R+L Carriers Putting Employees at Risk, OSHA Says
OSHA says workers were ‘essentially defenseless’ in dealing with a chemical spill.
Untrained R+L Carriers Shared Services LLC workers managed to prevent an explosion and fire after a solvent spill at the company’s Wallingford, Conn. freight shipping terminal.
A forklift was being used to transfer a pallet of tetrahydrofuran – a highly flammable liquid – from one truck to another when a 55-gallon drum was accidentally punctured ad the chemical leaked to the ground beneath the truck. Workers, who didn’t have proper training or PPE, tried to contain the spill using sorbent material and by cordoning off the area, OSHA investigators said.
