The message was serious, the movie graphic and the mood sombre as Michael Lovett explained the workplace accident that took his leg to students in grades 8 and 9 at Chatelech Secondary School on Feb. 4.
Lovett was invited as a Worksafe B.C. speaker in an effort to impress upon the young students that they held the key to their safety at work.
“One thing about accidents is they’re all preventable, and I’m telling you now that you all need to take the next step to be a little more safety aware,” Lovett said.
“Sometimes the smallest misstep can have fatal consequences.”
Lovett narrowly escaped death when he was involved in a workplace accident at a mill in Mission at the age of 18.
He was right out of high school and eager to please his new employer, which meant he was ready to do anything that was asked of him. So when, after only three days on the job, Lovett was told to climb into bark-stripping machinery three metres off the ground to clean it each night, he agreed without question.
“I had questions, but I said nothing,” Lovett remembered.
He was told to chip off chunks of wood bark while the conveyer belt was still running to help speed the cleaning process.
“It wasn’t safe or correct, but it was quick and efficient, and it became the standard practice,” Lovett said.
During one night shift cleaning the machinery on Nov. 9, 1999, Lovett finished cleaning the conveyor belt and turned to jump down to the ground, but he slipped.
In panic he held onto the machinery to avoid falling to the ground, and his left foot got caught in the conveyor belt. It started to pull him in towards the machine that stripped the bark off huge logs at the mill.
“Likely nobody in this high school has experienced that level of terror,” Lovett said.
He was unable to free his foot. The machine mangled his leg and there was no one around to hear his screams for help. Luckily the metal in his steel-toed boot was enough to break one of the gears on the machine and stop it from sucking all of his body inside.
“After my accident, I remember thinking ‘OK, well I got hurt, and my leg’s gone. Why did this accident occur?’ You know what? Everybody’s at fault here. It’s not just the management, it’s not just the millwrights. I blame myself. I blame myself for allowing myself to be put in that situation in the first place,” Lovett said.
He told the students that they all had certain rights to safety in the workplace and that they would likely have to push for those rights at times.
“You have the right to training. You have the right to a safe workplace, and you have the right to refuse unsafe work practices,” Lovett said.
After showing students a movie titled Lost Youth that highlighted Lovett’s accident and those of three other teenaged workers, Lovett explained why the students were his target audience for the talk.
“The main reason we focus so much on youth is statistics,” Lovett said. “Statistics will tell you that a young worker, and here in B.C. we classify a young worker as a worker being aged 15 to 24, young workers hurt themselves on the job far more often than any other age of workers. Why do you think that is?”
Students suggested inexperience and not knowing the job were the main reasons for the higher injury rate (more than half of serious injuries and fatalities involve workers aged 15 to 24 and occur during the first six months on the job), but Lovett suggested eagerness to please was the cause of many accidents.
“What we find at Worksafe is that a lot of times, unfortunately, young workers brush it off or they ‘yes’ their boss to death, and because they’re so eager and willing they’re reluctant to ask questions,” Lovett said. “I don’t know why, but somewhere along the line questions came across as being incapable and that’s not right. A few simple questions can save a life.”
Lovett encouraged teens to learn more about their rights before they enter the workforce because “when you aren’t aware of your rights, you’re not able to exercise them.”
“Do not let me come here and pour my heart out for nothing. Think about me. This summer or years down the road when you get that job and you don’t want to speak up or make waves, do so,” Lovett said. “I just spent an hour telling you guys that you have rights and the reality is at the end of the day it’s only you that brings yourself home safely at night.”
Learn more about worker rights and safety at www.worksafebc.com
