My Safety Story

by Paul Mullin

"On May 8, 1990, while working as an apprentice millwright at a Plywood Mill on the Miramichi, I was asked by my supervisor to assist another millwright in replacing the knives in the wood chipper while the other employees were on their noon lunch break.

The knives were enclosed within a steel cylinder approximately 8 feet in diameter and could only be accessed by removing steel plates on the side of the cylinder. When in use, the knives travelled at a very high speed and when the power was shut off we had to wait until we thought enough time had passed for the knives to quit rotating. When I went to remove the steel plate on the side of the cylinder, which was held on with two steel pins, it was stuck in place. I grasped the plate with my left hand and tapped it with a hammer to loosen it.

The plate let go and twisted enough that it went into the opening of the cylinder and got caught by the chipper blades, which were still rotating. This happened so suddenly that I didn’t have time to let go of the plate and my hand was pulled into the chipper knives.

The plate jammed the blades and stopped them from rotating but my wrist and forearm was damaged beyond repair and had to be amputated."

Steps that were taken to prevent this from happening again were:

1. A lock down system was put in place
2. Small holes were drilled in the chipper cylinder to see when the knives had stopped rotating
3. Hinges were put on the steel plate