Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/6/2015
The Department of Energy’s Office of Enforcement is investigating an accident at the Office of Secure Transportation’s Vehicle Maintenance Facility in Oak Ridge that led to the partial amputation of an employee’s finger. The investigation was disclosed in a letter Office of Enforcement Director Steven Simonson sent on Jan. 30, and released this week, to Jeff Dolven, President and CEO of contractor Skookum Contract Services. According to a DOE Occurrence Reporting and Processing System report about the Dec. 4 incident, the employee got his hand stuck between a transformer radiator and the time of a forklift as he was aiding in the removal of a transformer with a forklift. The tip of the employee’s finger was amputated and the employee was taken to the hospital. According to the ORPS report, the employee was not wearing gloves.
Simonson said the investigation will include an onsite visit and interviews of contractor personnel, and he requested a host of documents from the contractor, including details of safety and health procedures, copies of safety inspections and management oversight activities/inspections for December 2014, and index of safety and health training provided by Skookum for Oak Ridge command personnel. Simonson also asked for a job description for the vehicle maintenance facility technician, qualification and training for subject matter experts performing safety oversight and reviews of job hazard analyses, a corrective action plan, copies of reviews of the incident, records of safety meetings on the day of the accident, training records of Skookum personnel, and medical work restrictions for the injured employee.
Skookum Contract Services, a Bremerton, Wash.-based company, took over management of the OST’s Vehicle Maintenance Facility and Mobile Electronic Maintenance Facility along with facility, grounds and janitorial maintenance services at OST facilities in Oak Ridge in 2012. The NNSA awarded the contract to Skookum as part of the AbilityOne program, a government initiative to help workers that are blind or severely disabled work with the federal government. A Skookum publication indicated that 57 Skookum employees began work at the Oak Ridge OST facilities Oct. 1, 2012.
