- 5
- 14
I didn't see a lot of information on this online, so I figured I'd share the story here. None of this writing is my own.
Industrial diver Alex Reed Paxton plunged into the bowels of Columbus' Lake Oliver Dam on Oct. 27, 2020, and never got out alive.
As he descended into the water along a floodgate chain looking for damage, his left arm was sucked into a high-pressure pipe, its valve inadvertently left open, and the suction's crushing power suffocated him.
Pinned by 850 pounds of pressure, the 31-year-old lost consciousness, and died in minutes. His body did not come free until workers found the valve control and released it, about 30 minutes later.
The 10-inch opening to the pipe that snagged Paxton's arm pulled water from a vertical space within the dam, called the headworks, where Lake Oliver's backwater flows through when the chain pulls open the dam's metal headgate.
The pipe, called a priming pipe, feeds water to what's called the penstock, another pipe about 20 feet in diameter, which at high velocity sends water to the turbines to generate electricity.
Opening the headgate to power those turbines first requires “priming” or “watering up” the penstock, Butler said. That requires opening valves to fill the penstock with lakewater.
Before a diver descends into the headworks where Alex Paxton was working, all valves controlling the flow to the penstock have to be closed, otherwise the differential pressure can trap the diver.
Georgia Power through its lockout-tagout safety checklist was supposed to have closed two valves where Paxton was inspecting the gate chain.
One penstock valve was a flapper, like the kind used in a bathroom toilet, and the other one was a gate valve controlled by a wheel, like on a water spigot.
First filed in Muscogee State Court in March 2022, before being moved to the federal level, the lawsuit accused Georgia Power not only of failing to close both valves, but of neglecting to note the gate valve even existed, on safety forms used at the time.
The utility showed the dive team from Glenn Industrial Group of Charlotte, N.C., a lockout-tagout list that didn't have that valve on it.
The flapper valve was noted on the form, and it was closed during the tag-out safety protocol.
The wheel controlling the other valve was behind a locked gate only Georgia Power staff had access to, the lawsuit said. That's what took so long to free Paxton.
Georgia Power since 2018 had contracted with Glenn Industrial for maintenance work on the dam.
In depositions taken for the lawsuit, witnesses said the company had a safety meeting with Glenn Industrial on May 27, 2020, when the gate valve was shown to the dive team.
Records showed Georgia Power broke the headgate gate chain to its Unit 2 turbine on Oct. 21, 2020, a week before Paxton's death.
With no mention on the tag out form, the gate valve noted during the May safety meeting still was overlooked five months later, when Paxton made his dive.
Georgia Power later corrected that oversight.
- 10
- 34
I first was gonna skip over this video because it was short. But after my second watch I saw the retard fucking standing on the load.
Lots of stupidity in this video. Slomo added
- 15
- 35
On the afternoon of May 3, Wang Moumou, deputy director of the hydrogenation workshop, arranged the operation of the No. 1 hydrogenation reactor. At 13:41, the manhole of No. 1 hydrogenator was opened. Wang then gradually opened the vacuum valve on the kettle three times, causing a large amount of air to be sucked into the No. 1 hydrogenation reactor to form an explosive mixed gas with the ethanol vapor in the kettle. Then Wang Mou went to the mouth of the kettle, and rinsed the paddles of the No. 1 hydrogenator and the residual catalyst on the wall. During the rinsing process, the No. 1 hydrogenation kettle flashed, and Wang Moumou was "bumped" by the explosion shock wave.
Wang Moumou violated the regulations. In the state where the manhole of No. 1 hydrogenator was opened, it was not filled with nitrogen gas protection, but the vacuum pump was turned on, causing a large amount of air to be sucked into the reaction vessel to form an explosive mixed gas with ethanol vapor, and the catalyst Raney nickel was exposed to air. Spontaneous combustion, causing flash explosion, is the direct cause of the accident.
- 7
- 35
Thane (Maharashtra), Dec 21 (PTI) A 28-year-old worker was killed and two others injured in a blast while checking an air pressure control valve at an industrial unit in Maharashtra's Thane district. The police gave this information on Wednesday.
The incident took place late on Tuesday night at the unit located in Ambernath town, where industrial valves are made, they said.
On Wednesday, a video surfaced on the social media platform purportedly showing other employees running away amid the commotion after the incident.
An official of Shivaji Nagar police station said that the victim has been identified as Shrikant Kadam. He was testing the pressure control valve by blowing air into it, when it exploded and its cover fell on him, trapping him under it.
- 15
- 16
- 9
- 26
Top Poster of the Day:
Boydicker
Deaths Today: 0
Current Registered Users: 2,029,007
BROWSE EFFORTPOSTS
SITE GUIDE
PING GROUPS
Industrial
Deaths that OSHA wish they could have prevented. Here you will find many deaths by machine, but also people falling in furnaces, getting run over by forklifts, and more!
Slavshit
Sandshit
