October 1, 2018

Workers at the Sammis Plant met with Burnie on Wednesday to discuss safety in preparation for the plant’s upcoming Unit 6 outage.

“Burnie is our safety dummy,” said Jim Rodgers, senior Safety representative at Bruce Mansfield. “We brought Burnie to help out with the demonstrations.”

Sammis employees got a chance to examine Burnie’s work area. Set up under a scaffold, holding his grinder and surrounded by other equipment, Burnie presented a number of lessons in safety, from the unrestrained tools above his head, to the unprotected grinder blade held against his chest, to the electrical cables lying in wait to cause a trip and fall.

“We wanted to set up hands-on scenarios to clearly demonstrate the importance of situational awareness and being aware of the dangers of line-of-fire incidents,” said Jimmy Coppa, Sammis I&T mechanic, who heads the Sammis employee Safety Team.

“The Safety Team decided to have something different from the usual safety expo,” said Jayme Chaffee, Sammis technical specialist.

The Sammis employee Safety Team designed the displays and set the agenda. Safety representatives from Bruce Mansfield worked to assist with the demonstrations.

The event consisted of a series of demonstrations illustrating potential safety issues. Vendors displayed safety equipment. And workers watched a presentation about the dangers of line-of-fire incidents, a current safety focus area that has been the cause of a number of safety incidents and potential life changing events this year.