Forklift accident

[Woodward_Dreams]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjOvI0TOx98

[Junk Whisperer]

Re: Forklift accident

Cleanup in Aisle two ;D. ~J/W.

[Schtauffer]

Re: Forklift accident

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TcZPqdP85o&feature=related

[pdub]

Re: Forklift accident

Being a training coordinator, that is WHY we road check new hires on the lift truck and WATCH them during the process. I came upon one new employee (a college youngster) who simply couldn't back up. She had to have lived in a house with a circular driveway, because she could NOT drive backward and know which way to turn the steering wheel.

We can't tell exactly WHAT happened in the video, but the lift accelerated abruptly after just getting started, so I'm thinking inexperienced operator error all the way around. At least by the looks of it.

[pdub]

Re: Forklift accident

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TcZPqdP85o&feature=related

Okay, now I'm having nightmares and I'm wide awake.

[Huskinhano]

Re: Forklift accident

Hhhhmmm, vodka warehouse I see.

I think of the stuff I use to do on forktrucks : Like having an improvised track in the shop for races and to see how far up on 2 wheels we could get them. Ah, the good old days.

[pdub]

Re: Forklift accident

I found the envelope on one. It's what happens if you're not warned enough to start with. Ohh I'm good at this now, I can go fast! Classic setup - making a heavy lift and a 90-degree turn at the same time - the thing leaned over on two wheels, balanced, hung there for about a year, and then set back down on the wheels-WHAM!

And those were the days before seat belts. I have no idea at that age and wisdom I would have done if it went the rest of the way over, you know what I mean, what I would have done when it was falling. Because that's life or death, and luck and intertia and balance and everything.

[DanStokes]

Re: Forklift accident

As I mentioned on here before, EPA put us thru "industrial truck" (as they are called in the industry) training yearly. The worst I ever did was prang a doorway, which was easy to do. We had to bring our engines into the test cell from a pedestrian walkway (maybe 8 feet wide) thru a double door about 6' wide. The building layout sucks.

Anyhow, those shipping dock accidents are horrible. Another common failure is going thru the floor of a semi trailer. We were trained to walk into the trailer and look underneath for problems before we ever entered a trailer w/truck. Not a guarantee but at least it improves your chances. There's so much people just don't think about unless trained. Most aren't.

PeeWee - Clark offers these classes - maybe Hyster and others. I have no idea of the cost but maybe it would help you sleep at night.

Dan

[TheSilverBuick]

Re: Forklift accident

Man that second video has some brutal incidents in it :o

The funniest one I'd ever seen in person was when an Auto Accesory shop was getting ready to open in a new strip mall like area (Chad how would you describe the area built up to the northwest of 15fwy and Jurupa exit? anyways), someone drove a warehouse type forklift into the freshly laid down sod, lmao, the thing settled in and was stuck there with a few guys scratching there heads standing around it.

Occassionally we'd get a warehouse wheeled small forklift stuck in our gravel parking lots right after we re-gravel them. Then we send out the Yale (big forklift) to pick it up and carry it back.

Last year we had a guy driving a Yale down into the pit and clicked it into neutral and pretty soon had it going too fast to stop (10%-12% grade), he ended up jumping off it before it slammed into a berm. He was checked out at the hostpital and then rightfully fired.

[studemax]

Re: Forklift accident

So far all the talk is about the forklift and driver, but it is obvious to me that all the racks were seriously overloaded with product. There is no way the second rack should have fallen down if loaded within the engineering limits. This was an accident waiting to happen before the drivers arrived for their shift.

[pdub]

Re: Forklift accident

Dan, we have a "program," such as it is. I used to run it myself at another mill, but now it's done by some other folks locally. I knw for a fact it's more than OSHA compliant (which by itself is a vague shot in the dark). What happened to me was was back then and because there was NO training - get on it and figure it out. No wonder so many operators and others bought the farm. That is a dadgummed dangerous piece of equipment, and it doesn't seem so when you forst get on it.

Back when I was the site trainer we hired a guy who produced a genuine Hyster Train-theTrainer-Operator-Trainer License with the Hyster logo on it out of Charlotte. I told him, "I'm sorry, and this is going to insult you, but that's no good here. I need you to take the test and then watch you operate the truck." He did, and we went on.

The near-tipover thing for me was early-on. Okay this thing WILL turn over, now I know. The closest I ever came to getting killed on the lift came years later. I mean close, near-miss incident, can't get closer to a fatality (me).

Hugo the Hurricane came through SC all those years ago and tore the roof vent off of the dock way down by the truck doors. Ya know the round-shaped things that are like a rat-trap fan that people put on their roofs to ventilate the attic? We had a big one on the roof of the dock. Hugo blew it away and it wasn't replaced, months afterward. So when it rained, it made a puddle on the dock. We tried and cried to get it fixed (because water on the floor ruins rolls of paper, no matter the safety concerns), to no avail.

One night my shift came in on 3rd. The paper machine was down, so we sat around and goofed off until about 2:00 a.m., waiting on paper. We got some coming so here we go. I picked up the first roll of paper off of the line with the clamp truck and hauled ass down the dock. While we were sitting around camping, it had rained. I wan't raining when we came into work. The puddle at the very end of the dock was there.

With a 55-inch roll of paper carried on end (standing up, not rolling around on the floor - that's "bilge"), you cant see very far ahead of yourself on the clamp truck. The dock was empty, it was time to start a whole new week's worth of storage. Nothing but open concrete.

I was going as far down the dock as you can go to set the very first roll down to start the new storage pattern, beside the railroad tracks. I approached the corner by the railroad tracks and let off of the gas and tapped on the brakes to get slowed down. Nothing happened. I had just driven through that rain puddle and I never saw it or even suspected it was there.

Brakes don't work. I'm sliding straight forward toward the tracks (about a 4-foot drop, and there's a boxcar spotted there, and I'm going to get impaled on the railcar's coupling knuckle with the 45-degree angle I have).

I ain't stopping. I can't. If anybody says you see your whole life before your eyes, that's not what I experienced. It was a vivid thought of, "I'm going down in the tracks on this truck" That's all it was, it was happening so fast.

There was big wooden crate full of wooden chocks staged at the very last corner of the dock that we used to hold the paper rolls in truck shipments that were sent on "bilge," that is, the customer can roll the rolls out of the trailer if they don't have a clamp truck themselves to haul the rolls with. I'm pushing the wooden box with the roll of paper on the clamp truck and the chock box disappeared, falling down into the tracks. I'm still going.

I used the hydraulics to set the roll in the clamps down hard on the floor, so now the truck is grinding the roll on the concrete. Still doesn't feel like I'm slowing down so I used the Monotrol pedal on the Hyster to go full reverse, spinning the front wheels backward.

Didn't stop, didn't stop, didn't stop until the rearward-spinning left front wheel hit the 8 inches of non-skid paint at the threshold of the railroad tracks. I would have probably tilted forward down into the tracks at that, if I had not already had the roll of paper grinding on the floor trying to use it as brakes. Almost all of the roll was out over the tracks.

If you can picture any of that.

[HoosierGTA]

Re: Forklift accident

I say funnycar cages for all forktrucks now ! that one with the guy doing those doughnuts on the pallet mule was insane !! Wonder if he couldn't slow it back down?

[pdub]

Re: Forklift accident

I say funnycar cages for all forktrucks now ! that one with the guy doing those doughnuts on the pallet mule was insane !! Wonder if he couldn't slow it back down?

Well, the overhead cage has saved a lot of lives.

There's an art and a science to working on a dock with a lift, and if there's more than one of you, you have to make a plan. I'm going to be doing this, and you go do that, and if you have to come into my area, BLOW THE HORN on the truck!

Not everybody's so smart. I mean operators. This one , uhhhhh, woulda been a Darwin Award Winner except for the overhead cage backed into my load when I was parked and studying something. I had three rolls in the clamps, a pretty tall stack. Not a big impact really, but THUMP - The topmost roll in my load flipped right off of the stack and landed perfectly on his overhead cage, directly over his head on his lift - WHUMP. and there it was - all 900 pounds of it.

The top cage held. It busted the flashing light on the top cage of his truck. The garage mechanic was so pissed off about having to fix it, he said we should take the top cages off of the trucks. But that's another matter.

[FoFittyFoSS]

Re: Forklift accident

Hey Peewee, I noticed you said hurricane Hugo. This paper mill didn't happen to be in Georgetown did it?

[dieselgeek]

Re: Forklift accident

peewee's stories reminds me of mt 2-year stint at Spectre. Since the dyno shared space with the warehouse, for some reason the HR lady mandated that we all needed to be proficient on the forklifts...

so the warehouse manager put a training course together.


Me and Chad and Shaun went through "training" together. Chad had to wear real shoes. It was all quite entertaining. in the end, the warehouse "trainer" picked Chad for the most difficult challenge, which he passed with flying colors and the usual comedy routine. Those were definitely the days!! haha