P
pickup
Guest
I'd like to know the whole story. Maybe someone can post further details.
Certainly the incident should be reported to the appropriate agencies, investigations done, and lessons should be learned.
But I'm not sure it was handled incorrectly by the employees.
First, I doubt it's even possible for a pup to tip over. It's not far off the ground to begin with, and the rear wheels tend to keep it from tipping. If it didn't tip during the first few minutes due to top-heavy shifting contents, then it isn't going to tip. [Here on the package side of UPS, we had pups with hydrolic legs ("landing gear") that allowed us to pump up the front of the trailer several feet higher than normal. Sometimes one leg would give out, and the trailer would tilt severly, but I never had one actually tip over. Usually I'd just bang on the other leg, or angle the Leveling Valve to drain the fluid out of the leg, until it lowered the trailer to the normal level position.]
Second, the incident was bad, but the trailer had to be returned to the level position sooner or later. I say, the sooner the better, especially if hazmats are possibly leaking. Especially since you have experienced people and the right equiptment on hand. An outside contractor would probably just do the same thing as the workers on hand did. [By the way, did any employees refuse a request/order to participate?]
Finally, the second Steward and six dockworkers driving the forklifts probably were trying to help out the first yard jockey by minimizing the severity of the incident. The sooner the trailer is returned to level, the sooner people can get inside and go to work dealing with whatever hazmat danger there is. No need to make the problem any bigger than it already was.
I can totally understand the above viewpoint but I can also see the other point of view. What about the poison, there were drums leaking, which ones? What was the poison? Did the people working around the trailer even know about the hazardous materials.? And let me give you a hypothetical situation, suppose this trailer contained poisonous gas compressed in canisters? Upon hitting the ground, the valves loosen and the gas is visibly leaking? Does somebody hop in there and close the valve to minimize the damage or does everyone get as far away from there and wait for the hazmat team to show up? Okay, in this case the poison was liquid and whether or not it was leaking, if there is any leakage , you have to assume it is the poison. Liquid can turn to vapor and be breathed in. So, I am glad nobody got hurt, but it could have gone wrong. If everyone moved away from the scene and waited for a more costly response to this problem, definitely nobody would have got hurt but it would have disrupted operations, and would have been costly.
And again , depends on the poison, some stuff is marginally poisonous. Did you know concentrated mustard(the kind that goes on a hot dog) is poisonous and must be labeled as such if in a 55 gallon drum for transport. If a drum like that were leaking, big deal. but other stuff, different story. There should be procedures in place and known by all before such an incident happens.