The report on work accidents was illustrated with frightening examples at the open day in Szolnok

In Hungary, in 2012, the government declared April 28 as the day of remembrance for workers who died and became disabled in accidents at work. On the occasion of this important day, the Department of Employment, Employment Supervision and Labor Protection of the county government office held a commemoration in the building of the Szolnok District Office on Wednesday, combined with professional presentations.

At the event, Dr. After the welcome of the Grand Master Attila Berkó, professional lectures were given.

The most instructive of these was undoubtedly the report on last year’s occupational accident situation, with a detailed description of three serious accidents.

Not all cases are reported to the authorities

It has been said that in the last two years, a decrease can be observed both nationally and at the county level in the number of work accidents resulting in incapacity for work exceeding three working days. However, the speaker, Head of Department József Imre, also drew attention to the fact that not all cases are reported to the authorities, and due to the processing time of work accident reports, some cases only appear in the statistics for the following year. In the case of fatal work accidents, however, the difference can be as much as 30 percent due to the longer processing time.

There were actually 2 cases of severe amputation work accidents, but only 1 case is listed in last year’s statistics.

Last year, the number of other serious work accidents was 5, but 3 were not immediately reported to the authorities. Two cases were investigated on the basis of a work accident report, and one case was investigated due to a complaint, but all three took place in 2022.

A shredder caused a horrific accident

One of the cases described in detail was a severe amputation work accident. The interesting thing about the story is that the employer did not admit the fact of employment during the procedure, but it could be clearly established based on the available data and testimonies. In the days before the accident, the employer asked for help from a person with a chipper to chop the tree branches collected on the site. On the day of the accident, the person appeared with a tractor, attached to it the shredder, and started chopping. The employer agreed with Romanian seasonal workers to chop the wood at an hourly rate; two of them fed the wood, and two of them packed the resulting chips onto a trailer with hand tools. Based on the employer’s instructions, the later injured person fed the twigs by hand in the upper part of the chopper, but the chopper suddenly caught his arm and severed him above the elbow. The victim’s family provided first aid until the ambulance arrived, and the employer kicked them out of the property, stating that the accident was their problem…

The tragedy happened because of a tilted support stand

There was also a particularly unfortunate fatal work accident where the employer’s only employee was his childhood best friend. At the hardware store workplace, the fiber materials were kept in a closed space on storage racks with double-sided arms. As the traffic increased, they bought another storage unit, the originally one-sided stand with arms was converted into a double-sided one, with support arms welded on, but the base beam was no longer formed on the other side. They held 2 and 3 tons of goods on both sides. On the day of the accident, the employee was manually loading 6-meter flat steel with the help of a customer he knew. During its placement, the storage rack tipped over and crushed the worker who was between the racks, who was tried to be freed with a hoist, but died on the spot as a result of his injuries.

He tried to take his foot off the pedal, but couldn’t

In the third case, the later injured person’s job in a cutting plant was the production of drum disc parts. Before he started, his colleague working as a machine adjuster installed a new tool. After the adjustment, he produced some products, showing the employee how to operate the machine. The raw material had to be inserted by hand, the machine was operated with a foot pedal, waste plates and finished workpieces were removed from the tools by hand, but they had no auxiliary equipment for this. If the worker took his foot off the foot pedal, the machine stopped in the given position. The employee made nearly ninety products, then during one of the operations he reached in for the finished part, according to what he said, he wanted to take his foot off the pedal, but he couldn’t, his foot got stuck, so the machine started another operation, and all three fingers on his hand, and one of them amputated the last minute of his finger.

All three accidents could have been prevented by following the rules, which the speaker explained in detail.