Frank

Deadman walking
August 20, 2008

If the stuff that happens to me on a regular basis happened to a flesh-and-blood person, it wouldn’t be funny. In fact, few people could survive what I’ve been through in my career as a cartoon character. I'm stepping away from my role as comic relief to act as an intermediary. Let me tell you about the sad case of a real person. He called Modern to tell his story so you could prevent it from happening to someone really important to you.

This happened two years ago. Our friend was 33, and running the dock for a company that moved a lot of freight. He’d only been on the job for ten months. Before we proceed, a flashback:

His previous job was construction, and while at that job he became a substance abuser. We’ll spare you the details, but he lost that job, went into rehab, then got another job where he operated an electric forklift. He ran a supply line for a corrugated converting machine. He was given basic training on the forklift, and failed the operator test once before finally passing. He managed to stay out of trouble—for a while. Then his demons returned, and he left his job for further rehab.

Back to where we left off before the flashback. So he’s running dock operations for the company that’s moving lots of freight. This time he’s operating a propane truck. Never once did he take a training course. And you know that an electric forklift handles differently from a propane.

Our friend says he was given an operator checklist, but its use was never enforced. Neither was there a policy on who was allowed and not allowed to operate these forklifts. Truck drivers would sometimes jump on a forklift and “help out.” Our friend told us they were “burning rubber most of the day—and you smelled it.”

One day,  our friend was particularly busy and the dock bell rang. He backed up to the dock door, got off the forklift to open the door, and the forklift backed into him, pinning him against the dock wall.  He admits he didn’t engage the emergency brake. He was never trained in that procedure. He may even have accidentally put the truck in reverse while getting off.

The result: he spent nine days in a trauma center and after that went to a nursing home for 13 weeks where he learned to walk again. He had another surgery to treat avascular necrosis, a disease resulting from the temporary or permanent loss of the blood supply to the bones. Workers comp refused his claim because they said this was related to his history of substance abuse.

Our friend will never do our kind of work again. He’s now selling toys and novelty items over the phone to retailers. He wanted us to deliver to you and all the supervisors in our audience a lesson he learned all too painfully:

“Just slow down and think, and actually enforce some of these rules. It could save someon’e life—and save someone from taking a job they hate.”

One last thing—and this he said to us tearfully—he doesn’t understand why propane forklifts don’t have a deadman switch under the seat so that when an operator is not on the vehicle it will not operate. His lack of understanding is proof of his poor training—and an indictment of his former employer.

We asked trainer Jim Shephard to educate us all on this one. He says you don’t want to be in a position when you’re maneuvering a propane truck, your bodyweight shifts and it kills the engine. Disaster could follow, depending on your speed and your load. Shephard adds, however, our friend has a strong case to bring against that employer.

“OSHA states that the employer has to ensure that this operator is competent to operate the type of equipment called for—and in the specific environment. I’d hire me a lawyer.”

Fair warning for operators AND their employers!

Posted by Frank on August 20, 2008 | Comments (0)