Industrial Near Miss

Amanda was putting her safety gear on when her co-worker walked into their area and asked "Where are you going?"

"To do a safety inspection."

"Didn't you do one yesterday?"

Her co-worker, Jim, really didn't like going out in the plant and doing safety inspections. He liked staying in the temperature controlled, clean environment of the lab. Amanda, on the other hand, loved going out there and seeing and learning new things.

"Yes and nobody put their name in for today so I'm going again."

"Why you? Who put you up to it?"

"Nobody, I volunteered."

By then, she had all her safety protective equipment on. Hard hat, safety boots, safety glasses, dust mask, ear plugs, gloves and high visibility vest. Ready to go.

"You're nuts."

"Yep! And I like it that way. See you later!"

Amanda left the lab office area before Jim could say anything else. She would definitely take her time today. He could do the boring tasks on the list.

She made her way to the control room and checked in with the shift foreman who confirmed that the maintenance workers were pretty much all on the same jobs as the day before. Big jobs that required teams of three and lots of equipment. She then went into the plant and took the elevator to the eighth floor and went north to the stairs that led three more flights up to the top of a silo. As she got close to the top, she was stopped by red danger tape. The tag on the tape stated that the maintenance workers were doing a lift. She looked up but couldn't see anything on the beam up above so she called out "Adam? Perry? Cello?"

"Come on up!" She heard Cello call back. "We're SO happy to see you!"

As she made her way up the last few flights of stairs, she wondered if that was sarcasm. The three of them were quite the team. The day before, she had watched them work for a while and had been impressed that they could get lots of work done, do so safely and yet have plenty of fun doing so. They had exchanged several barbs and one-liners that had them all laughing. Once she got up there, she saw all three of them, holding up a large cover yet not moving.

Cello spoke again "Just in time... we need a wee bit of a hand here, Mandy."

"Why? What happened?"

She looked at all three of them, Cello was red with exertion but Perry and Adam were quite white and appeared to be very scared. Perry's arm seemed to be caught under the cover. Adam seemed tangled in chains. What on earth had happened?

Cello explained "We tried to lift the cover off but one of the chains broke. Then the other chain got loose, let go and spun around and caught Adam's clothes. We're holding this up so it doesn't fall on Perry's arm. His arm is caught in something and he can't get it loose. So you need to help us get out of this mess."

"Should I call the first aid team?"

"Nope, none of us are hurt at this point, we just need you to help untangle the chain's hook from Adam's clothes and re-hook it to that hook over there. Then, you can pull the chain up and we can all let go. Easy peasy."

Perry spoke up "Mandy, you saw that we inspected these chains yesterday, right? You were here when we did that."

"I remember. So what do you think happened?"

"We have no clue yet but you saw us inspect them! You'll vouch for us, right?"

Cello spoke up "Perry's worried that we'll get blamed for this."

"Well, I did see you inspect the chains and all this stuff yesterday and I will vouch for that, don't worry."

Amanda made her way to Adam and saw that the chain had wrapped around his large frame and was hooked on the other side. He said "I know there's not much room back there but you can push me in if you need to."

As he was taking up most of the room in the small space between the machine and the wall, she had to climb up on part of the handrail to get past him. She also had to hold on to his back not to fall onto him as she moved past him. Her thoughts momentarily wandered "I'd sure like to give this one a nice back rub and then some!" But she kept that to herself.

Cello called out "Hey Mandy, you like helping people, right?

"Of course!"

"Mandy, are you married?"

"No."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"No. Why?"

Adam piped up "Shut up Marcello". The fact that he used Cello's full first name was an indication it was serious.

Once Amanda made it to the other side of Adam, she saw that the hook had caught in his clothes. His coveralls were torn and the hook caught on whatever he was wearing underneath. And the tight chain was pulling on what looked like long underwear. That had to be uncomfortable. No wonder he was so white.

"Adam, how do you suggest I do this? Can you move at all?"

"Nope, as soon as I move, it gets tighter. You'll have to cut the fabric."

"How on earth did this hook get there?"

"I wasn't facing this way when we started. And my coveralls were already torn. I was going to change them at lunch. When we started, I was facing left so when it whipped around, it caught me there and when Perry screamed, I turned to catch the cover with both hand before it crushed his arm. Everything I've tried either makes it tighter down there or puts Perry's arm in danger."

The hook was caught pretty close to his groin and pulling the underwear up. It looked really uncomfortable.

"And how would you propose I cut? Straight up? What will the hook do once freed?"

"The hook should just fall away and swing back."

"Is there any way I can lower the hook from that thing up there and then free it?"

"Nope, it's as low as it can go."

"What if I put things under your feet to raise you up and then make it loose?"

"Then I lose my grip on the cover and not only put Perry's arm in danger but my own back and shoulders at risk."

After discussing a few other options, it was clear that the only way to free him was to cut his long underwear.

"The idea of a blade that close to my jewels isn't too comfortable but it's the only way to get out of this predicament. Trust me, we've had a while to think about all options here. There's a knife in my tool bag over there."

Amanda climbed around him again and went to the tool bag.

And that's when Cello spoke up again...

"Mandy, did you ever think that you'd ever have to rescue someone whose knickers are literally caught in a twist?"

"Shut up Marcello!"

"Oh come on, Adam, you've got to see the humour in this!"

Perry was chuckling "Hey, even I see the humour in that and I'm at risk of losing an arm here."

Amanda turned around and said "Is there anything I can wedge between that cover and below to prevent your arm getting squished?"

"In a perfect world, yes but not up here right now, we don't have anything with us that we could use for that but good idea!"

Amanda had taken the knife, along with a roll of duct tape from Adam's tool bag and made her way back to him.

Cello, ever the joker spoke up again "Come on Mandy, you've had your hands down a guy's pants before, haven't you? Our arms are getting kind of tired here."

Getting no response, he continued "Besides, after getting his jewels jerked around like that, Adam might need help to make sure everything still works well down there."

"Marcello, will you just shut up?"

Adam was getting really tired of Cello's babbling. Amanda spoke up "Cello, really! Think about it... If it were you, wouldn't you rather try that in the privacy of your own home with your wife rather than with a coworker here?"

"Well, Adam doesn't had a wife anymore and it always works better when it's a nice girl's hands that's trying. Besides, Mandy, he's got a nice one. Clean cut and bigger at rest than mine at full mast. You'd like it!"

"Marcello! For the last time man, shut the fuck up!"

Perry piped up "Cello, for shit's sake, shut up! That is WAY too much information! And I can't believe you checked him out! Have you checked all of us out?"

Amanda cut in "All of you, for now, be quiet. I need to concentrate here."

She was trying to figure out a way to cut the fabric without having to put her hand down Adam's underwear.

Adam spoke softly "Just do it."

Amanda removed her gloves to better feel the fabric. The underwear band was tight due to the pull of the chain. She managed to get her hand in and turn the blade towards the fabric. It was one of those safety knives with the retractable blade so she pushed down on the blade and cut a bit of the underwear band. It took four small cuts to finally make her way to where the hook was. By then, the pressure on his family jewels had been relieved a bit and with one last incision, the hook ripped the rest and freed itself. Adam let out a big sigh of relief and took several deep breaths.

That also meant that the underwear fell down, exposing his genitals to her. Cello had been right, it was a nice sight but she couldn't say so. She grabbed the tape, cut off a piece and then delicately pulled the fabric up and taped it so it would give Adam a bit of decency. She put another piece of tape and then also taped up the coveralls.

Adam whispered "Thank you."

"No problem."

Amanda and Adam made eye contact for a moment. He had what she could only describe as kind eyes. They were a nice shade of hazelnut and were fringed with long lashes, the kind most women dreamed of. Adam seemed like a gentle giant to her, towering over her with his six foot four well built frame yet his face had no malice in it at all. She'd noticed him many times before, with his height and his hair brushed back down to his neck. It was like John Corbett's hair in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. In a world of so many guys with brush cuts, it was nice to see one with a full head of hair and not afraid to keep it a little longer. Until the day before, she'd never said more than polite hellos in the hallways to him. Now, she knew that his voice was soft and velvety and that he was very good at explaining things, having given her so much information about the job the day before.

But now wasn't the time to dwell on that, she had to get them out of their predicament. So she asked "Now, what's next?"

The three of them talked her through how to hook up the hoist and whatever else needed to happen so that cover could be lifted safely. Once the cover was securely held, Cello and Adam were free to let go and they went to free up Perry's arm which had snagged on something underneath the cover. They verified that Perry's arm was all okay and it was. Then, they all worked at moving the cover to where it needed to be and securing it there.

After that, they inspected the broken chain and hoist and we baffled by it. It was a brand new one and this was its first use yet it had broken. They put it in a bucket to take down with them.

Cello then said "And it's lunch time kids! Let's go eat!"

As they gathered up what they needed, as well as the faulty chain and hoist, to take back down to the maintenance shop, Amanda said "We'll need to report this as a near-miss. Do you want your supervisor to enter the report in the system or want me to?"

Of course, it was Cello who spoke up "Well, considering that you got the best look at the results, you have to help with the report."

"Marcello! Seriously man, you've got to promise you'll keep all this among us here!"

"Yeah, yeah, you know I was just trying to cut the tension in there. But seriously, you two should consider getting together! You really need to test that things still work well!"

Adam took a rag and whipped Cello with it and they all laughed. As they got into the elevator to go down from the eighth floor, Perry nervously said "We did everything by the book guys, didn't we? Did we miss anything?"

Adam and Marcello both said "We followed every rule, we inspected everything, we didn't do anything wrong. Something was wrong with that hoist for sure."

Then, Adam added "We've got four others like this one, should we not remove them from service until we know for sure they're safe?"

They agreed to talk to their supervisor about it. They got to the bottom floor and went to the cleaning station to get the dust off themselves. As they walked into the shop, Amanda said "I'll go have lunch and see you guys after lunch to put that incident report in."

She'd barely had time to warm up her lunch and take a few bites that the maintenance manager walked up to her and gruffly said "We need you to be part of this investigation."

"I was planning on helping the guys put the near miss in after lunch. I'll be done in about 15 minutes here."

"This isn't just a near miss, Amanda, this is a serious incident. It could have had catastrophic consequences. So all people involved are meeting in ten minutes in the conference room."

"Okay, I'll eat faster. But could you go inform my boss about this?"

"Sure."

Amanda hurried up with her lunch and then made her way to the conference room. The three workers, along with a union steward were sitting on one side of the table and all others were on the other side. Knowing this had become somewhat political, she deliberately sat next to Adam and noticed that this bothered the maintenance manager. The meeting started and the guys explained what they had done and what had happened. Then, the manager and supervisor peppered them with questions. One of the questions was about inspecting all the equipment prior to use. And it seemed that the manager was trying to point a finger at the workers based on this. Perry said that Mandy had participated in the inspection the day before and she nodded.

The manager said "How do we know that you didn't just say that to save their bacon?"

Amanda got up and pressed the button on the computer in the corner of the room. Then, as she waited for it to start up, she said "I've got proof."

Once the system was started and the overhead projector turned on so all could see, she went into their safety observations records and showed them the record she had entered the day before. She pointed out that the date and time of the record were set by the system and could not be cheated. Then, she showed them the information inside that described her interaction with the workers about the inspection and how thorough it had been. The record also included a phrase that said she'd been impressed that they even inspected the brand new one though one would think that would be unnecessary.

The discussion continued for what seemed like hours but in the end, there was only one thing to do: get that hoist / chain combination to be inspected by a specialist. By then, it was past home time and they got sent to change and go home.

To her surprise, when she came back the next day, she found out the three workers were taken off that job and put on modified duties pending the investigation. They'd even been told that they were lucky to not be suspended! In solidarity, the guys in the shop all refused to use any of the new chains / hoists until the investigation was completed, despite being told to keep using them by the manager.

Each and every day, Amanda made her way to see the guys and encourage them to keep their heads high and stay confident that the external investigator would find something. She was called into her boss' office and chided for taking sides, especially since it appeared she was siding with the union. She told her boss that for her, it wasn't about union of staff, it was about human beings. But the maintenance manager was still upset with her over it.

It took a week but the inspector showed up at their plant and asked to see the other hoists in the same series. He had invited a government official and a few supplier representatives to come with him. The inspector took the hoists to a work bench and took two apart. By then, the whole department was watching and someone had called Amanda down to come have a look too.

The inspector showed them all that there was a problem on the inside of the hoists that weakened the chains and that no outside inspection could ever detect that. He recommended that the supplier recall all their hoists in that series which the company agreed to. Their own workers were cleared of all wrong doing and everyone told to get back to work.

The three workers involved were very relieved and all their coworkers cheered. Amanda quietly walked away, smiling. She was happy that the workers had been cleared. Later in the day, she got somewhat of an apology from her boss who said "you've always shown good judgement and I should have trusted that."

That night, Amanda was sitting on her couch, watching TV when there was a knock at the door. She was surprised to find Adam there with a big bouquet of flowers.

"Come on in."

"These are from all three of us as a thank you for believing in us and for all the support you've shown us."

"You didn't have to do that! You guys were right all along. I just happened to believe it."

"You were the only staff to believe in us and it means a lot to us."

He handed her the flowers and she smelled them. She led him to the kitchen and put the flowers in a vase with some water.

"I'm just glad nobody got hurt that day and that it's all cleared up now."

"Can I give you a hug?"

"Sure!"

He pulled her into a big hug and held her. While he held her, he said "I also want to thank you for taking the time that day to tape my underwear together and keep me somewhat decent. It was really appreciated."

"You're welcome."

He pulled back a bit but still held her. They looked into each others' eyes and there was pure heat between them. He bent down and kissed her gently, tentatively. She kissed him back and parted her lips, giving him the signal that it was okay to do more. He took the hint and parted his own lips and kissed her deeply.

She soon felt his erect cock through his pants and against her stomach. Her own underwear were getting soaked. He was an amazing kisser.

He pulled away and caressed her face with one hand while holding her close with the other. "Think we can test if things still work?"

Amanda was surprised "didn't you test it on your own at home? It's been over a week."

"Of course but nothing compares to the real thing."

She smiled, pulled away and grabbed his hand to lead him to her bedroom. Once there, she turned around and pulled him into another kiss. They kissed for a while, letting their hands roam on each other's bodies. Soon, they were undressing each other and she was pulling the covers off the bed.

She pushed him onto the bed so that he would no longer tower over her and have to bend down to kiss her. Now it was her turn to be slightly taller and they continued kissing. Their new position allowed him access to more and his hands were soon caressing her breasts and her core, getting her even wetter and ready for him.

She pulled away and got down on her knees next to the bed. She wrapped her hand around his cock and stroked it a few times. Then, she bent down and kissed the tip of the beautiful cock she'd only had a quick glimpse of a week prior. She engulfed him in her mouth and bobbed up and down on his hard cock. Adam moaned and leaned back, enjoying the caress. Amanda cupped his testes and gently squeezed them while continuing to lick and bob up and down his cock. Adam moaned even louder.

This continued for a while and then, not wanting to come in her mouth, he pulled her up and onto the bed with him. She straddled his thighs and they kissed again. His hands were all over her, setting her skin on fire. She pushed up, reached down and aligned his hard cock with her pussy. Then, she set herself down on it. At first, she didn't move, getting used to his size inside her. But there was only so long she could stay immobile on such an amazing cock so she started moving up and down. He helped her move up and down with his large hands on her hips. Both of them were moaning and breathing heavily.