring to his office leaving me alone with the part and the panel.

    I have worked in this panel many, MANY times before since it was installed in 2005, adding my own upgrades and devices to it, so I was VERY familiar with it.

    Strike #1 – Complacency kills.

    …This was the sort of job I had done a hundred times before, swapping out failed 480 drives and parameterizing them, so well withing my capabilities.

    Strike #2 – Familiarity Breeds Contempt.

    …I was ALSO rushing to get ‘er done, lest I raise manager ire by not getting my OTHER work done, and Spousel irritation by being late for GN’s 3rd birthday.

    Strike #3 – Haste Makes Death.

    …soo, out?

    Lets see…

    …I left the 3 gang circuit breaker tripped and the panel was dead at the drive due to the blown main fuses, so I was able to change out the downstream drive with little issue other than having to lay my sexagenarian ass along the concrete floor to access the wiring along its tender underside, because panel designers are jerks. That went well enough, so time to power up to be able to program.

    Flipped the breakers up. Fuses still dead.

    So I go to pull the fuses.

    …one ittty-bitty, teeny-tiny problem.

    I NEVER TURNED THE DISCONNECT HANDLE.

    …so I put my hand on a fuse with my OTHER hand on the metal cabinet door (something ELSE electricians are NOT supposed to do), and when ring finger complete with gold wedding ring made (fortunately slight) contact with the CHARGED side of the fuse (no fuse puller, ALSO due to haste and complacency), I was then treated to the very clear sensation of a 277 (single leg) shock up one arm, across my back, and down the other, hard enough to force a grunt and push me off, as high voltage tends to do.

    Wow.

    Time to take stock.

    …well, still here, so theres that. Holes in the hands? No. Thats lucky. Did I pass out or fall down? No, thats lucky too. Heart doing anything weird? Nope, though by rights it should be STOPPED.

    But God watches out for fools and small children, the first obviously being MY catagory, and I can only give Him the glory that it passed through my BACK from arm-to-arm (I felt it VERY clearly), and not my FRONT, where a half-amp across the heart would be MORE than enough to kill me.

    I certainly DESERVED it. I had not followed basic saftey protocols, got in a hurry, and took things for granted that REQUIRE caution, and death was a well-earned reward.

    But the same God that had His Son take the death I deserved for my sins passed death around me instead of through me once more.

    It was simply not my time.

    And that was HIS decision, not anything I was worthy of.

    So here I am to tell the tale and make sense of why He spared me yet again.

    And I say that “again” advisedly, with a list of times I SHOULD have died too long to go into, from ice-hopping in a (semi) frozen lake as a child to youthful drinking experiments to a period I seemed to be actively trying to kill myself, along with years spent on the roofs of burning buildings with an axe and having sick babies vomit in my mouth, to leaning to weld with flames on cars and plasma cut on machines, I have rarely put my own safety at the top of the list, and I have know others that have been incautious too.

    Some who now are missing fingers.
    Others who are missing seeing their children grow up.

    …so having folks in the plant with you is no guarentee of safety, because there ARE no guarentees. We have some nice AEDs in my plant, I just PERSONALLY swapped their batteries and updated their pads last month, but had I collapsed into a silent heap behind a stack of food trays, it wasnt going to magically leap off a wall 2 hallways away and shock me back to life out of gratitude, but at least with others there I may have been found before my corpse cooled too much.

    Certainly before my wife started wondering why I was 8 hours late to a kid’s birthday party.

    …So all I can say is dont EVER take your personal safety, on the job or off it, for granted.

    As the man in this article likely did.

    And as I did.

    HIS outcome is MUCH more typical than mine.

    Never take it for granted that when you LEAVE for work, you’ll be home later.

    Because you dont know that. Not for sure.

    …and whatever ELSE you take for granted, dont take GOD for granted.

    Because you may just have a meeting pending with Him.

    MUCH sooner than you THINK…

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