Saving the boss

October 11, 2011

Photo credit: thepretenda's Big Truck Sequence on Flickr

Here’s another story from Petr, a former mechanic who once had a job changing tires of trucks stranded on the freeways of Quebec and Ontario. He was an apprentice to Tony, who was “very, very tough.”

Once they were called in the middle of the night to a huge transport vehicle stranded near Dorval Airport.

“It looked like a crippled yellow dinosaur, kneeling by a small curb. To lift anything of that magnitude and get the wheels off, you need two jacks,” Petr explained. “You stack up large pieces of flat wood under the other jack and alternate until you have that sucker about two feet high.”

“Truckasaurus” comes down

Tony was under the rear axle, half-way through the lift, when the vehicle began to shake. Luckily Petr was paying attention.

Photo credit: gbergin on Flickr

“The wind was blowing pretty hard from the airport, and the dinosaur started rocking. I threw down the next two wooden blocks and shouted. All I could think to say was: ‘Tony, come out, it’s shaking!’

“I was tugging at his snow gear. He was on his left side when truckasaurus came down. It flexed the planks stuffed under the axle to keep it from going all the way to the ground, but Tony was still on his side. As soon as it bounced back up, he kind of flopped onto his back, and the monster rested with about half an inch to clear his chest. I pulled him out by his parka that was snagged on the big yellow axle,” Petr said.

Photo credit: Tom Lee KelSo on Flickr

“Tony was one of those guys who took six arrows in old Westerns – and he really was that tough. He didn’t die. He just got tougher and meaner. But that night, he went home and I had to drive his massive red truck because he couldn’t turn the wheel.”

A similar tale

Luckily Tony was relatively unhurt compared to this WorkSafeBC Hazard Alert that describes how a worker suffered a broken pelvis and tailbone after being crushed under heavy mining equipment.

Thanks again to Petr for sharing his story. If you have a story to share about safety in the workplace, please email me.

Truckers falling from own cabs

June 09, 2011

What's your impact? Simulations of force on your body when you leave and enter a truck cab

Most people probably think truckers’ greatest safety risk is being in a collision. It isn’t. The most likely way truckers are injured on the job is by falling out of their cabs or off their trailers.

To show the impact of these falls, the Trucking Safety Council of BC has a new resource on its website. Determine Your Impact Force is a simulation that shows what type of force you will experience based on your body weight when you fall from certain heights.

For example, I enter my weight and see that if I jump down from the second level step, I’m taking an impact equivalent to the collision force a linebacker feels tackling a fullback. Ouch. That would hurt if I landed on my feet, and who knows what would happen if I landed on some other body part.

For curiosity’s sake, I enter 250 pounds to see how much greater the impact would be. A person of that weight could break their skull falling from the second level step – so stepping carefully is a very good idea!

“Fortunately, injuries can be prevented by taking the time to enter and exit safely and correctly,” reads the Trucking Council website, offering lots of tips and links to more information on safety in that industry.

Here’s an especially good tip for anyone getting in or out of any kind of vehicle: “…your focus should be on entry/exit movement – distraction by cell phone use, holding a coffee cup, or paperwork greatly increases the risks of losing your balance and getting injured.”

Try the simulation and see what would happen to you. Then be careful.

Logging roads the right way

April 12, 2011

The highest peaks of the Bella Coola Spires, photo credit: Drew Brayshaw on Flickr

A video clip from WorkSafeBC got me thinking about my own experiences travelling on BC’s logging roads.

Once I went camping with some friends outside Bella Coola, in a beautiful spot, up a logging road – also known as a “resource road,” used by industry. The mountains, water, forest, and fresh air were amazing, but when a fully loaded logging truck thundered by, I got pretty worried.

My companions, who were from the area, insisted it was safe. We had already braved the narrow switchback roads through the Chilcotin Mountains driving from Vancouver to Bella Coola in my Ford pickup. One of my friends took over the driving after Williams Lake – all downhill, through the peaks, into the valley that led to their town. When he pretended to lose control of the brakes, my heart skipped a few beats. Read more