18 of the Wildest Things Witnessed by Safety Inspectors

‘A makeshift ladder being held together with a wrench’
18 of the Wildest Things Witnessed by Safety Inspectors

If everyone followed the guidelines and best practices at their workplace, safety inspectors wouldn’t exist. In reality then, they should actually thank the dangerous dumbasses who keep them employed. Okay, so a guy didn’t know that he couldn’t put a smaller forklift on top of a bigger forklift to place flammable cargo in a higher location. Again, that’s the very thing that pays a safety inspector’s bills. 

In any event, the safety inspectors of Reddit have chronicled the most unbelievably dangerous violations they’ve seen while on the job, and it’s amazing what people are doing with scissor lifts these days.

Tamesan . 137d We had a volunteer (non profit business) with 20 years experience in building trades and another 5 as a volunteer, fire a nail gun through his hand while demonstrating to our clients how a nail gun has a mechanism to stop it from firing unless it was pressed up against something.... ... Reply 237
therealhairykrishna . 137d My old boss fell into an open pit while showing the inspectors around. Good times. ... Reply 14.4k
goblinhands000 . 137d I'm not an inspector, but I answer to Osha, and keep my guys safe. I fired a guy for trying to drive a scissor lift down stairs. Like actual stairs. ... Reply 44
KenComeslnABox .  137d I'm not an OSHA inspector but I am a lawyer that works for a very large company. We had a department team building playing laser tag on company premises and 4(!) separate attorneys ended up tripping over decor that had been put up and spraining their ankles. A week later the company president came to meet with the general counsel and saw a bunch of attorneys with matching boots on and freaked out. ... Reply 385
edmanet . 137d My sister was a lawyer for the Dept of Labor and did a lot of work with OSHA. One story she told me was about a painting contractor in Pittsburgh who got the contract to paint the three bridges. They used no safety equipment and just hung the painters out there with rope. I believe the contractor went to jail. ... Reply 22
LordBolton 137d I work in underground mining in Western Australia, some of the shit I have seen is unreal. My favourite is a guy stripping off his hard hat, overalls, gumboots and safety glasses to jump into a 1000L IBC full of the saltiest water known to mankind to cool himself down. This was a severely overweight guy as well. I'm confident he no longer has a job in mining after the incident. ... Reply 3.2k
Pythonx135 . . 137d A makeshift ladder being held together with a wrench ... Reply 6
HF_Martini6 . 1 137d Non American OSHA: You people know that meme about the forklift carrying its younglings so they can reach the top of the shelf? Exactly that but IRL with a 6ton and a 1.5 ton forklift in a building with 1t/m2 floor carrying capacity and about 1 ton of flammable shit as cargo. I'm no longer a safety inspector to keep my own health and sanity ... Reply 8.8k
DumbledoreDies69 . 137d My coworker once duct-taped two ladders together to reach the top shelf in the warehouse as the forklift was out of order. When he got to the top of the bottom ladder the tape snapped and he fell 4m (12~13ft) and landed on his side and smacked his head. Miraculously he was perfectly fine, not even a scratch on him. We had him go see a doctor just case he had a concussion. Не didn't. ... Reply 9
loyolacub68 . 1 137d Guys working in a 25 foot deep trench with oil contamination all around them with no ventilation and shoring that didn't reach the top of grade. ... Reply 7.8k
MelmanCourt 137d Had guys doing an asbestos removal project for me as the PM. Full decontamination, positive pressure face masks, air monitoring. The lot. Briefed the guys, full RAMS etc. 5 day job so went to site on Wednesday to do a safety audit to find two of the boys outside the enclosure refusing to go in. The Supervisor, an experienced guy, was running around with a crowbar smashing the asbestos ceiling to bits. Asbestos dust everywhere. Absolutely mental scenes. ... Reply 27
spenser1994 . 137d Not an inspector, but was working on a job where some ceiling installer was on a scissor lift, bunch of guys underneath him, some working with water. Guy had a spotter who wasn't paying attention, as the lift operator was raising the platform, it caught onto a spider box cable (large electrical line) and was about to pull way too much tension. I ran over and yelled to get the operators attention, then was forced to hit the E shut off switch on the ground. Не yelled at me, the spotter yelled at me, everyone looked at me wondering
Never_Been_Missed . 1 137d I worked at a chicken processing plant for a few years. (Not processing chicken, thankfully). The guys who work with the heavy equipment had just finished their OSHA training when one of the morons who thought he knew better went back to the chicken grinder to show everyone that the safety guy was an idiot. Не then proceeded to show how he clears the machine the wrong way and it's totally safe. Yeah, so he lost an arm that day.... ... Reply 28
Tuna_Stubbs . 137d I was the UK equivalent (Health and Safety Executive Inspector). I was inspecting and oil and gas production facility owned by one of the super majors. In one of the pump rooms there was an eye wash station. On top of the eye wash station someone had left a bottle of acid. It still makes me laugh (as no one was hurt) imagining a scenario like that from a third rate comedy movie where some poor soul got something in their eye, stumbles blindly to the eye wash station, and proceeds to squeeze a load of acid
DarthKittens . 137d A fire door exit on the second level of a building which went into thin air. They had removed the exit stairs but had not decommissioned the fire exit. Never forget opening that door and looking down imagining the pile of employees on the ground below. ... Reply 42
DjofullinnUlfur . 1 137d An OSHA inspector caught an old supervisor of mine having sex with a coworker in a boiler room that did not have the proper warning signs on the door. ... Reply 169
newadventures96 137d I started work in a little factory. It's been operating for almost 30 years. The day I started, I noticed there were zero fire extinguishers anywhere. None. Anywhere. In the entire building. Upon further inspection, there were no smoke detectors or fire alarms. I started asking around, and the employees told me they hadn't ever had a fire drill. Ever. There wasn't even a plan. The welders told me there's fires in the building all the time, and they just scramble to put them out with whatever is on hand. For some reason, no one thought twice about
CJGeringer 137d Not OSHA cause not USA, but internal company safety inspector: Guy broke a few bones after doing unsafe stuff without proper equipment. Guy and his buddies knew the guy would get treated at the plant but would get a written warning for not following protocol (enought of those result in termination). So they hid the guy in a shipping container until end of shift (something like 3 hours) and carried him to the free hospital afterwards. ... Reply 840

Tags:

Scroll down for the next article
Forgot Password?