By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
JEFFERSON — Students in the Ashtabula County Joint Vocational School’s skilled trades classes heard from Cristal Global safety professionals last week.
Russ Wagner, a lab technician; Dan Hotaling, maintenance mechanic; Pete Nakoski, chief of the SHEBA (Show How Everyone Beats Accidents); and Steve Mathys, engineer; spent Thursday talking with students and demonstrating safety and accident-response gear. Their visit was made possible with the cooperation of the United Steelworkers’ Local 7334.
The professionals presented two sessions for the juniors and seniors.
“My message is for them to get involved in their own safety, to impress upon them how important it is make safe choices,” Nakoski said, summing up the presentations.
He introduced each session with a surveillance-camera video that shows an electrical worker cranking a feeder breaker into an industrial panel. Unknown to the worker, the panel was energized, which resulted in arcing and violent death.
“Where did the guy go?” asked a student as a blast of flames shot out of the panel.
“I hate to say it, but he was probably vaporized,” said Nakoski. The heat from the blast was similar to that on the sun’s surface, about 35,000 degrees.
“What really disturbs me is the choices he made,” Nakoski said as he analyzed the video for the safety errors.
That’s an activity Nakoski and the other Cristal employees are familiar with. Nakoski, an industrial instrumentation journeyman, heads up the behavior-based safety program at Cristal Plant 1.
“We’re kind of our brothers’ keepers,” Nakoski said, explaining how the SHEBA works. “We watch out for each other.”
Nakoski said one employee will observe another one as he or she works for several minutes, then critique the performance from a safety perspective.
“It’s a fantastic process. It’s really helped us reduce the injuries in the plant,” he said.
The professionals demonstrated safety gear provided by Cristal for its employees, including an electrical high-temperature suit that the worker in the video should have been wearing. Students volunteered to suit up so they’d get a sense of how little time it takes to test and dress in the appropriate safety gear.
“It isn’t that I’m trying to teach you about electricity,” Nakoski said. “It’s about choice.”
He said the plant has at least 20 of the suits, each one costing $3,500, a price that “doesn’t even come close to the cost of that accident (on the video).”
Wagner, the lab technician acquainted students with the first-responder training that Cristal requires all 12 Plant 1 technicians attain as a condition of continued employment. The certification ensures that the plant has qualified, trained workers who can respond to a wide range of injuries and medical conditions.
The first responders can provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation, deal with inhalation incidents involving chlorine or titanium tetrachloride, treat cuts and other trauma, or address an underlying medical issue, like a sudden drop in the blood sugar of a diabetic employee. Wagner said the trained staff is like a “security blanket.”
“It’s a comfort to know someone is there who can help them until (a paramedic) crew can arrive and take over,” he said.
Wagner told students they should take every opportunity to get safety and lifesaving training, as it could not only help them save their own life, but also that of a loved one or neighbor when they are at home. Employers also see that kind of training as a plus when considering an applicant.
Likewise, Wagner encouraged students to ask questions about a prospective employer’s safety programs when interviewing.
“Don’t be afraid to ask how their safety program is. How are they looking out for you?” he said.
Nakoski said the workers first presented the safety program at the invitation of the Erie County (Pa.) Vo-Tech School and, with the support of the Cristal and the Steelworkers local, offered it to ACJVS.
“The company absolutely supported it,” Nakoski said.
