Deadly Practices

This man said “Slim Jim” in the most professional way I’ve ever heard

Aside from the OBVIOUS danger, that just seems like a serious waste of natural gas.

We were having a new boiler installed, including reconfiguration of a lot of piping in the basement, so a lot of soldering. My wife came home from work while the job was in progress; she was immediately alarmed at the smell of natural gas in the house. I brushed it off, "it's just the MAPP gas they're using for soldering, it smells a little funny" (which is true). She insisted I go outside, get several deep breaths of clean air, then come back in and smell again. She was right - OBVIOUS gas smell in the air, when you came in with a fresh nose. I went downstairs and insisted - using strong language - that they stop soldering immediately until we could find the leak... which took about ten seconds. I found one of their guys had connected the gas line to the new boiler, but not even finger-tight, and turned on the supply without checking for leaks. It's a miracle we didn't have the fastest house in the tri-state area.

I've had to knock a guy down when he tried to use a lighter to check for a natural gas leak. I got some soap bubbles and did it safely. No one should ever have an ignition source near a hazardous gas source

How many of these videos have "Then an employee opened a valve" in them?

First thing who the hell in there right mind would even purge a natural gas line inside a building anyways? Especially next to anything you know takes a Damn flame. Wow!

3:34 intermittently venting gas into the interior room....and THEN, attempting to light the burner. Back and forth for 2-1/2 hours! Sounds more like a suicide.

I genuinely started tearing up hearing the mother talk about her son.

One thing I have learned from these tragic videos is that various industries regularly release chemicals and gases without recording the pollution event.

Our sense of smell can become temporally "numb" to scents. It is why perfume sample reps have a potential buyer sniff a small cup of coffee grounds prior to the next sample.

Purging GAS indoors = Darwin Award.

It seems insane to me that something so dangerous regularly gets handled so recklessly. If management doesn't care about the danger to employees, you'd think they'd at least want to avoid blowing up company facilities. It would be interesting to have an update from the CSB on whether things have improved since 2011.

3:38 - You would think that someone that works around flammable gases would always be carrying a detector. Similar to how an electrician usually carries a quality-made non-contact voltage detector. Granted both the gas detector and voltage detector are not always reliable but it is better than flying by the seat of your pants.

I’ve been binge watching these CSB videos for several days. The scariest part of all these videos to me is that I remember where I was living and working when the accidents happened and I never heard of most of them on the news. In other words, industrial accidents are not as rare as I thought. Stuff blows up and kills people at work a every year! Secondly, I’ve seen many videos where employees did not use gas detectors at the site. So I went where any layman would go to look for something. Amazon. I found flammable gas detectors as low as about $33 and the most expensive was about $133. I’m sure there are pro level detectors costing hundreds, but if the choose is a $33 gas detectors or using your nose or an open flame to check for vapors...come on! Finally, perhaps I’m naive but I can’t see why purging and gas blows can’t be done with dry air.

I love these videos for 2 reasons They are really interesting And the narrator'svoice. Sounds super familiar

What amazes me is how these regulatory agencies have some *crazy* over the top life safety codes for certain things, and then you watch this and find out only ten or so years ago the NFPA never even had regulations to prevent the purging of flammable gases INSIDE OF A BUILDING?

I usually release natural gas after eating slimjims

9:46 They released enough gas to fuel a home every day for more than 25 years

A friend of mine from highschool was supposed to be working that day in Middletown CT. He would have lost his life had he gone to work, he was pretty freaked out about it. A few people he closely worked with died that day.

The person who came up with gas blow technique should run for president in 2020

Purging lines with high pressure flammable gas = Darwin Award Can’t believe that nobody said uhh this might not be such a good idea.

As a combustion professional that regularily works on natural gas and propane system start ups, I would say that it is more likely a lack of knowledge that cause inciedents like this. The majority of plant personal lack the skill set needed to identify the conditions that could cause explosions like the one described on this video. The key to reducing these type of inciedents is eductaion, education and more education!

A slim-Jim manufacturing plant? God, I can just imagine those foul things being made from roadkill, the gum scraped off of movie theater seats, and old bicycle tires.

_"Dangers of intentionally releasing natural gas into work areas"_ .... uhhh .... I know that humans are inept and that the CSB serves an exceptionally vital and important role in illustrating potential risks... but like... I don't need a slide-rule to see a problem there.

What? He vented over 2 hours? That is insane. It is trivial to calculate how long you have to vent before no air is left.

Company: we’ll save money and time by blowing out debris with flammable gas Company: *burns to the ground* Company: *Pikachu face*

I like the part where the company sprays 25 years worth of gas into the air in a morning

A portable vacuum pump isn't expensive. Like a few hundred dollars maybe. Flushing a gas pipe like that is nuts.

Hey, Garner NC resident here! That facility was flattened and left as a pile of rubble for a decade. However, there’s now an Amazon facility that was built over it.

If you think about it, not only is the practice of gas blows incredibly dangerous, but it's also wasteful of the limited amount of natural gas available. Other methods such as air blows not only save natural gas for other, better uses, but they are of course MUCH safer than using flammable natural gas. Truly blows the mind that none of these companies or workers ever thought of using much safer and less wasteful air blows.

Enough gas to heat a home for 25 yrs to clear the lines wow I blow out copper when working on lp tanks but never inside also you have to blow down large lp tanks to replace valves this is either done at the home or if not safe we haul the tank out in the country and you never just Let it all out at once lots of thought is put into this practice each and every time so you go home at the end of the day

The extreme risks of using natural gas to purge pipes aside, I found it shocking just how wasteful it is! All that gas can power so many homes for years. It's like stupid times stupid, or stupid squared! These companies are all about profits, but they waste what they sell too.

second one they vented enough natural gas to power a house for 25 years to clean turbine pipes? that seems inefficient af wtf

That practice of releasing natural gas like that is just plain stupid.

If anyone is wondering why so many people die or are injured at work - this is why. Companies know that it's cheaper to be unsafe and pay a slap on the wrist once in a while, than to be safe. Nothing will change until we start not only shutting down companies that do this but also hold their executives responsible for their illegal behavior.

8:48 - Using large quantities of highly-flammable gas to blow debris out of pipes into the air sounds a lot more dangerous than installing filters to keep debris out of the turbines, especially when you consider that some of that debris is likely to generate sparks as it bangs around and scrapes along the walls of the pipe.

It's horrible that a seemingly obvious dangers and risks took place and killed people. Yet these explosions still happen, and for what? Easier convenience? Companies that use stupid practices to purge pipes should be sued and fined out of existence.

People used to clean carpets with gasoline.

as always, safety procedures are always written in blood.

My dad was set to start working here a week after this happened. Needless to say he did not start immediately.

Why would anyone doing gasblows with natural gas as apposed to less flammable gas?

Years ago I worked in a large name brand Vegetable canning company in NWA Arkansas... One day there was a Natural Gas leak inside the processing plant.... It was STRONG... But they said ITS FINE keep WORKING.... It was so bad I was LITTERLY feeling ill from it. But we just kept on working... Nothing happned thank god!! I was so happy later to get outside to breath fresh air.

When I hear purging of pipes, I think of a non-reactive gas. Nitrogen, usually. Why natural gas? I don't get it. It seems unnaturally dangerous. Someone explain?

One of my coworkers at Target knew someone who ran into the facility to help out those trapped in the fire. He was unfortunately never seen again.

The glaringly obvious faults with these recklessly negligent working practices are that they are so dangerous that it utterly beggars belief that any professional person would implement them, or be lawfully allowed to do so! That anyone thought it reasonable to actually carry out such ludicrously dangerous practices with such a highly explosive gas is really difficult to comprehend! How managers, inspectors and regulatory bodies allowed such practices is incomprehensible.

Any flammable gas with odor can no longer be smelled if in high enough concentrations due to olfactory sensory overload. If you can smell but then no longer smell gas then step outside as your olfactory nerve has already been overloaded and the gas has already reached dangerous levels.

If a company developed a cost effective method to capture the gas at the outlet, they would make some really good money and save lots of lives and painful injuries.

Workers safety is unnecessary and to costly! We need zero Working Safety Regulations. Most important is the profit of the companies!!!!!

released enough gas to power a house for ever why again? for the lulz??

One problem seems to crop up in these investigations. Could it be employers hire low paid low tier educated people to do occasionally critical tasks that result in disaster !? One does not need a high IQ for many factory jobs but common sense and problem solving skills ought to be basic requirement of job to reduce on the job disaster. Those with the skill, training and industry insight must step forward to protect those less capable of forseeing danger in company practices.

Workers should have a gas detector on their belt monitoring things at all times with an alarm

These videos remind me of that one South Park episode where after a major accident companies make videos saying we’re sorry over and over again

A heating installer connected my new furnace and apparently never checked for leaks. He turned the gas back on and went home. I went down in the basement to checkout his work and smelled gas. I immediately turned off the shutoff valve near the furnace. I had a standing pilot water heater right next to it too. He wouldn’t come back to fix it right away. He was leaving for vacation. He just asked if I turned the gas off. He eventually came back and took out that cheap yellow flexible crap and installed hard pipe. He did check that for leaks. Very scary!

Am I the only one binging these videos? I've come to really like learning about industrial accidents

I think after 2.5 hours of purging, the whole building was filled!! Besides being a dumb thing to do, how long do they think it takes gas to move through a pipe?

Two things come to mind. 1) Is Circus monkey Syndrome. In other words, "That's how we've always done it", ( but nobody can ever explain why). 2) I couldn't remember how to dial 911!. That actually does occur and it is very common in a traumatic incident. Take some time and practice doing just that. Disconnect a landline (or other) and practice dialing 911. Do it 100 times. Do it often (it takes 10,000 repetitions for something to really become muscle memory) Make it muscle memory (over time). In a time like this, your fine motor skills go out the window. It's why the military train so extensively in the skillful operation of firearms including reloading , stoppage drills, etc.. Combat is a very stressful action and your fine motor skills will go out the window. You will drop to the level of your training. Train to fight another day. In my experience, there is exactly no difference between an incident such as this and combat. The mind works the same way in both situations.

There is a law that states you can decline doing a particular job duty if you feel it is unsafe to complete. For Instance: I was required to wash my ambulance once a shift. If it was under a certain temperature outside, I did not. I also refused to wash the top, because I only had access to a ladder and the angle of the driveway made it feel unsafe. I wrote a detailed explanation as to why I did not wash my unit as laid out in my job description. If I had access to an indoor wash area with an elevated walkway, and it was free from potential ice, I would wash it completely. Otherwise, the practice I was given was unsafe. This is supposed to prevent a retaliatory termination, but....you know...someone will be happy to do the job you refuse. But written documentation will go a long way to protecting employees. BTW, being a paramedic had a tremendous risk involved, which was brought to my attention after filing this complaint. I said I was TRAINED to do my job as a paramedic. No one trained anyone to wash a truck in icy conditions with a leaning ladder. There is no “best practice” for that situation.

Thank you for safe our life.

I love whoever does this narration

I was on my way to work at St. Mary's Hospital on 7/7 in London, one of the trains that blew up was in the tunnel between me and the next stop. I was the duty SODP that morning. Lucky I was on the spot. I was directed to go to the gain with the ambulance staff. It was awful, the level of destruction and the injuries was bibilcal.

Wow...those guys are real specialists...

Where can I find track they use at the beginning? Shazaam tags it as "Eternity" from the album Music Supervisor Collection. Seems to be referring to a website hiding a music database behind a registration wall, but I can't be sure.

Me: oh cool, what industrial catastrophe happened here? Narrator: ... a Slim Jim factory near Garner NC. Me who’s lived in Garner for 13 years: hol up...

So in the case of a setup like ConAgra, Why not pump the lines with a vacuum pump? This would remove the air so when the gas main is opened the only thing available to fill the void is gas. And as such when the valve to the burner at the point of use is turned on it should light right away.

A two for one for negligence!

Purging gas indoors= WTF Purging gas indoors without a Gas Detector= You're just asking for death So true about how the mercaptan odor simply disappears after your nose gets used to it. One of the first things you're taught. To me, all of these purging accidents were caused by complacency.

ok that slimjim came out of nowhere and got me

It's crazy Discharge gas indoors or large volume outdoor. The lines can be pushed with air with a double water seperator, then purges should be vented in a stack, purging air can vent far away

I wonder what the Pig cleaning device looks like...

Never would've thought that filling a building with natural gas is a bad idea lol

When I eat a burrito I have a natural gas blow. Sometimes Debris is purged also.

It amazes yet saddens me to see how a company or employee is willing to cut corners and risk lives to make something quicker...

Ive had to bleed a HUGE Nat gas line in a new building to get combustable gas to my unit. I would for indust and commerical HVAC testing faucitily. Im talking millions of BTUS so some big units. It was a 4-5 inch hose line. It was scary to say the least of the amount of pressure in that line.

Want to find blast related material Does anyone have any? For a study project

thank you fore sharing

I can’t believe that this process isn’t just banned. If you can force that volume of natural gas through the pipes to blow debris out, can’t simple compressed air be used just as easily? As for the first one, a hose going from the purging pipe to the outside could have prevented the whole thing. I hope that water heater company faced lawsuits for doing something so reckless.

They built an Amazon facility directly overtop of where Conagra foods was. I work at the Amazon.. there is not a SINGLE memorial in that building. Nowhere. It’s disgusting of Amazon to not do that considering we work daily over top where people lost their lives.

And then you reinforce the use of gas detectors. And the next fatal accident will involve someone venting natural gas pipes with said monitor, but the levels staying below the danger threshold while building up to an explosive mixture in a corner of the building where the worker isn't measuring. People are in such a rush, distracted, tired, in such a routine, that there is no time to really comprehend the full dangerous extent of the situation that is happening right under their noses.

If pricing is an issue on a 4 gas meter or personal metering device; places like 24hour Safety rent them out. Just incase. Always better to have one on hand.

Surely it's cheaper to use compressed air?

Where on earth are the SH&E managers at these facilities that use nat gas? It just seems to be common sense that gas blows are inherently dangerous. But that said I've worked at five manufacturing corporations in my career only two of which recognized safety as an overriding tenant.

Have these companies ever heard of inert gases?

@bobl78 They address that about 7 minutes in. However, they at the same time say that it is unreliable and it was stupid of the workers to rely on smell.

Temporary flare stacks would a good alternative to gas blows send all the gas to flare until pipes are clear

wouldn't pressurized water also work, or would that corrode the pipes and waste massive amounts of water?

With these gases, you cannot see them or taste them or smell them, so does that increase the risk when working with natural gases?

Also worth noting that methane, a component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas. Even "safely" venting it outside is still polluting. Air or Nitrogen would be much better options from that perspective also.

I mean, i may be crazy, but if this is gonna happen, wouldn't it make sense to have a line run to a burn off flare? Cant build up if its burnt off.

On the one hand I can see the convenience of purging with natural gas, I mean the gas is there anyway so there's no need to attach additional equipment. On the other hand it seems hard to imagine a more dangerous way of doing it I mean flaring off the gas would be pretty bonkers but at least someone would have to point the flare away from the building.

the csb doesn't sound like it s government agency... so what authorization does it have to make new rules?

turning flamable gas.. into non-flamable.. and back again.. how difficult is the idea to implement ?

I will still use a gas meter and use msa gas mask that the firefighters use and i am very happy to be a very good volunteer firefighter to learn about gases and diesel fuel levels as well

The CSB is one of the first line defenders of the workers.

Wondering why an inert gas like argon or helium is not used to purge.

Metal sparks are dangerously misunderstood and the CSB should probably explain their dangers more. The sparks are not caused by friction, so you do not need high velocity impacts to create hot metal sparks. Oxidation, the reaction of a material with oxygen, is an exothermic reaction that creates a lot of heat. Fire is the most well known example of oxidation, because that's what fire is. If you shave or flake a bit of metal off a large piece of metal, that new flake has a lot of unoxidized surface that suddenly reacts exothermically and the smaller that flake is, the more surface heating to the volume capable of distributing that heat. Tiny pieces of metal instantly oxidizing instantly become red hot, surpassing the temperature many other things have to be heated to so they too can begin oxidation: their ignition point.

Constantly monitoring saves lives. Know people who didn’t survive because of lack of monitoring.

Don't work in this industry but wouldn't compressed air or nitrogen work as well as a purge agent?

I can't believe that use of natural gas to purge pipes has ever been industry practice. It's completely insane. In our Chemistry lab we always use Nitrogen or Argon, even compressed air would be far safer here. This is like using liquid explosives to clean your kitchen countertop, it makes no sense to me at all.

Uhhhh, if you're in a gas fired power plant and you're worried about debris getting from the natural gas line into the turbine you've got waaaaay bigger problems than debris in your gas line....

Once again, the stupidity of so-called "professional" workers is astounding.