16 yo kid inside a mill

[pdqdl]

On an arborist site, you’re making the argument that driving a car is more dangerous than the timber industry?

Really?

You’re just going to call one of the most dangerous professions as risky as picking up milk?

If false equivalency was an Olympic sport, that would be gold level.

I think his argument was that 16-year-old boys are quite unsafe with common implements like automobiles. When you compound 16-year-olds with timber mills , you are far more likely to get a deadly combination .

Quite frankly, I thought the analogy to 16-year-olds in hundred mile per hour cars was a good comparison. Let us take a look at the leading cause of death for teens:



I think that the conclusion that can be drawn is that teenagers make cars more dangerous, in the same fashion that they would make sawmills more dangerous. Similarly, since teenagers require more monitoring in automobiles, there should be a similar program to protect the young 'ens when they are being introduced to a serious work situation like timber and sawmill activities.

I have not read this entire thread. Did anyone ever discover the true nature of his accident in the sawmill?
For all we know, he had a heat stroke while transferring lumber from one pile to another.

 

[wildwes]

yeah they do 10 week basic, then after HS grad they do their AIT which can very in length depending on job at signing. Some are 8 or 10 (maybe 12 is the shortest again I'm not sure) weeks some are up to 52 (nurse) I believe. So something like that can hasten the time an 18 yo reports to actual assigned unit, but its only a 10 week difference, and the class isn't always starting when you want to go... sometimes they dont start for a month or two after youre ready. and they dont pay you for sitting on your butt. So you'd report when the next available class would start.

My best friend's AIT was 10 weeks I believe, but I have had former students who were in AIT for at least 30 some weeks, I can't remember what their MOS was. Had a classmate from HS who went in the Navy, was 19 years old in nuke school to work on subs, but the idiot had sex tapes of him and his barely underage girlfriend with him, the Navy found them and now he is a registered sex offender

 

[slowp]

In the tiny community I lived in, I know for sure of two deaths of what is considered to be a "kid" --18 or 19 year olds. One got sucked into something in the lumber mill and the other tried to stop a log from swinging as it arrived onto the landing.

There's a difference between working in daddy's watch repair shop and working around things that will smash, rip, tear off limbs, etc.

Very few loggers want their kids to work in the woods because of the danger. I'm not sure if it was on purpose or not, but one kid who wanted to be a logger went to work with grandpa, and after a season decided it was too scary--"grandpa tried to kill me today". Grandpa was pretty safety oriented so I think it might have been a bit purposeful and done to encourage the kid to go into a safer line of work.

The new kids--of legal age, are usually watched carefully in the woods. Saw one "kid" get sent back to work on the rigging crew after the yarder engineer saw a tear in the chaps and told the kid he had to learn to run a saw better before he could work as chaser. The "kids" are not to be trusted. They do not know the physics of logs and also don't always listen to the experienced workers. Once again, that's young 20 somethings and 18+ year olds.

One exasperated hooktender, who needed to show me potential tail trees, told his workers, who were young, to continue work while he was gone but if they had questions about something "DON'T DO IT."

I'm not sure that the armchair experts on here have any real idea about working in the woods. That's my area of expertise. I found sawmills to be much scarier. I will remember the ending of the safety lecture given by a college instructor to us before we went on a mill tour. "There's places in here where you can lose an arm. There's things that will cut off your leg. Hell, there's things that will cut your whole body up so be damn careful."

 

[scut207]

snip

I have not read this entire thread. Did anyone ever discover the true nature of his accident in the sawmill?
For all we know, he had a heat stroke while transferring lumber from one pile to another.

https://apnews.com/article/boy-dies-wisconsin-sawmill-investigation-78152b522f7cb5f3363b2f8198afb29b"A news release from the sheriff’s office said the teen died after an “industrial accident” but Chrisman said Thursday that Schuls’ cause of death and details of his injuries were not being released because of the ongoing investigation."


It Specifically states injury occured in the sheriff report.

regarding the safety aspect of the 2 different activities, I tried at exasperating length to explain that kids come into contact or interact with cars every day. Relative danger cannot be deduced from just overall deaths or deaths per capita at an age. It has to include the count of people engaged in the activities being compared.

Millions of kids are riding in cars every day, the death rate per instance in that activity is relatively low even though it is the number 1 cause of death.

Now if every kid in the nation worked at a sawmill we'd be able to compare apples to apples.

In order to compare accurately we'd need accurate employment records for all mills employing teens under 18. Which I think is a stretch for this discussion.

I did compute based on the data in the link where you got the graph, that for a 16yo only, that approximately anything more that this one 1 death in 4000(or if there is less than 4000 16 year olds working in a sawmill in the country which based on the fact that theres approx 2500 mills total according to tax records I doubt each is employing a 16yo every day) then its computationally accurate that a sawmill is more dangerous based on this one death alone.

As an exageration, if only 30 16yo are working in or around mills fully employed, one death makes it exponentially more dangerous an activity even though it's imperceptible in the overall count vs the deaths due to MVA. Many have chosen to ignore this caveat because it is inconvienient to their argument.

 

[wildwes]

The "kids" are not to be trusted. They do not know the physics of logs and also don't always listen to the experienced workers. Once again, that's young 20 somethings and 18+ year olds.

To say this as a blanket statement about all "kids" is no better than the folks who say that all young teenagers (or all adults for that matter) are ok to work in a mill. Different individuals have varying levels of maturity. From my experience, teenagers in particular have varying levels of maturity, and I would hazard a guess that I have worked directly with more teenagers over the years than the majority of folks on this forum.

 

[slowp]

To say this as a blanket statement about all "kids" is no better than the folks who say that all young teenagers (or all adults for that matter) are ok to work in a mill. Different individuals have varying levels of maturity. From my experience, teenagers in particular have varying levels of maturity, and I would hazard a guess that I have worked directly with more teenagers over the years than the majority of folks on this forum.

So, how do you test to be sure they will act safe in a testosterone filled tough guy environment? How do you convince a kid that a swinging log cannot be stopped by them when they think they know it all? That latter part is common amongst the boys. I have remembered another death caused by trying to stop a log from swinging from the rigging on the landing. It looks possible, but it kills or maims people who try.

Also, if you've lived in a logging/mill town, you'll see a lot of men limping badly, or with various body parts missing--hunched over from back injuries or just wear and tear. Why risk that fate on a teenager? It's not the military where that is to be expected, and it all depends on which state it happens in as to getting help--disability pay.

Oh, and that brings up another worry. The company's insurance premiums rise when injuries occur. When I retired, the insurance payment per employee equalled or exceeded their hourly wage. That's an incentive to not hire any immature folks. It's also why mechanized equipment had been replacing workers on the flatter ground.

 

[wildwes]

So, how do you test to be sure they will act safe in a testosterone filled tough guy environment? How do you convince a kid that a swinging log cannot be stopped by them when they think they know it all? That latter part is common amongst the boys. I have remembered another death caused by trying to stop a log from swinging from the rigging on the landing. It looks possible, but it kills or maims people who try.

Also, if you've lived in a logging/mill town, you'll see a lot of men limping badly, or with various body parts missing--hunched over from back injuries or just wear and tear. Why risk that fate on a teenager? It's not the military where that is to be expected, and it all depends on which state it happens in as to getting help--disability pay.

Oh, and that brings up another worry. The company's insurance premiums rise when injuries occur. When I retired, the insurance payment per employee equalled or exceeded their hourly wage. That's an incentive to not hire any immature folks. It's also why mechanized equipment had been replacing workers on the flatter ground.

I never said there was a test for that, now did I? I simply said that making blanket statements about entire age groups of people and their ability or maturity is foolish, because it is. The only way you're ever going to know how mature someone really is will be by working around them and getting to know them. I don't personally think throwing a green kid or adult into an overly dangerous job is wise, I believe in putting them somewhere safer/simpler and letting themselves work their way up. There is a reason apprenticeships used to be common, and I believe they still should be.

 

[JRM]

So, how do you test to be sure they will act safe in a testosterone filled tough guy environment?

Some jobs are for men. Some are for women.
Barring exceptions from the norm, it's really that simple.

Now be a good little girl and return to the hate thread and quit trying to turn this into one

 

[Bill G]

Some jobs are for men. Some are for women.
Barring exceptions from the norm, it's really that simple.

Now be a good little girl and return to the hate thread and quit trying to turn this into one

Ya gotta love karma

 

[JRM]

Ya gotta love karma

Fair is fair

 

[Bill G]

Fair is fair

Good for the goose, good for the gander

 

[rms61moparman]

Well since hyperbole is the game of the day:

What the hell are they doing in your class if they aren’t learning skills after you’re done with them, If they have zero skills it isn’t the kids fault.

There’s nothing going on at all in a production shop they couldn’t learn at 18 after they graduate, if you taught them the basics right

no bill, I answered. You just don’t like how I answered,

They should be getting skills in an educational environment.

The other is just a loaded question.

I’ve answered they can find different kinds of employment until 18.

So much of that depends on where they are.
In my part of the world, if a kid wants spending money, they work for a farmer or do odd jobs. We are a rural community so there isn't a job on every corner. Far too many just whine and complain until their gainfully employed parents pay them to play on their phones all day.


Mike

 

[Bill G]

So much of that depends on where they are.
In my part of the world, if a kid wants spending money, they work for a farmer or do odd jobs. We are a rural community so there isn't a job on every corner. Far too many just whine and complain until their gainfully employed parents pay them to play on their phones all day.


Mike

So true

 

[Joseph Acquisto]

A short tale about 16 year olds around machinery, even WITH "supervision". I went to a vocational High School to learn printing. That may seem tame to some of you, but, in the 50's and 60's it could be a dangerous sport.

Printing presses in those days pressed inked lead type against paper, under pressure. "Linotype" machines squired molten lead under pressure into dies to form "lines of type" to be used in some of those machines.
I was a Senior and running a "Kelly B automatic", a hybrid rotary press that had "cam actuated" grippers (steel claws" to grab a sheet of paper from a pile and wrap it around a cylinder while a bed moved back and forth under it to press the type against it while it rotated. Needless to say these machines were never in "top shape" and it was apt to miss feed paper once in a while, causing delays.

One day one of my c;lass mates decided he needed to learn how to operate that machine. First thing I told him was "do not disrespect the machine and think you are faster, NEVER reach into it for any reason while it is running, stop it, fix it and start again.".

Sure enough, second or third miss feed, decided he could reach in and snatch the sheet out. Sure enough, he was not fast enough and one of the gripper fingers got him. He did not lose the finger, but it made quite a bloody mess and left him hand gimpy for a while.

Kids are prone to doing things on impulse.. The Human brain does not fully develop until early 20's, until then Humans do not have complete control over their impulses or comprehend reality does not bend to suit them. Some never develop that ability.

 

[slowp]

So, pointing out high insurance costs, the crippling of MEN, kids smothering each year in a grain silo/elevator, the fatalities in stopping logs, is not part of this thread? I thought it was about kids working at hazardous jobs, not a misogyny hate thread. I do know a leetle bit about working in the woods. Just a leetle bit. Like 30+ years of it. We call it forestry.

As far as "close" supervision. Kids were still cutting fingers off in the BOYS shop class in my junior high.

If you wanna get sexist. Was told by a guy who contracts out as a faller certifier/trainer. He said that women were starting to become certified, and he found them easier to train. He noticed that we are a bit more fearful than men--realize that the job is very dangerous, and are also better listeners and followers of instruction. I was shocked to hear this from him. There were more, a lot more women in the last chainsaw certification I went to. I got the impression that a couple were daughters of production fallers.

 

[pdqdl]

I agree in general that the girls are easier to work with, less confrontational, and more inclined to listen. What they don't have is the upper body strength and brute force endurance that the boys come genetically programmed with.

From the earliest known history of mankind, the men have been the warriors. We fight, we die, and we glorify that particular variety of stupidity. A lot of that attitude gets transferred into every workplace, and the more dangerous that workplace might be, the more those attitudes come into play.

While your observation about this not being the misogyny thread are probably correct, you aren't exactly being helpful at reversing that direction.

 

[JRM]

So, pointing out high insurance costs, the crippling of MEN,

I guess women don't get crippled and broke up? Maybe because they aren't doing the brunt of the grunt work?

I thought it was about kids working at hazardous jobs, not a misogyny hate thread.

You ought to look in the mirror. This was a thread about kids - you predictably turned it sexist. Your comparisons couldn't be more irrelevant. When you start seeing all women crew in the woods, crews that make a career of it with nary a man on the job to lend a hand, then you might have a comparison. A crew that can prove they can make production job after job, year after year. One or 2 women on the job that in all likelihood are in a support role don't count. A person that's made a career in this industry should know this.

 

[pdqdl]

I will concede that slowp has a long history of introducing controversial topics to threads. In this particular case, it was you that introduced "women" to the thread.

There were not any mentions of that topic until you brought it up.

Some jobs are for men. Some are for women.
Barring exceptions from the norm, it's really that simple.

Now be a good little girl and return to the hate thread and quit trying to turn this into one

 

[Bill G]

I will concede that slowp has a long history of introducing controversial topics to threads. In this particular case, it was you that introduced "women" to the thread.

There were not any mentions of that topic until you brought it up.

I am sorry but there is a bit of a backstory on that, I assume you are not aware of it. I will leave it at that and JRM can explain if he chooses.

 

[GenXer]

I will concede that slowp has a long history of introducing controversial topics to threads. In this particular case, it was you that introduced "women" to the thread.

There were not any mentions of that topic until you brought it up.

I mentioned a girl who lost her leg on page 2.