How many of you has something like this happened to? [750x1334 - 339KB]

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[–] • 1 pt

Three things you need for fire: Fuel, air and heat. That's it. Oxygen is what the fuel needs to react to heat or maybe self combust under some sort of energy input. Just pushing atoms closer together can sometimes create combustion. As in your engine cylinders. It's the compression that does two things, first, at higher pressures there is more oxygen and also when you compress a gas the temperature that it was already at becomes concentrated as well. Say you reduce volume by ten times, well the temperature spikes up ten times hotter as well.

Or say you just have nothing but oxygen at high pressure in the presence of oil. Oil is the fuel, oxygen, well, oxidizes that fuel. In effect, burns it. All at once instantly. Oil or grease is a concentrated fuel. With high pressure oxygen you have an explosion.

Maybe nothing happens at first, right? So a guy with such a contaminated pressure regulator goes to the regulator, checks the cylinder pressure and decides he has plenty of oxygen for the cutting or burning job. Oh, but he needs to adjust the output pressure. He turns the little valve a bit to adjust it. That tiny movement sets off a massive explosion that will drive bits of metal from the regulator into the guy's chest as the front of the regulator blows out like a bomb. On every single pressure regulator for oxygen is a warning label, "DO NOT USE OIL!". Bright red, can't miss it.

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[–] • 0 pt

That's about what I figured how it would go.

But don't worry if its on a warning lable it will be ignored by such idiots eventually, this is when you do as you are told but you don't know how and why you are told so.

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[–] • 1 pt

Oh, there's a tiny picture of it blowing up if I remember right. Also, there's something about it in almost every safety orientation for new guys. I don't think such an accident has happened in years.

Another cool safety feature is that the acetylene has reversed twist on the hose threads so even a color blind person can't mix them up.

CO2 can be dangerous if allowed to flow freely in a confined space so we always do a "drop test" when setting up a welding system for wire feed welding.

You hook it all up then set your pressure regulator and then shut the valve back off. If there are no leaks the pressure regulator dial reading will not move. If there are leaks the dial readings will drop.

On quick connect hoses you set it up so the quick connect is on the pressure side while the open end that fits into it is on the side that's not hooked up.

So our German supervisor is demonstrating a pressure drop to newbies. I noticed he had set up the system backwards so that when a hose is disconnected the pressure continues flowing.

I pointed this out to him and he was pissed off. Good guy reaction would have been to slap his forehead, apologize and point out his error and why it's important to set up with connections the opposite way.

Nope, he fired me the next day.

Same guy was helping a coworker put his lines down into a confined space feeding the lines through an access hatch down to my coworker. My coworker almost passed out every time he went down into the tank. No hole watch or safety watch stationed at access hatch. That's a severe OSHA violation. Then, he also didn't do a drop test. My coworker went up and inspected the CO2 hose and discovered it had a large burned hole in the hose. This mishap is called a near miss and requires a report be filed. Supervisor covered it up and coworker told me about it and how he almost died.

This is why supervisor was demonstrating the drop test and he still got it wrong.

So I'm fired, right? Nothing I can do about that but I went over to administration office for the shipyard and reported everything in detail to the safety officer. The foreman literally tried to physically block me from making the report. They knew damn well why I was over in administration. Huge fat foreman stood in front of me and repeatedly tried to block me till I started yelling and someone came out and gave him a hard look and waved me in.

Oh, there's a tiny picture of it blowing up if I remember right. Also, there's something about it in almost every safety orientation for new guys. I don't think such an accident has happened in years. Another cool safety feature is that the acetylene has reversed twist on the hose threads so even a color blind person can't mix them up. CO2 can be dangerous if allowed to flow freely in a confined space so we always do a "drop test" when setting up a welding system for wire feed welding. You hook it all up then set your pressure regulator and then shut the valve back off. If there are no leaks the pressure regulator dial reading will not move. If there are leaks the dial readings will drop. On quick connect hoses you set it up so the quick connect is on the pressure side while the open end that fits into it is on the side that's not hooked up. So our German supervisor is demonstrating a pressure drop to newbies. I noticed he had set up the system backwards so that when a hose is disconnected the pressure continues flowing. I pointed this out to him and he was pissed off. Good guy reaction would have been to slap his forehead, apologize and point out his error and why it's important to set up with connections the opposite way. Nope, he fired me the next day. Same guy was helping a coworker put his lines down into a confined space feeding the lines through an access hatch down to my coworker. My coworker almost passed out every time he went down into the tank. No hole watch or safety watch stationed at access hatch. That's a severe OSHA violation. Then, he also didn't do a drop test. My coworker went up and inspected the CO2 hose and discovered it had a large burned hole in the hose. This mishap is called a near miss and requires a report be filed. Supervisor covered it up and coworker told me about it and how he almost died. This is why supervisor was demonstrating the drop test and he still got it wrong. So I'm fired, right? Nothing I can do about that but I went over to administration office for the shipyard and reported everything in detail to the safety officer. The foreman literally tried to physically block me from making the report. They knew damn well why I was over in administration. Huge fat foreman stood in front of me and repeatedly tried to block me till I started yelling and someone came out and gave him a hard look and waved me in.

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[–] • 0 pt

So our German supervisor

German of from Germany? That little detail can be important.

Also. How great that in this day and age you just could send an e-mail with the violations.

But then again I suppose they would have just blocked your account by that time.

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