Safety body Build Safe UAE (BSU) has posted a safety alert bulletin about correct working practices, following a fatal incident involving a worker who became entangled in a cement mixer truck.
The accident happened when the victim, an unnamed tyre-fitter, was asked to clean inside the hopper of the truck-mounted machine, prior to loading the trial batch of concrete to be used later in the day.
As the worker climbed the ladder to gain access to the hopper, the drum was still rotating. Although he was wearing a standard overall, the sleeves were quite a loose fit and his cuff became tangled between the rotating drum and the hopper. He was pulled towards the moving blade inside the drum, causing terrible injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
After logging the accident, BSU reported that the root cause was a ‘failure of management’ stating that ‘the fact that a tyre fitter had been told to work on the moving parts indicates a failure on the part of the management to ensure the work was done by a competent person’.
In addition to the root causes, BSU also published a list of remedial measures that have been recommended on all types of machinery used on that site in Dubai, the location of which has not been released. The list included carrying out a full and suitable risk assessment prior to all work on machinery, and that powered machinery must be isolated before cleaning or maintenance, while emergency kill switches should be clearly indicated.
Elias McGrath, BSU secretary, commenting on the bulletin, stressed that the chain of events were unusual, adding: “It just shows how entanglement can result in fatality. All it took was his loose clothing to be tangled in the machinery. With those overalls, you can’t just rip the clothing off as the material is incredibly strong.”
He added that the health and safety breaches must serve as a warning to the industry. “The machine was operating when the incident happened, which is a huge failure in supervision,” he said. “Machines [that are] running while trying to maintain or clean them is a huge no.”
“It just shows the breakdown in training, management and supervision which resulted in death. There was nothing right about this scenario” he said.