Seabees: Whats the most unsafe thing youve seen on a project?

2016-09-24T06:41:36-04:00

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Sep 24 at 2016 9:15 AM

2016-09-24T09:15:57-04:00

Actually we'd discover them each year. We had an anchor pool for the number of safety violations we'd see in the photos on the new Seabee Calendar.

That said, probably the local workers and scaffolding in Somalia.

Response by CPO Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 24 at 2016 9:40 AM

2016-09-24T09:40:05-04:00

Most of the things I have seen, have been some what miner. I know of some things that have happen and been around them.

1. NMCB 4 Task Force Mike Bridge DET, Invasion Iraq 2003, the march up to Baghdad. We were tasked with building a bridge over Saddam canal, to help troops bypass, and go around back side of Nasiriyah, where everyone was getting ambushed. We had to extend the bank out 70ft another words we had to build a cofferdam in combat conditions (keep in mind we were still fighting and charging toward Baghdad), and this was a stopping point for for forces. The cofferdam was made out of these things called spic-cums metal pipes tied together and had to be placed over canal by Excavator. We had to come up with a way to guide them in straight, so didn't have a choice, we placed a Seabee in the bucket over the canal guiding the pipes in and he was hanging out over the canal and we almost lost the Excavator and him in the canal. We completed the task and bridge in record time. This was a operational risk(ORM) we had to take under combat.

2. Deployment after that we had a DET in Albania, and they were 8 hours from anyone who could help QRF and Medical. They were placing a #8 re-bar cage in a 10ft deep hole, for a sewage tank foundation. The cage was 15' x 15' so had to be tied and welded before we placed in hole, could not tie in hole. They had to come up with a way to drop the cage down the hole, so used a backhoe, not good. They rigged it tried to prevent swinging in air, they placed one guy in the hole to guide it in, well during placement, he got caught between forms and the cage and caged slammed into his leg, barking it. He suffered a real bad brake and had to be medevaced out. The bad news to this, he passed away in hospital in Germany, a couple weeks latter recovering from a surgery he had, a blood clot developed. This was a ORM thing also as they had a time frame had to get in and out under a certain time as per State Department, and Albanian Government. We lost 3 troops that deployment, the BU2 in this case, a SW3 KIA in Iraq from enemy, and then one in Spain, he passed after PT, had a Brian Tumor.

3. I was at CBU we were doing Disaster Recovery stuff during a Hurricane and we had to place a barricade around a building on base and it needed some welding, well it was raining like hell and we had to get it done, I welded the pieces together in hurricane Rain and winds. I'm alive,but one of the dumbest things I could have ever done.

The normal things like being tied off and others like that.