Red Hook: Keg Accident Findings

Really sorry to hear about something like this. I'm a construction worker, and we're put in dangerous situations everyday. Some of the responsibility for our safety is on us, and some is on the company we work for, but OSHA has fined the shit out of this company for not using the right technique to clean a type of keg they weren't supposed have in the first place?

So even if the family decided not to sue, the company would already be out $63,500. The family should be the ones getting reparations, not the federal government. Sounds like kicking a company when they're down.

 

The max working pressure of steel kegs is 60 psi, but that is based on a tested burst pressure of 600 psi, so there is a much greater margin of safety with steel kegs.

 

you've answered your own question: osha (going by the book) would say that the worker should not have proceeded with an unfamiliar keg, without a specific company-approved procedure for it. the real showstopper is that there was no blow-off valve on a compressed air system, it's like building a car without brakes. i'm no lawyer, but i'd want to call it criminal negligence.

that $63K is chump change, whether paid by the brewery or their insurance company.

 

How can you have any kind of pressurized system and not have a regulator... my $10 tire pump has one.

 

$63,000 is not chump change. It's that mentality about businesses and insurance companies that's ruining this country. Every decision businesses make these days is based on their insurance instead of logic, common sense, and/or safety because they're so worried about getting sued.

 

This is true. There is a 10X safety factor on the steel sanke kegs, but not on the plastic kegs.

 

Ruining this country? Is there somewhere deeper your animosity toward OSHA is coming from? It only takes a casual glance at historical trends of workplace death and accidents to conclude OSHA is an American success story. Sure, there is always room for improvement, but by no means are their regulations and fines "ruining" this country.

 

but I was told in an unregulated market people will do what their supposed to do with greatest concern for others in mind...

 

i have 5 separate OSHA training certs and spend my days around heavy equipment and varying amounts of toxic chemicals. having been through too many safety trainings to count and knowing the OSHA way, i think i can point out with confidence that Redhook has made an obvious error. this was a prevetable fatality and really not even a difficult safety issue to address. the fact that someone died at work is enough to conclude a mistake was made. the direct cause, while perhaps not willful, was essentially due to a basic safety mistake. i am not an industrial hygenist, but incident does not look too complex.

Redhook is on record stating "The brewery believes it was operating safely because it has historically washed and filled only stainless steel beer kegs without incident. Redhook had never worked with plastic beer kegs at the time of the accident and has implemented policies to ensure that plastic kegs are not processed."

so they are basically saying "we have been doing it wrong for a while and nothing bad happened, therefore we thought it was safe".

they also state they "never worked with plastic beer kegs". never is definite, and their spokeperson
hopefully is being 100% accurate here. it is reasonable to say that if brewery management had never seen a plastic keg they were working in good faith. but i suspect that this is not the first time a plastic keg has been accidently placed in the the cleaning stream. remember, this is not some ma and pa outfit. they no doubt have some high paid IT consultants, marketing people, logistics and purchasing expertise. along with the brewers, a factory (aka brewery) needs a safety consultant.

as for those that have some unfounded notion that OSHA is out of control (it isn't, and people who have that idea are invariably arm chair quarterbacks who aren't working hazardous jobs) let's assume that this gentleman would be alive today if OSHA inspectors had been given more authorization, more resources and more enforcement strength. that is a fact.
OSHA found a few other violations, and the fallout from this incident is probably going to effect every brewery and likely mean the end of plastic kegs as we know them. PKA just saw their insurance premiums go from expensive to un-available.

 

My argument really had nothing to do with OSHA. It was the whole, "X amount of money is chump change because insurance will pay it." $63,000 is probably two employees yearly salary, not chump change.

 

I appreciate your knowledge, and I hesitate to clip your post like this; however, this sentence really bothers me. It would get you eliminated from a jury pool in a split second, too. Blanket statements like this are far too premature without additional fact-gathering. Accidents can happen that weren't truly "mistakes," and I'm troubled to think that an OSHA official would automatically assume the employer made a mistake.

 

Not really a story to be arguing over. Someone died that shouldnt have due to a failure to follow protocols and warnings by multiple parties. I wish KFM was here to comment as his post on the situation was very well out together. Truly a sad story and a situation that shouldn't have occurred. My deepest sympathies go out to Ben's family.

 

Tell that to OSHA and the poor guys family. I work offshore in the Gulf of Mexico for major oil companies. The mantra is everybody gets home safe, and the same way they got offshore. If that did not happen, then we did not do our job in identifying hazards and problems that are threatening. I know it sounds corny, but safety is a culture and way of life in the work force. That is what OSHA is trying to accomplish. This was such an easy problem to fix, and this accident should not have happened.

 

I'm not at all criticizing his assessment of this particular situation; he surely knows far better than I do. But as someone with a legal background, the idea of assumed guilt/liability merely because there was bad outcome troubles me.

 

With respect to you, but screw lawyers. If Redhook is worried about lawyers and blame, shame on them (not saying they are, I am sure this is very difficult for them). Someone that works for them died because they did not understand the risks going on with the job. That is on Redhook for not training employes correctly to identify hazards with the job (pressure regulator, equipment that is not theirs). That is what OSHA is saying, and why they are sending a message.

 

I think you may be missing my point, but I'm not sure how I can be more clear. Either way, a terrible and unfortunate tragedy, and I hope others learn from what happened there.

 

I think you missed my point as well. I am looking at it from an employe and work site perspective, you are looking at it from a different perspective. No harm. Maybe this can clear up my thoughts. If I was doing something similar offshore (which I do), and an incident like this happened, but nobody got hurt. I would either be fired or severely reprimanded for not performing a JSA (Job Safety Analysis) or stopping the job.