It's strange, the things that can happen to us. That do happen to us. Sometimes you'd never expect some things to happen to you, you just hear about them happening to other people.
I was involved in a safety incident at the lumber mill I am working at. It left me scared and uncomfortable to be around certain equipment and beating myself up for what happened. The thing is, I was moved from one part of the mill to a different part after almost a month of training and getting accustomed to my first placement. I didn't want to be moved and no one thought it was a good idea. It made sense to move me when it came to the organizational side of things due to pieces of machinery and employees being moved around the site, but it just didn't seem like it would be a good idea to begin with.
Now I wish it never happened.
It was my first day at the new sector of the plant. Hell, I never even made it through a full quarter of a shift. I was wrapping a lift of lumber, I think they were 2x4's.. maybe 10' long boards, a fairly large lift. It takes two people to wrap each lift, one on either side of it and it comes in on a set of chains. The chains are about waist high off the ground, give or take, and you can barely see the other person on the other side of the lift if you look over it. Anyways, I had been watching the girl I was following around that day as she was showing me how to wrap and staple the lifts. She did quite a few and then asked if I wanted to give it a go. I said I would, it looked easy enough.
The thing about this sector of the plant is that the pace of production is quite a bit faster than the sector I was at previously. The place where the wood is cut and sorted puts out tons and tons of boards so fast, this new place I was at has to try and keep up, so the pace is going to be quicker too. I guess I was trying to be quick.. trying not to be the slow rookie. I stapled about 3 lifts before the incident happened.
The lift came in on the chains and the wrapping was draped over it, like every other lift before it. The chains rolled the lift forward down the line as the wrapping was cut and three of us were straightening the wrap and working on getting it stapled down. With trying to keep up with production, people start stapling the wrap down before the lift even stops, so we kept working. Only this lift wasn't stopping.
I reached around the end of the lift, the end that would be the closest to the opening in the wall where the lifts roll out of the building on the chains, to staple the wrap down. I didn't wait for the lift to stop and wasn't aware of how close it was getting to the opening. The opening is framed with steel and it's just big enough for a lift to pass through, maybe half a foot space between a lift and the frame.. and I got pinned between the two.
It seemed to go in slow motion. I got pushed back into the frame and when I tried to get out, I found I couldn't move. But the lift was still going and the pressure on my chest increased. I gave out a bit of a holler at first. Then the pressure really increase and I cried out. My rib cage was being compressed and I was panicking.. I could feel my ribs bending in. I couldn't have been stuck there more than 2 seconds, luckily the others reversed the chains and lift after they heard my cry. I stumbled backwards as the lift moved back and the girl I was following around came and asked if I was okay. Two others were there and another girl came as well. I felt like the wind was knocked out of me, but was feeling physically fine, just a bit of an ache in the center of my chest. No ribs broken or anything.. but I was hurting mentally.
"Are you okay?" "Are you hurt?"
"I think I'm okay.. just freaked out.."
"Here, sit down for a bit." "We have to report this." "You sure you're okay?"
I sat down on some boxes as they finished stapling the lift. I started thinking about what just happened to me. I looked up and saw where I was pinned and grew sick to my stomach. I started shaking all over and my eyes welled up with tears and I started to weep. Leaning over with my head in my hands, I started thinking about how I could have just been crushed into a small gap between a lift of lumber and a steel metal frame, a space where a person wouldn't even think about trying to get through normally.
We went to the supervisors office and explained what just happened. Well, she did the talking, I stood there until I started weeping and sniffling again and they had me sit down. They decided to shut down the area until they could figure out why the chains didn't stop. We went to the lunch room where the girl and I sat for about 15 minutes as I tried to calm down.. it came in waves; we'd be talking and then there would be a silence, which is when I'd start thinking about what happened and the 'what if..?'s and the tears would flow and I'd start hiccuping from trying too hard not to cry.
What if the chains were going so fast that I wouldn't have had the time to cry out?
What if I had been dragged into that gap and crushed?
What if the lift didn't stop?
What if the other workers hadn't heard me or reacted as fast as they did?
What if I hadn't been able to walk away from the incident on my own two legs?
Over the next half hour, the supervisors would come in and out of the lunch room to check on me. A first aid attendant came in to make sure I didn't have any major injuries.
No, there wasn't any visible bruising.
No, there is no marks from my Carhartt buckles being pressed into my chest.
No, my back doesn't hurt, just my chest.
No, it doesn't hurt to lift my arms above my head.
Yes, it hurts a little bit to breathe.
Yeah, it hurts a little when I do that, but not as bad when I do this.
Then I started to cry.
It was so overwhelming. They left me by myself for a little bit. I started to hyperventilate a little.. my thoughts were too much for me to take. My supervisor came in and took me to his office and I tried so hard not to cry. I couldn't do it. I just buried my head into my arms to hide my face.
"I just keep thinking about it...
What if the lift hadn't have stopped?"
"Rachel, if there is anything I want you to know right now, it's that this whole thing wasn't your fault. We didn't have the proper training for you and are going to start working on that right away, just like we're working on the wrapper right now and installing photo eyes to stop the chains when someone gets too close to the opening..."
I ended up getting a ride home from a supervisor. My truck was left sitting in the parking lot at the mill for the night. I started feeling better as soon as we left the site but once I entered the house, I collapsed in the entryway and cried. Hard. I can't remember the last time I've cried that much. And for that long.
The incident happened at around 11:00 - 11:30AM. I cried on and off until about 6:00PM. I called Cody and he came over and stayed until my dad arrived. Both work at the lumber mill. My dad was upset. He didn't find out about the incident until 3 hours afterward and he figured it out himself based on a conversation he overheard between two electricians during a smoke break.
"Yeah, it was a girl in a green hard hat. I have never seen her around before, she must be new."
When my supervisor came to him, he told him what happened, starting out with "Rachel is okay, she's fine". Dad was pissed when they didn't come to him sooner and when they didn't tell his own supervisor what happened. The news spread throughout the whole plant pretty fast. The area it happened was shut down and they instantly started installing safety catches and thinking of ways to prevent something like this from happening again. E-mails were sent to all the superintendents and supervisors, but no one told my dad's supervisor that it was his employee's daughter that was involved in the incident, he found out after my dad found out and told him. Dad got his permission to come home early so he could be with me. He called me first, and I told him over the phone what had went down. I started crying. Cody held me as I cried and I was crying for about a half hour. When my dad walked through the door and Cody left, I started crying all over again and Dad held me and he talked to me about what was happening at the mill and his story about how he found out and I told him how I kept thinking about it.
"I can't take it.. I keep thinking about it... what if the lifts didn't stop?"
"That's the dangerous thing about the psyche. You can't let yourself think about those 'what if..?'s and get yourself in that place. Nothing major happened and you just have to be thankful it wasn't any worse than it was."
He called my mom. I should have called her earlier.. don't know why I didn't. He told her that I was involved in a safety incident at the mill that could have been worse than it was but that I was fine, just sore.
"Your daughter was involved in a safety incident at the mill that could have resulted in her being.. worse than hurt..."
Worse than hurt. Those words have stuck with me more than others. Imagine your father telling your mother that their child (you) were in an incident where you could have been "worse than hurt". What, injured?
Dead?
Sure, I guess it could have been fatal, if you really think about it. Just sayin'. My body would have been crushed if it were forced into that gap. My chest is hurting the most right over my heart. Broken ribs could have resulted in punctured lungs.. crushed heart and internal organs... yes, these thoughts have crossed my mind. Maybe my back would have been snapped. Paralysis? Possible.
Fuck..
I went to the hospital last night to get my chest looked at. The prognosis was bruised muscles between the ribs, nothing more. This incident didn't leave too much physical damage. But as I said before, I'm still hurting. It's just in the mind.
I'm getting used to the morbid thoughts, I guess. It's haunting, but what else can I do? I've talked about it with my parents, my supervisors, and this morning I told some people really high up in the mill about it for the investigation reports. I started crying and so they drove me home again. My poor truck is still sitting in the parking lot. I get the weekend to recover some more and then I'll go in Monday and we'll see where it goes from there.
I've thought about quitting, but this job pays so well, I don't think I could afford it. My mom is saying I should face my fears and try and move on.
"You're tough and you don't cry often, you can get through this... hang in there!"
My dad is saying that if I don't feel safe to work there, then I need to act based on that. If I don't feel comfortable working there, then I won't be a safe worker. I'd be worrying all the time and I wouldn't be able to keep my mind on the job like I need to. It's more my choice than anything, no one can make it for me. I think they might move me somewhere else on Monday, they can see that I don't want to stay there. I told them I'm no longer comfortable working in that part of the mill. Hell, I never wanted to go there in the first place.
Melissa has been mostly silent, she hasn't really asked me anything about it. I'm pretty sure my dad told her pretty much everything and more. I think he likes to vent to her about me, her being my twin and all. This morning, when I went into the bathroom that I share with her to get ready to go into work, I found a message/picture on the mirror from her written in lipstick. It was the lyrics to "You Are My Sunshine" and a little insider note underneath it. It made me cry for a minute, it really meant a lot. I'm sure she knows I'm hurting and I think she's hurting a bit too. (Love you, Nadia.)
And I was a bit surprised to find out that my brother in Vancouver didn't hear about it yesterday. I realized it when I tweeted a little blurb about it this afternoon and he was asking what happened.. I guess that's what happens when he lives a province over?
But falling asleep last night was difficult. I kept picturing me in different accidents and incidents and the results were me being crushed by wood. When I did fall asleep, I'd wake up due to my chest aching. It hurts to inhale and exhale and different movements set it off too. When I lie down, it feels like there is something heavy sitting on/in my chest.
Sometimes I ask myself, and I've even asked others, if I am over-reacting. Of course everyone I ask say I'm not.. but sometimes I feel like I am. And I feel that I should have known better.. Why didn't I wait for the lift to stop? I feel like it was my fault, even though I've been told so many times that it wasn't.
"It wasn't your fault... We're not looking for anyone to blame here, just trying to figure out what happened and doing all that we can to prevent it from occurring again.."
This isn't going to be easy for me to get over it, I know that. I know that it hurts every time I think about it. It hurts every time I breathe in and it's a rude reminder.
It's just...
why me?
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