Every day we have to engage in a series of checks and balances. We know that, outside, we could get mugged, hit by a car, struck by lightning or attacked by hyenas. But if you live your life in that kind fearful state, you?d never get anything done. So we do go out, we decide the odds on being groped by Carrot Top are limited, and we shop and we work and we go about our lives. And every so often, something so awful happens it makes us cross our legs reflexively and shrink away to the safety of our homes hoping these things never happen to us. What things? Industrial accidents ? the most horrible accidents in existence. Some happen on mass scale, some happen to a single person. None are pleasant.
The Texas City Disaster
It happened in 1947 and is one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in mankind?s history. 581 people died including every member of the Texas City Fire Department except one.
The SS Grandchamp was docked at the Port of Texas City. Its cargo included 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, the basic ingredient of any good fertilizer bomb as well as sisal twine and various other items. It was at 8:00 am when smoke was first discovered. For over an hour attempts were made to extinguish the blaze. By this time a crowd had gathered on shore to watch the ocean boil against the hull of the slowly bulging ship. 12 minutes later the ammonium nitrate reached critical temperature and the ship exploded spectacularly, devastating everything within range.
A view of the scale of devesation.
The ship?s 2 ton anchor was hurled nearly two miles away. The explosion created a 15 foot wave that traveled outward for 100 miles. On the shore, more ammonium nitrate in a warehouse exploded along with a Monsanto chemical plant. 40 miles away in Houston, windows exploded. 100 miles away in Louisiana people felt the ground shake. And it wasn?t over.
The Texas City firefighters had all died in the blast save one. There were no trucks left to put out any of the destroyed and still burning wreck as flaming balls of sisal twine fell from the skies and over 6,000 tons of blazing ship steel blasted at supersonic speed through the air. And 600 feet away was the SS High Flyer. Its cargo? 961 tons of ammonium nitrate.
A 5 story rubber factory that had been near the dock.15 hours after the Grandchamp exploded, and after 5 hours of fighting smoke on the SS High Flyer, its cargo also exploded, blowing up a 3rdnearby vessel. The entire waterfront was left in ruins. One of the propellers from the High Flyer, found a mile inland, is now part of a memorial park.
The Grandchamp's anchor.Fires burned for well over a week afterward. Firefighters from as far away as Los Angeles came to help put a stop to the destruction. It took nearly a month to recover all of the bodies, some of which were never identified, and some of which were never found at all. The death toll of 581 is thought to be extremely conservative and doesn?t account for travelers, dock workers, sailors on leave and others who may have simply been vaporized n the blast. The total cost of destruction, adjusted for inflation, was over $1 billion.
Meat Grinder
Late one night at a meat packing plant in Oregon, Hugo Avalos-Chanon was working on a sanitation crew cleaning up the location. The location had been cited for safety concerns in the past and it?s unknown whether the machine Hugo was cleaning was supposed to be operating at the time or if the switch was tripped accidentally. What happened was arguably one of the worst accidents you?ve ever heard of.
With the machine running, an industrial blender used to regulate the fat content in ground beef, Hugo fell in. It was, for lack of a better term, a man-sized meat grinder. Other workers rushed to an emergency stop but it was too late to make any difference. The ensuring investigation said Hugo had died of multiple blunt force and chopping injuries. We can only hope it was fast.
The Penis Peeler
Edgardo Toucet Echevarria, a Puerto Rican national, neither read nor spoke English when he was given a temp job working for Future Foam. His assignment was to operate a peeler machine, a spinning, razor-sharp monstrosity that removes uneven edges from carpeting. No one told Edgardo how to use the machine. Nor did anyone point out that the safety guard on the machine had been removed.
In the course of assisting someone on the machine, and as a result of not being trained and no safety features in place, the rapidly spinning blades chewed into Echevarria, completely severing his penis and testicles in the blink of an eye. Imagine the speed, the sharpness of the blades and the horrible scene that took only a moment to develop as Echevarria leaned too close.
The lawsuit Echevarria filed afterwards was voluntarily dismissed shortly afterwards for unknown reasons, but he filed a second suit a couple years later against the staffing company that sent him to work. Among the clams in the lawsuit were that he had been sliced nearly in half and he had suffered a dramatic loss in the capacity to enjoy life. No kidding.
The Texas City Disaster
The SS Grandchamp was docked at the Port of Texas City. Its cargo included 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate, the basic ingredient of any good fertilizer bomb as well as sisal twine and various other items. It was at 8:00 am when smoke was first discovered. For over an hour attempts were made to extinguish the blaze. By this time a crowd had gathered on shore to watch the ocean boil against the hull of the slowly bulging ship. 12 minutes later the ammonium nitrate reached critical temperature and the ship exploded spectacularly, devastating everything within range.
A view of the scale of devesation.
The Texas City firefighters had all died in the blast save one. There were no trucks left to put out any of the destroyed and still burning wreck as flaming balls of sisal twine fell from the skies and over 6,000 tons of blazing ship steel blasted at supersonic speed through the air. And 600 feet away was the SS High Flyer. Its cargo? 961 tons of ammonium nitrate.
A 5 story rubber factory that had been near the dock.
The Grandchamp's anchor.
Meat Grinder
With the machine running, an industrial blender used to regulate the fat content in ground beef, Hugo fell in. It was, for lack of a better term, a man-sized meat grinder. Other workers rushed to an emergency stop but it was too late to make any difference. The ensuring investigation said Hugo had died of multiple blunt force and chopping injuries. We can only hope it was fast.
The Penis Peeler
In the course of assisting someone on the machine, and as a result of not being trained and no safety features in place, the rapidly spinning blades chewed into Echevarria, completely severing his penis and testicles in the blink of an eye. Imagine the speed, the sharpness of the blades and the horrible scene that took only a moment to develop as Echevarria leaned too close.
The lawsuit Echevarria filed afterwards was voluntarily dismissed shortly afterwards for unknown reasons, but he filed a second suit a couple years later against the staffing company that sent him to work. Among the clams in the lawsuit were that he had been sliced nearly in half and he had suffered a dramatic loss in the capacity to enjoy life. No kidding.
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