A safety bulletin:
On Monday morning I went over to our water cooler to get some hot water to make myself a coffee-ish drink. I was feeling sluggish and needed some caffeine. The water cooler has a hot and cold tap and has one of the big 5 gallon jugs on top of it. The hot tap produces water that is almost boiling and has a little safety mechanism to prevent it’s accidental opening. You have to squeeze the knob in a certain way for it to open up. It’s a little tricky the first time you use it but I’ve used it a few times and have it figured out.
As I grasp the tap and tipped it up to put water in my cup the entire tap piece snapped off from the body of the water cooler sending scalding hot water everywhere! All over my hands and clothes. With the tap broken off there was no way to stop the flow of hot water coming from the water bottle on top of the machine, and I wasn’t about to put my finger in there to stop the hot flow. My officemate found the plug and unplugged the heater so it at least stopped making scalding hot water. I finally found a trash can and put it under the spout so it stopped making a puddle on the office floor (which was already quite sizable at this point). We couldn’t easily remove the water bottle from the top of the machine so water continued to spill out until it was empty. A little more excitement than I like in my morning.
The hot water scalded my hands and man did that hurt for hours afterwards! I didn’t get any blisters but it looked like they were trying to form. I’ve heard that burns are incredibly painful but I didn’t think some scalding water would hurt that bad for that long. Ow. My hands are fine now but they were red for a couple days.
I work in a refinery with highly flammable material everywhere at very high temperatures and pressures. So who would have guessed that it would be the water cooler to injure me? *
* In all seriousness, safety is such a priority at the refinery that I really am at a much higher risk of being injured by the water cooler or tripping over something in the office than being hurt in the plant.
Posted in The Wonderful World of Oil | Tags: burn, safety, water cooler
