Little Island pharm explosion.

Wertz wrote: »

Was on a safepass course during the week and the instructor took up this case as a good example of lax safety and the trouble it's going to get a whole host of people into...apparently there is a record of previous incidents in the plant and the HSA are going to have a field day bringing prosecutions against the owners, safety officers and perhaps even some of the workers themselves...

Aye the explosion was one of three, there was two previous explosions over the last couple of months. Apparently if the current explosion had of happened in another part of the factory it would have blown into Pfizers possibly causing who knows what kind of chain reaction with the chemicals involved.

Anyway, Jimmy is not in the news because he is still alive (just), the media is fickle and has moved on, the facts remain for those close to the event. The induced coma is to give his body a chance to recover, if he was awake further damage could be done, he is in a bad way.

There has been a number of explosions which go unreported in little Island, local people are more aware of them as they happen obviously, these accidents are mostly kept out of the news when they happen. Point in fact is: a friend of mine having being woken by one such explosion which rattled windows across the neighbourhood took it upon himself to march into the guilty chemical factory in the early hours and demand an explanation.

The factory admin naturally tried to give him a bum steer, but being a health and safety op himself from another chem company he demanded explanations. They had to bring him in and fed him coffee and re-assurance, but no satisfaction was gained and indeed it did not reach the news.

These companies are a disgrace, and should be investigated thoroughly to prevent further disasters, then maybe in future some families would not have to be praying for their Dads to make it out alive from an induced coma.

I worked for a company in Little Island for a few years and their health and safety practices were nigh on complete negligence, I witnessed total environmental abuse not to mention employee exposure to harmfull chemicals which we and my fellow employees had no training for.

One begrudged employee quit and called the Health and safety on them. They dispatched some muppet with no principles who actually called us into a private session to ask us if we had a problem with what was going on. No-one spoke up as I guess we were naive to the safe practice and the potential for harm which we were under. Looking back the person that they sent out looked rather conflicted and stressed as he was asking us to complain about the obvious complete dis-regard for our safety. Either he took a few quid in a brown envelope or he had no evidence? I'm not sure which route he took to this day but this company still practises today with the same disregard for it's employees.

It seems like the buck falls with the health and safety really, they are not active enough, The responsiblity is on them to be more effective, the owners of these companies should be brought to book across the board by way of educating them in some cases and penalising them when they delibarately neglect responsibility.

Maybe then some people can go to work and make a buck without the fear of not coming back home, Jimmy and Liam Nodwell are an unfortunate example of how this is a fact which needs to be addressed.

The fact that a company which had 2 previous explosions which led to a third which caused loss of life and a lad on life support is an indication of neglect not only from the company itself, it was neglect from the health and safety as well, that is a given. That is my view.