Builder-in-a-hole outrage sparks Special Projects Bureau safety probe

If only you'd somehow contrived to include a raspberry pi...

Rustic

My uncle used to say " If you can't do it right, do it rustic". Glad to see he's still right.

Re: Risk assessment?

In the end what'll kill you in Spain is the Risk Assessment itself, get a paper cut from it, it gets infected, and you find the pharmacies no longer have any stock of antibiotics - since most of them haven't been paid by the regional governments since last summer!

Re: Excellent!

"Underkill"? isn't that what happens when workmen get buried at the bottom of a badly shored up excavation?

Re: Killjoy statistician Nazi here

One thing about those stats. From the moment you leave your front door, until you get back to it, any accidents you have in Spain are "Work related" (if it wasn't for work you'd still be in the house, watching "fisica o quimica"!)

Also bare in mind that each weekend they publish how many lemmings were killed on the roads that week, and for things like bank holidays, they celebrate afterwards that there were 10,000 less deaths on the roads this weekend, compared to last year's mad rush to celebrate the extra day of weekend.

Re: The way to do it safely

Is that you, Marc?

Re: The way to do it safely

Sounds slow and prone to the very real risk of going very wrong. Proper assessment of the material you are digging in will give a good idea of the likelihood of collapse. Let people do jobs the way they want to, but make sure the liabilty reflects that. If Rui wanted to it that way, and no-one else was at risk, who are you to preach? That's why I downvoted you.

That said, there is no way I would have gone down there - not because of the risk, but claustrophobia,

Re: Safety is never a joke

Standing astride the well head, surrounded by wet concrete doesn't strike me as terribly sensible either.

Re: Safety is never a joke

Luckily you're here to take it seriously enough for all of us.

Re: Safety is never a joke

JaitcH, I often agree with you, but your small mindedness on this ("Hope the well dries up soon") is really rather disgusting. I doubt Lester threw Rui down the pit, and it is probable that, had Lester tried to stop him, the answer would have been along the lines of "It's alright, I know what I'm doing!"

Just because you witnessed something unpleasant once doesn't give you an excuse to be objectionable about it. I'm willing to bet that I've seen at least as many unpleasant things as you, but it doesn't lead me to be pompous about it.

Re: Woah there

PETA would confiscate the dogs and have the owner prosecuted for animal cruelty.

Then, after 6 months of failing to rehome the dogs, they would be put down. Humanely of course

Re: That well

He'll have to fill it up first

Re: Well, well, well

Well if we're comparing sizes, my well is 250m deep, 200mm dia bore job down to an underground river (Catalonia). I'm dying to send a fishimg line down there, with either a camera or a hook with a worm on the end to see what prehistoric monsters live down there.

Re: Well, well, well

Whenever I hear propane tanks mentioned, I always remember the film they showed me ona caourse at the Fire College about BLEVE

Re: It's all good fun until somebody dies

Indeed, and I've witnessed plenty of things over the years where you have to wonder what the people involved were thinking.

The problem is that Rui has probably been down lots of holes like that, and so have his mates, and they've all come up alive - ergo, no problem. But as you point out, just occasionally it goes wrong and then it's too late. The reason we (in the UK, dunno what the situation is in Spain) have bodies like the HSE is to deal with people who really ought to know better. In many cases they do know better but it's either inconvenient or too expensive.

The biggest problem we have is that there are some extremes and some stupid stuff done in the name of "elf n safety". "Elf n safety" does **NOT** prohibit anything (well hardly anything). It certainly doesn't prohibit school kids playing conkers. And it certainly doesn't mandate "hi vis everywhere".

However, lots of stuff is done (or banned) in the name of elf-n-safety because those responsible don't know (and often don't want to know) how to manage any potential risks. So instead of applying sensible rules, they just do stupid things - imposing "hi vis everywhere" rules, banning stuff, and so on.

But that is not what health and safety is about.

It's about simply looking at the risks inherent in an activity - and working out how to minimise/mitigate/manage them. It might be that the ground conditions are such that Lester's hole was highly unlikely to collapse - but I suspect the risks aren't as low as Lester or Rui think. But the risks are fairly easily mitigated - the techniques for doing so are well known and not hard - but they probably do come under the category of "inconvenient" or "too costly". And besides, elf-n-safety is just a bunch of busybodies out to stop all activity right ?

I'll leave with this thought ...

Have a look for the poem "I Chose to Look The Other Way". Try to imagine how you might feel if, at some point, you find yourself in such a position.

Think you know what it feels like knowing that by inaction you could have contributed to someone's death ? Knowing that had you taken a different course, then someone might still be alive today ? Really think you know how it feels ?

Now find someone who is in that position. I really really don't think they'll describe it how you think. All I'll say is that I strongly recommend you stay on the side of wondering what it feels like. It's a one way street and there's no coming back - there have been people who have committed suicide because they couldn't live with it.