July 23, 1973 was a Monday morning. I was working as a Maintenance Mechanic's Helper with Stan Baldwin. I was unprepared for this job. Helping a maintenance mechanic required a certain dexterity with simple tools like wrenches and being able to do simple tasks the mechanic required. I had no experience with tools or with repairing machinery or anything. I would have had to learn such skills from my father or in some kind of industrial arts class in high school.
Dad's attitude about employing such skills at home was "I do that shit forty hours a week at work and I'll be goddamned if I'm going to do it on my time off."
I was nineteen. The two previous summers I had worked in the Zinc Plant cell room pulling cathodes lined with zinc from electrolytic cells, stripping the plates of the zinc, and stacking the zinc. I was a stripper. It was shift work. Most strippers worked six days on day shift, had two days off, came back to work on 3-11 shift, had two days off, and then back on graveyard, had two days off, came back on day shift and continued to rotate through the three shifts.
I worked shift work while playing American Legion baseball. When I worked 3-11 I missed practices and games. When I worked day shift I played games after eight hours of hard labor. When I worked graveyard, I went to work after games. Sometimes games and road trips fell on my days off.
The summer of 1973, Dad lobbied on my behalf to get me work where I'd be working straight days. For a while I cleaned floors and emptied waste cans and did other odd jobs around the machine shop. Then I was moved to the roaster floors to work as Stan Baldwin's helper.
Dad's intentions were good. He wanted me to have my evenings free to play softball and wanted me free of the gruelling demands of shift work. The problem was, I was unsuited for the work I was doing. I didn't know what I was doing.
My incompetence angered Stan Baldwin. We only worked together for about two days before I was injured, but already he had cussed me, sighed with exasperation, and pretty much quit talking to me because I was a millstone around his neck.
My incompetence didn't have much to do with the accident that occurred. The accident resulted from human error when the roaster flue was closed.
Nonetheless, I have often wondered what Dad thought, at my side, as I was given oxygen, was lifted onto a gurney, wheeled to the ambulance, and rushed to the emergency room.
He had wanted to make my work life easier. He wanted me out of the cell room. He had underestimated my incompetence. Like everyone else at the company, he hadn't imagined that a flue would ever be opened on a shut down roaster with workers inside. It had never happened before. Now it had happened to his son. I only know from later talking to friends of mine who got drunk with him the night of July 23rd how shaken he was as he drank beer and freely shared his fears and guilt, even as he tried to drown them.
11 comments:
Two points. 1. "He had underestimated my incompetence." and 2."Like everyone else at the company he hadn't imagined that a flue would ever be opened on a shut down roaster with workers inside."
#1. From your recitation of the events your competence or incompetence had nothing to do with what occurred. Indeed, it appears to me that Stan, the experienced hand, was incompetent and pretty much threw you to the wolves. You on the other hand kept your wits about you, and looked out for him, by waiting until he had gotten a start down the ladder. As the "competent" hand, Stan should have looked out for you. You knew enough, and kept your wits about you long enough, to look out for him. Indeed I would wager a large sum that your father well knew that you had a level head, and I would suggest to you that it is that characteristic that is the difference between competence and incompetence. Also, I am afraid that I have to question your assertion that Stan "went for help." Sounds good, but...To me it appears that he clearly knew what was up and he was getting out of there, with no care for you. As far as rescuers not being able to reach you I am sure that is true. However, there is no reason that emergency closed space breathing masks were not close at hand. Indeed, Stan should not have even taken you in there, nor should the company have permitted it, without each of you having one with you. The situation that you faced was, to me, merely a cost issue pure and simple.
#2. I don't buy that nobody imagined that such a circumstance would occur. I have seen too much and reviewed to many accident situations to believe that the manufacturer/designer didn't well know that such an event could occur.Also I would say that the safety people at the facility were well aware that such an event could occur. It is the tendancy of most workers to believe that the company or the safety personnel have taken all the precautions possible to ensure their safety. That is their first mistake and sometimes their last. But hey, closed space apparatus were not/are not cheap and after all it was the Valley where a man's life was, to many, merely a cost of doing business. There are too many "internal memos" around and too many "Ford Pinto gas tank" situations around that analyse cost vs. safety, for me to believe otherwise. It was the historical way of doing business, and I emphasis "doing business." When I went gypo mining I had a total of about a month underground. I learned "on the job." Safety was not a priority when there was production to be met. Sadly, while safety is talked about more often today, it still isn't practiced in many work environments. Also, if safety personnel were not aware that such an event could occur, how did someone know to shut the flue? Finally while admittedly 1973 was a few years ago, lock-out procedures have been around far longer.
I would suggest, RP, that your father knew you well, was right to place great confidence in you, in your competence and in your level head, and finally that Stan and the company let you down miserably.
I would suggest that you put the blame squarely where it belongs--on the company and Stan. Once you do so I believe that you will feel a weight off your shoulders.
Starr,
I deeply appreciate your comment about what happened to me on July 23, 1973.
I'm going to go back and read everything I've ever written about this and make sure it never looks like I blame myself for this accident.
I don't blame myself. I described my vocational incompetence as background. I've never thought it had anything to do with what happended to me. I appreciate your comments about my level headedness. I need to consider that more.
The company was at fault. My sense of that has grown over the years.
Your perspective on Stan's role is one I've never thought of and I'm going to think about it a lot more.
My main beef with Stan over the years is that he never visited me in the hospital. Neither did my shift boss. I don't remember anyone from the crew coming to see me.
I'll write more about that later..I think those guys not coming to see me was part cowardice, part guilt, part a Silver Valley thing. Someone getting hurt mining or smelting wasn't regarded as that big of a deal. Just part of the life we lived. Do you agree that our fellow citizens in the Silver Valley were too accepting of injury and death?
I'm going to keep writing about this in my blog. I hope you'll keep reading.
I visit your blog every day, by the way.
You might want to go back in my blog and read my two pieces on Johnny Bardelli. You might want to read his comment on my first blog about him where he helps me remember more accurately what happened when he quit as our coach in 1970.
I admire that you've given so much of your professional life over to protecting workers. Keep up the good work.
rp
RP-
I'm going to have to agree with Starr Kelso on this one. He has more background with which to make a judgement than me, but he was more eloquently expressing what I was trying to say on your last post. It saddens me that worker safety is still such a huge issue in America, one that rarely gets any attention. Recently, I've been inspired by the wives and mothers of men killed in mines in West Virginia and Kentucky who have started a crusade to save lives. It is disgusting to me that these women have been the targets of death threats by the people who support the almighty dollar over human lives. I admire the people who stand up to these threats and fight back with their hearts and their minds.
SL,
I don't have any disagreement with you or Starr. I spend much of my free reading time reading about mining safety, reading and studying mining history, and looking at just what you are talking about. I hope you've seen the documentary film "Harlan County, USA", a look at a coal mine strike in Harlan County KY. I read "Big Coal", a terrific expose of the heartless nature of the coal industry across the country, not only in WV, AL, PA where big media focus has been centered for a few days or weeks around spectacular accidents, but also in WY or MT.
I hope, as I tell my story, that it doesn't sound like I'm justifying anything regarding safety and heavy metal mining and production.
The industry is so high risk that slight missteps, small lapses in memory, a short lack of mental concentration, etc. can be deadly, or in my case, near deadly.
In the accident I suffered,I was the victim of a convergence of many forces: historical, economical, mental fitness (what lapse caused the flue to be opened?)(was B**c**n,the hourly wage employee who made the error, thinking? responding robotically to a situation?), confusion of accountability, worker apathy, management apathy, labor/union strength/impotence, corporate practices, toothless safety laws and regulations, worker disdain for safety regulations and measures to make the work place safer (my co-workers at the Zinc Plant hated OSHA. I worked with people who saw safety measures as a threat to job security and to the way things should be in a smelting plant. I think some of my co-workers liked the danger.
As I have thought about this whole situation almost non-stop over the last thirty-three years and five and a half months, I have worked hard not to simplify it but to understand it as fully and copiously as possible, not as a litigator, not as an academic, not as a politician, not as a capitalist, but as a man who survived.
And then there's the point you make, SL: community resentment toward those who work for reform. Again, as you and Starr have both said, it's the fear of losing profit and, in the community, the fear of jobs disappearing (because of the cost of safety and environmental adjustments, fear largely fanned by the company, and total bullshit...taking safety and environmental measures is not what has brought down companies, but OSHA/EPA/unions are convenient scapegoats...and workers/community members often buy the scapegoating and retaliate). I've seen and read about all of this in the Silver Valley.
My sympathies are with the worker. But, I don't idealize or romanticize the men I worked with or that my father worked with or the men I grew up with. No worker should be fucked over with bad working conditions and lousy pay; workers can, however, undercut themselves by resisting reform and resenting change.
It's very complicated.
Student of Life, thank you so much for your interest in my story. I'm going to keep telling it.
Thank you so much for your comments and please know that I am very grateful that you take the time to read my writing and respond to it.
Please keep doing so!
Highest regards, rp
Maybe they didn't visit you because it scared them too much? It's kind of a lame-ass excuse, but when I was a volunteer fireman, the only way we got on a truck as undertrained and underequipped as we were was to ignore the fact that we could be hurt.
It is kinda common in dangerous industries for people to want to ignore folks injured on the job because they don't want to realize that it could happen to them.
Glad you got your sight back.
Falstaff,
I agree with you and I think yours is a very good point. It's almost like a superstitious thing.
thanks for your good thoughts.
Ever consider the possibility that it wasn't an accident? Somebody over there hold a grudge against your dad and try to get to him through you?
Anonymous,
Never did.
rp
RP,
I tend to agree with Falstaff. I have thought about that issue over the years. It is a common one raised by my clients, because they too want to know why few, if any, came to visit or even call. I haven't had any real good answers for them, other than along Falstaff's line of reasoning. I am going to give it more thought. It is an important issue that I need to spend more time on.
Regarding John Bardelli-He actually emailed me about your comments, and gave me the blog site address. What occurred with John was rough for me to understand too. My world was baseball--lets play ball and not worry about that crap. I told John, after reading your comments, that until then I had actually wiped the vast majority of that year out of my mind. I had to look more than twice at the team photo you posted to clear some (not nearly all)of the thick walls that I had built up to block out that year. They are still not down. Because of the debacle of that year I had some how come to view the prior year as my last year of Legion. That year was amazing. However, it ended on a sour note, when John's wedding was scheduled at the same time as the State Legion Tournament. Frankly I had a hard time back then, and in all honesty probably now, dealing with that. I was naive and back then baseball was "my life." I wondered how anyone could schedule a wedding in conflict with such an important event as the state tournament. His absence had a huge impact on the team and we all played in a fog. His mere presence at regular season games gave us strength, mental and physical, that we didn't have on our own.
As the years have gone by I have come to have a better understanding about a lot of things, but I would be lying to you if I told you that, in my gut, I felt significantly different than you did. I understand your original perspective completely. Yes, I have worked through some of it, and I remember more after reading John's comments and talking with him, but there is still an unexplicable pain.
I read your blog regularly. Your comments are thought provoking to me because they address many issues that I don't often look at in my own life, and your comments come from a perspective that I am not really familiar with. So keep up the good work. I enjoy reading your comments and trying to see if I might not learn more, about myself, from them.
I wonder if I should take down that picture. It might cause confusion. The picture is of the 1971 team coached by Chet Dickey. I don't have any pictures of our 1970 team.
I'm deeply gratified that you read my blog and that you enjoy it.
I read yours, too, and it's provoking to me. I'm fading right now. I'll write more over at your blog later this week.
Thanks again.
rp
I am more confused than usual because I could have sworn I recognized Fred Bardelli on the left, Hugh Marconi in the middle and the Lamb Chops on the right. Also it looked like Don Knott there but hey, thats why I wear bifocals I guess--neither one works. My thoughts on my last year are the same though. I do remember playing in Yakima, kind of a who cares type feeling, but I don't recall Oregon. Brains dead.
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