I;ve been at the firm now about 6months and to-day I had to take
over a preloaded artic and tank combination, I picked up the keys&
paper work from the office and went over to do a vehicle check,
This took about 20-30 mins , and then off I went on my way to
the unloading destination,On arrival I reported in the the office and did
the documentation,afterwards I drove to the unloading point,
AGAIN; I checked in to the foremans office and he told me where to
go and to carry on with unloading the tank, Now I parked up and
started to unload the tank ,as usaul I empted the 1st pot (CHAMBER)
and when it was empty went up and checked that all of the product
was gone, Yes the pot was empty so I took off the unloading pipe
put a bucket to catch any of those left over spillage, and connected
to the 2nd pot, as I opened the valve for the last pot, it all ran out
of the open valve on the 1st pot, I quickly shut the valve at the front
chucked a saftey cover on to the drainage cover near bye,
Now after reporting it and clearing up the mess I had made,along
came one of the firms safety chiefs , we got to talking about what
happened and I explained how I carried out the unloading and
upon getting on our knees and going under the lorry saw that
BOTH pots were connectted together with a steel pipe and
this was the reason that while I had worked what I knew as the
right way, for this 1 tank it was completely wrong.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS TWO FOLD POINT1;; YOU SHOULD
ALWAYS ASK HOW IT WORKS IF YOU ARE NEW TO THE EQUIPMENT
POINT2;; YOUR EMPLOYER SHOULD EITHER HAVE A PERSON TO
EXPLAIN TO EVERY ONE WHEN NEW EQUIPMENT COMES IN OR
HAVE A TRAININGDAY FOR ALL EMPLOYERS:
WE after many years of mistakes do just that and also have a
firms book explaining many of the points that we require to know
to carry out our tasks of work as per ISO STANDARDS: