Incident Alert March 26, 2015

On March 26, 2015 a member of USW Local 10-0422 was seriously burned while performing maintenance work on a paper stock refiner of #1 paper machine at Appvion Inc. in Roaring Spring, PA.  A meeting was held between supervisors and their management days before the work was to be done. In the meeting, it was discussed that the only person that had knowledge of how to do this task was a contracted management person, and he was not to be at the mill on the day the work was to be done. Some of the supervisory personnel questioned if this work could wait until the knowledgeable person was in the mill to guide the crew. It was determined, by upper management, that the work would be done without this knowledgeable person being present, and the supervisors would guide the crew.             On March 26th at approximately 7:10 am, three untrained hourly employees received the work order to do the task of grinding the refiner with sand. None of the three had knowledge of any prior meetings and the discussions that took place. The hourly employees were provided an outdated and cumbersome procedure from 1963. A pre-work crew meeting was held at approximately 7:30 am with untrained supervision personnel and the assigned untrained hourly employees. The supervisors raised the question about timing of the work again and upper-management decided to proceed. The three untrained hourly employees proceeded to do the work as directed by the untrained supervisor.

At approximately 8:00 am they filled the refiner with sand and water through a branch valve between the refiner and the isolation valve and started the refiner. At approximately 9:00 am they were directed by the supervisor to go and preform their other work orders, as he thought it would take three hours for the sand grinding process. About an hour later another supervisor came by the refiner and opened the drain valve causing some sand and water discharge from the drain. This second supervisor then called the three hourly employees and told them they needed to refill the refiner with sand and water as he mistakenly opened the drain. They had to wait on more sand to be delivered to the mill. At approximately 10:50 am the sand arrived and the three hourly employees were going to attempt to refill the refiner. When they opened the branch valve between the refiner and the isolation valve, hot sand and water abruptly spewed out striking the victim on the left side upper torso area, causing server burns. He was transported to Altoona Hospital until March 27 when he was discharged and told to go to Pittsburgh Mercy Hospital.

Theresa Bryant, Emergency Response Team District 10 Coordinator will assist the family and Staff Steve Sallman, Health Safety & Environment will assist the local with the investigation.

 

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