Unsafe Behavior

Last week when I was at Hiwassee Structural Products, I witnessed unsafe behavior taking place while we were being giving a tour of the facility.

We had just made it to the side of the shop where the assembly the wall panels, when we heard what sounded like a saw cutting through metal. Once we got up to where the noise was coming from I found out that it was the wall panel crew cutting the flanges off a heavy duty steel hanger. There were 3 guys doing this job, one running the Reciprocating Saw and two others holding the hanger. By the time they finished cutting one side of the flange off, it was break time. The two holding the hanger left, and told the one running the saw that they would be back after break. The problem with that was the hangers had to be on the truck that was getting ready to leave the yard. So the guy running the saw continued to cut the flanges of the hangers by himself. I looked over and notice that he was in an award position and in the line of fire, I also knew that this was a job for more the one person. I told the person giving us the tour he better get over there and help out or make him quit until help return. So he went over and held the remaining hangers for the guy.