Safety in the Slaughterhouse (1970s?)

well I've been a meat inspector for the last 13 years we uh up to check the rails and the chiller was all right on the on the way out but we come down a little bit quicker than I thought in 1975 on accident in the B room I severed all tendons and nerves in my wrist threw the hand up to try and stop the carcass from falling through the point and down she come knife and all straight through the hand I really wish it hadn't happened I wish it hadn't happened a phrase we've all heard before three meat inspectors who because of one Split Second of carelessness in attention or just bad luck have had to change their whole Lifestyles because of an injury in the workplace [Music] abattoirs generally present a hostile working environment injuries to meat inspectors throughout Australia cause the loss of thousands of working hours each year this represents a huge financial loss to a major Australian primary industry not to mention the physical pain needless suffering and more than often the financial inconvenience that these injuries cause to the individual and their families we asked a number of senior meet inspectors to discuss some of the problems that are faced by inspectors in Australian avatars not we don't seem to have such bad accidents now that we've got the hooks I don't know the hooks down do a real lot for me especially on the pigs you use them on that and you can't stretch that cheek right out to cut with I think you can use hooks on beef there's certain positions on beef you can use said that's right I said the PE but even on the beef they're only good for a couple of cats they're good for the B's cat and the cheeks and for the on the cheeks and after that they they don't do much for me it depends on how experienced you get using them you can I've seen BLS do do most of their work with the hook I don't think they're a good thing for Pig's heads Pig's heads is one of those things that's got to be learned to learned and they got to be done properly yeah well I agree better difficult hitting the hook than hitting your finger oh that's right there well now wait a minute now let's get something quite clear hooks are not new they were used when I was a boy and man that's a long time ago that's right they went they went out of use there's a big gap between then and now that's right but they're coming back into use to try and avoid and stop so many I haven't seen the time I've been on the job I tell you what I'm sorry us pre-war when knives hit books they tend to Blunt The Knives everybody knows that and blunt knives tend to cut more than sharp knives you Nick yourself with a sharp KN if you're on a moving chain and they're coming through all the time and you've got a blunt knife you haven't got time to stop if you stop the chain you've got company screaming how would you go stopping a chain to sharpen knif you can use a hook you're prepared to try and learn to use you've got to be learn to be efficient with a hook and that's all that's the name of the game and if with Pig's heads and you know yourself your knife if you've been using them all morning and it gets around lunch time and your knife's getting blunt and you're going to start pushing that knife and turning the cheeks out you'll go straight through hit your knuckles which do you want the hook or your knuckles yeah sure but the situation has not altered the you must get used to using the hook if you cut the hook it doesn't go to hospital now we're trying to get these younger people to use them to avoid the large let's face it bad accidents unnecessary accidents there's less Nick and more big accidents that's true but don't forget the speed of the chains is increased as I said and you and the areas we working haven't got any bigger that's they certainly haven't got any bigger in some instances we find that the slaughterman taking crouching onto our area well there should be restricted areas for inspection staff well I suppose that's a plus for the hook then working there if you got a hook in your bumped or something it cuts the hook and it doesn't cut your finger we shouldn't be bumped we should not be bump yes but inevitably inevitably when they push mutton on a chain you're going to get it's got to finish somewhere as long as it doesn't finish on your hand when youve got a knife in it it's a proven fact and well-known fact that there's many more accidents on mutton than there is on beef oh yeah that but the beef carcass is so much larger and they're not going as fast and it's not as congested there's not as many inspectors working on each carcass in the same sort of area you just got to be careful on M I think that mutton is a very viable situation because You' seen the probably the worst accidents you've seen I reckon on the mutton floor we can all give quotations of bad accidents I suppose but I seen an extremely bad accident where one fell was cutting the the pr scap one side of the the chain and another fell was cutting the prcp the other side of the chain and the fell from the back scap dropped the gland and he when he cut it down it was still hanging by tissue and when the tissue was hanging there the fellow that was working opposite to him on the back one put his hand on the neck and the the fellow on the front one got the knife and cut the gland away naturally cutting straight across the back of his hand I think you can get caught on the ISS just as easy you've got a BL walk working around the front he's checking the inside of the the carcass he sticks his hand up in the channel to make sure it's clear and you've got a BL coming down cutting the issy with a knife from the back and some bad ones like that you you get a lot like that this is it on mutton carcasses you can relate a lot of bad accents there are some on beef too but I think they're more prevalent on M you've got six or seven working on the one carcass as Sid knows there there's plenty of times that you've seen fellas dropping softsided briskets and the the man at the back of the Pres scaps has had his hand on the neck and straight over his knuckles yeah I was working one day doing the PRI scaps on mutton I'm working away there's a guy in the front of me and he's going to open up a softsided brisket as while I'm working away he's gone bang down through the brisket the knife just skin the end of me Knuckles but Jes it was close it could have taken the whole lot off one fracture an inch either side just like Kenny Rober did that day last year I was working on the final inspection point on the pigs and uh had a carcass that needed further inspection so I the point to run it out and uh as I was running it out another carcass roll back I tried to stop it from uh falling and I ran the carcass the knife straight through the hand as the carcass fell to the ground consequently I was off work with a lacerator tendon for a total of eight months I had uh three operations on the hand it still feels a bit tight you know and it's it still gives me a bit of pain when I hold a knife all day or uh playing tennis or squash I just haven't got the same game I had before had a few money problems at the time uh we just bought our house and uh I wasn't getting any overtime so I thought uh this is no good I'm home I got plenty of time and I can't earn any money I got my hand all bandaged up so uh my wife had to go to work for a while so we could pay a few bills I was going to the doctor every week and physio every day it really does affect your life you say oh you'll get over it let's face it in the laor everybody's got a lethal weapon in their hand and it's a highly dangerous place to work I think you've got to agre the muton is very dangerous I don't know just just doing those glands your fingers are so close to them the main accent you'd have t to be more down the stockyard would know you wouldn't strike many accents on the floor that's true I was only in the in the pens this morning and they had a uh I I did the sheep first and they had some wild Rams and the Rams this time were running everywhere and one of them run right into the orchestra pit you laugh about these situations but I've seen mad cows in pens myself and if you uh if they come straight at you and there's nowhere to go you'll go over the fence at a 6ft fence everywhere in an there's an accident waiting to happen there's no doubt about that you get the walking across the floor if you're not watching where you're going there's a piece of fat there you've only got to stand you know and you you're at it you're in trouble and then all coming down off the stands Lenny well the steps are the um all style steps or the Su as the same as they are now when they plate steel with certain amount of corrugation that sort of thing they're very slippery and they're prone to get bits of fat on them and up in them and they don't wash them down a straight level of fat as a result as you know there's plenty of meetings ectors and there's plenty of U meat industry employees that have slipped hurt their back we have one BL in the bush that got a Bast one of those stands and the morning I had my accident uh we were doing pre-operational hygiene in a chiller we'd put a ladder up to check some rails out I went up all right but uh the ladder slipped and uh we both come down awful fast the result of landed uh across the ladder uh smashing the the wrist and the elbow uh as a result there wasn't too much bone left in the elbow and uh the doctor had to reattach muscle that normally where the funny bone is uh further around this result in the arm being like that but uh extensive physiotherapy for 9 months uh we got the arm back up to the there's a lot of pain involved but this has affected uh strength and uh in my personal life uh it is greatly affected in the way that I can't play tennis uh and I got a hobby farm and uh there's a lot of things there that uh requires another person to help me now where I could do it before by myself and uh this is not always available when you're you're doing something might be down the paddock or or anywhere and uh you got to sting out hey you want help as a result of my accident it's made me more conscious as a supervisor that safety comes first as a young bloke if you fall over you know you can generally pick yourself up but you get you know a little older you know in your late 30s 40s maybe even older you fall over then you can hurt yourself bad well this is why you've got to take care because it's inevitable that in an abidor you're going to get fat on the floor you're going to get blood on the floor summer along the line and with the best will in the world it's never going to be completely clean you've got to be careful it's going to be a lot worse if you got your knife in your hand when you go down well that's not the first time that's happened muscular injuries never walk around with your knife in your hand your K just take a step and you could one step you have your knife in your hand and fall out yes of course but then don't forget that the Metropolitan meat industry would have got a regul that their employees are not allowed to walk or run with a knife in their hand they must put it in a Pou yeah one of our BLS in in the bush local Johnny Nathan he was working with the on beef and the body's come down just as he he must have had his knife there something like that and it's come right down across his wrist in 1975 I had an accident in a b room I SED all tendons and nerves in my left wrist I have to work constantly to this very date to regain full use or partial use of my hand I was given a ball to work on um nerves I I had to use different courses of sandpaper and rocks to get the nerve endings moving I have done this every day for the last three years and I'm constantly doing it I think at the moment if I stopped I think so would the mechanics of my hand got a burn oh my word a new laborer first day first day on the plant pushed a barrow of aul onto the stand that I was on up into the sterilizer that it was behind me into m gum could you get your boots up oh with a bit of Flesh you know you know Jimmy a lot of our fellas get burnt with their H you know trying to wash their boots and the slips down and you get a boot full of hot water same result see it often Happ you talk about physical accidents what about industrial diseases you know especially when reactors are slaughtered as long as you're wear the right protective clothing you all got a good chance of not catching them I think industrial diseases are one of our worst cases of not accidents but diseases that uh virtually incurable a lot of our inspectors have been hospitalized for a long time and are still sick after many years through contact with industrial diseases you're talking about Bruce lipto AR it that's right and Q fever would come into that one as you know Q fever has an effect on a man's life for the rest of his days I don't think that these things ought to be uh come short the thing is most people recover you know with nothing more than as though they had the flu they recover quite normally but there's a small percentage that are permanently uh affected they have some sort of permanent impairment but do you know you never really know whether it's going to reoccur on you if it reoccurs on everyone says oh he's back with the same old disease that has killed people in the past I think at the moment if I stopped I think so with the mechanics of my hand I really wish it hadn't happened I hope all mate inspectors come to realize that these sort of accidents do happen and when it happens to you it's a little too late he