On January 27, 2022, a sawmill worker saw a splitting machine, usually used for splitting tree trunks 2 ma, bring his hand to a point.
What once looked like a hand shaking piano keys, rubbing a tired back or working on rough wood, now looks like a shapeless mass of flesh. We still see a few shortened fingers, twisted in a position we cannot explain: “She is swollen today. I delayed coming to see you and went to the emergency room instead. I told myself I had to be there,” said Éric* at the Cahors court bar, Thursday 14 November. His employer, the sawmill boss based in Payrignac, judged for “unintended injuries by a legal entity with incapacity for more than 3 months in the context of the work. »
“It’s like my hand is always burning”
It was on January 27, 2022 that this accident happened that could cost him his life. Éric works on this splitter that he knows he has been working on for several months. At that time, it is modified to accommodate tree trunks measuring 1.80 m and weighing between 80 and 120 kilos. But this last stock is a little bigger than the others.
To understand why this is a problem, consider that the stock is automatically transported on planks. At the end, according to detailed configuration, there is a type of slot that allows the bottom of the shaft to be positioned so that the split can do its job. Except that the stock, because it is larger than usual, makes this change too short. That’s how, without realizing it, Eric finds himself with his hand stuck between the ass of the stock and this holding device: “It’s like your hand is constantly burning, I remember it everything”, recounts the young man, who does not explain how his hand ends there.
His right hand is stuck, but it is also on his right that the machine’s emergency stop button is located. To reach it, he has to bend to the side so that his left hand reaches it. In panic, he presses the button located at the level of his right leg, which he usually holds above him to go as fast as possible with his actions, because the button is which turns on the machine. He keeps his foot on it for two seconds. But it is enough for him to hit the snorer’s saw on his hand: “He broke it.” »
A life ruined
Results: 14 months of ITT, 12 operations in two years. “Every six months, I go to the emergency room,” says Eric when his hand goes in for no reason. In addition to his hand, it is her life that is cut off : “I’ve always been hands-on. My hands were all my life. People tell me to be a salesman, but I’m not one. They tell me to work in an office, but I can’t do it,” he says in a desperate tone.
In this case, labor inspection blames the sawmill, which did not train Eric or respect safety rules by providing appropriate gloves, but only cloth gloves which, in other words, do not protect the nothing face The security protocol was not respected either. The staff who attended should have contacted the emergency services, but preferred to transport him to Gourdon hospital. “And the disclosure of the accident to the labor inspectors was not even by the company, but by the mother of the victim,” said Me Yassfy, who defends Éric.
“There is no trainer, it is a special machine,” he defends the head of the sawmill. “There has never been a problem in 14 years. It’s not because the training is not internal training in terms of the law,” confirms the defense lawyer, who recalls that Eric had been working on it for several months about early Regarding the gloves: “They could have been made of steel, it wouldn’t have changed anything. »
The decision was reserved for November 21.
2024-11-16 10:32:00
#hand #sawmill #work #accident #court
