Worst thing to ever happen!!

@ Lancie1 i'am very sorry to hear such a thing, i can only wish you the best.... I always asked myself when i walk into plants could the atmosphere i'm walking into today be harmful to my body, and would anyone even know it?? then i give a prayer and go about my day, once again thanks for shedding your light
 
Hi lancie1

Sorry to hear that as we all just what to go to work earn a days pay and arrive home safe and sound.
It puts the 3 k i lost on that robot head in its place.

Best wishes and look after your self

Donnchadh
 
Thanks for the sentiments, guys. I get by okay, just no longer can do much physical activity. It is ironic how I used to talk to World War I veterans about getting exposed to mustard gas in the trench warfare, then wound up now in the same condition as many of them (the lucky ones that only got a whiff or two).

But I knew the risks on that project, and got paid extra to take them, but I do wish I could say a few words to that Army guy who told me "go ahead in, that old building is safe because we tested it out completely". It makes one have sort of a skeptical nature! If I could get a do-over, I would go ahead and put on the gas mask that I had strapped to my belt, no matter how many tests had been made.

7 or 8 years later I was on the team that was hired to decontaminate and dismantle that same building and equipment. Using later testing devices, the mustard level was found on 90-degree days to be 60 PPM, while the safe level was considered to be the minimum level that could be detected, about 3 PPM as I remember. By that time I had become a programmer and wrote a PLC5 program to run the system that heated up the entire building to 400 degrees and cycled and filtered the air for 2 weeks.
 
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I am also very sorry to hear what happened to you Lancie. Glad that you are still kicking around to help us newbies out!!

Growing up in the Denver Metro area I heard many "stories" about the stuff at the Rock Mountain Arsenal. I assume that is were you were. Every now and then they still find a un-exploded bomb with never gas in it or a grenade.

Believe it or not there is housing developments all around that place these days. I actually looked at a house in the area and then remembered the stores about what is burred in that place. I now live about 15 miles away from there :)
 
Bullzi, I think the old RMA is as clean now as it will ever be. The contaminated buildings, tanks, and equipment have been deconned, cut up, and hauled away. There may be some remaining contaminates in the ground that seep into the water table. I know they were operating filtering wells to try and stop the contaminated ground water from escaping the site.
 
Have my sympathy about your situation, Lancie1. Your story is very touching especially, for you to have played such a big part in decontaminating and dismantling the building and equipment years later is very remarkable. Having read your story, I'm not surprised you seem to have a heart of an "angel". Do you remember someone sent you a private mail last week commending you on your efforts on this forum? Hmm..Take care and stay safe.
 
  • Spent most of a day trying to figure out why part of my program wasn't working before realizing the subroutine wasn't being called. This mistake you learn never to repeat... :oops:
We all make mistakes... The trick is to learn from them.

🍻

-Eric[/QUOTE]

I actually called tech support for this one OUCH!:sick:
 
The worst thing to ever happen to me was....

Wow... that really sucks

I was going to reply on this but mine are so small by comparison, glad you are still here helping all of us, just think if you stayed a few days

I did work in a DOW Chemical plant once taking down some old pipes that had some stuff that was glowing in it, but I tried not to touch it
 
Sorry to hear that Lance,
I was just working in an auto plant, in the electro deposition paint booth where zinc phosphate is used as a anti-rust/paint adhesion prep before the primer is applied. My boss said it was safe to be in there, when I asked him if it's toxic. I had dried powder on my arms, and clothing when finished working. When I got home I did a google search, and....:eek:
 
This almost makes me want to purchase a gas mask, when ever i walk into a plant, sure it may look silly, but hey it will make me sleep better at night
 
I was pretty new to a tire assembly department and had just barely proven myself to the floor techniciains and had become quite intimate with these complex machines.

One day I was watching an assembly drum from the back side and noticed a loose encoder connector bouncing around. When the machine reached a pause in the cycle (it was still in AUTO) I thought I would tighten up that canon plug.

When I did, the grey code went berzerk and so did the assembly drum internal ball screw controlling the center section and bead rings. It screwed itself (literally and figuratively) all the way "shut" and snapped the screw doing about $10000 in damage to the assembly drum and caused an hour of downtime and about 20 hours of expensive labor to repair offline. The drum tech was not happy when I admitted what I did.

All I had to do to avoid all that was tell the operator "Hey, hit the stop button for a sec..." before I touched that cable.
 
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I was pretty new to a tire assembly department and had just barely proven myself to the floor techniciains and had become quite intimate with these complex machines.

One day I was watching an assembly drum from the back side and noticed a loose encoder connector bouncing around. When the machine reached a pause in the cycle (it was still in AUTO) I thought I would tighten up that canon plug.

When I did, the grey code went berzerk and so did the assembly drum internal ball screw controlling the center section and bead rings. It screwed itself (literally and figuratively) all the way "shut" and snapped the screw doing about $10000 in damage to the assembly drum and caused an hour of downtime and about 20 hours of expensive labor to repair offline. The drum tech was not happy when I admitted what I did.

All I had to do to avoid all that was tell the operator "Hey, hit the stop button for a sec..." before I touched that cable.

This is good. Every time you think "i just do this quickly" it is time to stop and think. Most expensive it can result is somebodys life.
 
I know a DIV by Zero will fault a controller and I know how to check that the divisor is great then zero before executing the instruction but didn't. Yep, DIV by zero still faults the controller.
The phone started ringing within 30 seconds from all parts of the plant. Lucky the kill floor was done killing that day and then operator of the RO system stated that he didn't know so many people needed his water.
After the system was started and running I asked who do I need to go speak with so I can take the credit for shutting it down and give them the opportunity to express their appreciation of what I had just accomplished.
 
This is good. Every time you think "i just do this quickly" it is time to stop and think. Most expensive it can result is somebodys life.

I knew that I might affect the value, but the machine should not be moving the drum at the step it was in. This was inherited logic, not mine, so I pretty quickly found the bug, and made this type of crash impossible. Drum crashes were not all that uncommon, but mine just happen to be the worst failure mode. After my logic repairs, drum crashing dropped dramatically, so I faced my stupidity wide eyed and open minded and made lemonade.
 

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