FoodBanter.com - View Single Post - More evidence that pressure cookers are dangerous!

brooklyn1

On Mon, 27 Apr 2015 20:46:00 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

>On Monday, April 27, 2015 at 8:35:34 PM UTC-7, Travis McGee wrote:
>> Bumble Bee Foods, 2 others charged after employee died in pressure cooker
>>
>> An employee burned to death inside an industrial pressure cooker at the
>> Bumble Bee Foods plant in Santa Fe Springs in 2012.
>> By Matt Hamilton contact the reporter
>>
>> Bumble Bee Foods and two of the tuna company's employees were charged
>> Monday with willfully ignoring safety rules, leading to a plant worker
>> burning to death inside an industrial pressure cooker in 2012,
>> prosecutors said.
>>
>> The San Diego-based company, former safety manager Saul Florez, and
>> Angel Rodriguez, the director of plant operations, were each charged
>> with three felony counts of committing an occupational safety and health
>> violation that caused a death, according to the Los Angeles County
>> district attorney's office.
>>
>> On Oct. 11, 2012, Jose Melena, 62, entered a 35-foot oven at the
>> company's Santa Fe Springs plant to make a repair inside the machine,
>> which is used to sterilize thousands of cans of tuna at a time.
>>
>> Unaware that Melena was inside the oven, other plant workers loaded
>> several carts that altogether held about 12,000 pounds of tuna, shut the
>> door and turned on the oven, prosecutors said.
>>
>> Temperatures peaked at around 270 degrees, and Melena cooked to death,
>> prosecutors said. His charred remains were found by another plant worker.
>>
>> In a statement, the company said it disagrees with and is "disappointed
>> by the charges" filed by Los Angeles prosecutors. The company described
>> Melena's death as a "tragic accident" and noted that an investigation by
>> the California Division of Occupational Safety & Health "found no
>> willful violations related to the accident.
>>
>
>There should have been one key to turn the heat on to that pressure
>cooker, and it should have been in the repair guy's pocket (Lock-out).
>A metal sign hung on the switch should have said: REPAIRMAN WORKING
>INSIDE. Further, there should be a last minute check for repair personnel
>before turning on the juice.

Exactly! I've worked at more large manufacturing plants than I can
remember. Whenever work was being done on machinery it was the sole
responsibility of the mechanic doing the work to lock out power and
use lock chocks to secure moving parts that could move by gravity
(same as supposed to be done with a hydraulic auto garage lift, but no
one does, morons). That poor guy killed himself, no one else is
responsible. It happened at the O'Keefe & Meritt plant in CA when I
was working there, a guy was doing maintenence on a 500 ton deep draw
press used to form gas tank cylinders... it was night shift, in the
morning when the platen was exposed there was a baseball cap, all that
was left of him... he had the power locked out but didn't secure the
ram, it dropped on him.
>
>But it occurs to me the repair guy committed suicide, to get his family
>the insurance money.

I doubt that part, the poor putz was remiss... just like the AHole
DIYers who jack up their car to work underneath and don't use jack
stands. When I need to get under my tractor I have a pair of quality
6 ton jack stands, but I still don't trust them, I also place a couple
sections of railroad tie... only takes an extra 30 seconds.
Automaobiles come with a crappy lug wrench and a crappy jack, but no
jack stand... anyone who intends to change their own flat tire needs
to obtain at least one jack stand, and best to buy a decent lug wrench
and a decent jack, and toss those that came with the vehicle in the
trash, but first hack saw them so no one else can use that crap. It's
nutz, people drive a $50,000 vehicle and trust their life to a $5 Toys
R Us jack.