As the lead plant safety professional, you are asked to chair an accident investigation committee reviewing the following incident:
A worker was struck in the head and killed by the sudden movement of a large wrench used for releasing gates on the bottom of railroad hopper cars The worker used a 4-foot long wrench to trip a mechanical latch on the bottom gate of the car. The wrench was supposed to be of a ratchet type so that when the gate tripped, the weight of the material in the hopper car would not force the wrench back on the worker. For some reason, the ratchet wrench was not available and workers had been using a standard rigid wrench to release the latch Only a week before, another worker had narrowly escaped injury when he lost control of the same wrench in the same application.
a. Who would you want as team members on the investigating committee, and why?
b. List several questions that you will want your committee to answer.
c. What groups of employees/supervisors/others will you want to interview during the investigation, and why?