Teen seeks compensation after workplace accident

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A 19-year-old work­er is call­ing for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a work­place ac­ci­dent near the Nu Iron plant at Point Lisas that re­sult­ed in the am­pu­ta­tion of part of his left lit­tle fin­ger.

The teen, a wash bay tech­ni­cian em­ployed by RPM Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices, said the in­ci­dent oc­curred on Au­gust 3, af­ter he was as­signed by a su­per­vi­sor to work in a con­fined space us­ing a sledge­ham­mer to dis­lodge ma­te­r­i­al trapped in­side a hop­per.

Ac­cord­ing to a per­son­al in­jury re­port dat­ed Au­gust 5, the work­er was in­side a hop­per near the fifth wheel of a truck when the sledge­ham­mer struck a cage above his head. He said the im­pact caused the ham­mer to re­coil, with the low­er end strik­ing his left lit­tle fin­ger.

The re­port stat­ed that the up­per por­tion of the fin­ger suf­fered a crush­ing in­jury, leav­ing the skin torn and the bone ex­posed. The dam­aged sec­tion re­mained at­tached on­ly by a small piece of tis­sue.

The work­er said he was ini­tial­ly tak­en to the Cou­va Med­ical Cen­tre be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal be­cause X-ray ser­vices were un­avail­able at the Cou­va fa­cil­i­ty.

Af­ter an as­sess­ment, doc­tors re­port­ed­ly de­ter­mined that the up­per por­tion of the fin­ger could not be saved and would need to be am­pu­tat­ed. The surgery was per­formed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 9.45 pm that same night.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, the work­er, who asked not to be named, al­leged that he was pres­sured by a su­per­vi­sor to car­ry out du­ties that fell out­side his nor­mal re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as a wash bay tech­ni­cian. He al­so claimed he was work­ing in a con­fined space with­out ad­e­quate su­per­vi­sion when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

The teen ex­pressed con­cern over what he de­scribed as de­lays in re­ceiv­ing com­pen­sa­tion and ac­cess­ing Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Sys­tem (NIS) ben­e­fits while he con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence pain from the in­jury.

He fur­ther al­leged that the in­ci­dent was not prop­er­ly re­port­ed to Nu Iron and said he was sur­prised to learn that per­son­nel at the fa­cil­i­ty were al­leged­ly un­aware of the full cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the ac­ci­dent.

The work­er is now be­ing as­sist­ed by the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) in pur­su­ing the mat­ter.

“I want the mat­ter prop­er­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed and a fair res­o­lu­tion reached,” he said.

How­ev­er, RPM Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices’ Health, Safe­ty and En­vi­ron­ment (HSE) man­ag­er, Kevin Lal, dis­put­ed the work­er’s ac­count, say­ing the com­pa­ny re­mains un­cer­tain about the ex­act cir­cum­stances be­cause the em­ploy­ee al­leged­ly pro­ceed­ed with the task on his own.

Lal said the work­er was as­signed to work with a team and was in­struct­ed by a se­nior em­ploy­ee to wait while tools were be­ing ob­tained but dis­obeyed in­struc­tions.

“He pro­ceed­ed to do the job. We don’t know what hap­pened,” Lal said, adding the work­er was lat­er seen leav­ing the area with his hand wrapped.

Re­spond­ing to claims that the teen was pres­sured in­to per­form­ing du­ties be­yond his job re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, Lal said, “He’s been ad­vised to say that, but that’s not cor­rect.”

Lal al­so chal­lenged the work­er’s ver­sion of events re­gard­ing the com­pa­ny’s re­sponse af­ter the in­jury, say­ing RPM made sev­er­al at­tempts to get him to seek med­ical treat­ment. Ac­cord­ing to Lal, the work­er de­clined as­sis­tance and said he would seek med­ical help in­de­pen­dent­ly while in­volv­ing the union.

He said the com­pa­ny sent emails re­quest­ing a meet­ing with the work­er and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives to dis­cuss the is­sues but re­ceived no re­sponse. While stress­ing the com­pa­ny had not of­fered a spe­cif­ic fi­nan­cial com­pen­sa­tion pack­age, Lal said RPM re­mained will­ing to meet with the work­er and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives. He al­so said the com­pa­ny was con­tact­ed by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA), which as­signed an of­fi­cer to in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

Lal de­clined to pro­vide Guardian Me­dia with a copy of the com­pa­ny’s re­port, say­ing it was not in­tend­ed for pub­lic re­lease.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of En­er­gy Ernesto Ke­sar has been in­formed of the mat­ter and is re­view­ing the al­le­ga­tions.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of So­cial De­vel­op­ment Van­dana Mo­hit said an of­fi­cer from her min­istry would as­sist the teenag­er with his ap­pli­ca­tions for avail­able sup­port and ben­e­fits.