Safety Knights

Have you ever played the telephone game...adult version?

I doubt this community even knows this about me. In fact, we could play 3 truths and 1 lie and you wouldn't be able to figure out the lie.

Okay back to the story...When I started at Caballo mine as a Safety Analyst, my new boss let me know that he was putting me in charge of leading our surface mine emergency team (SMET for short).

So, I have been a medic and certified first responder since 2007. In my 10 years working with the mine rescue teams at 3 mines that I worked for, I saw some pretty gruesome injuries and mayday calls.

Telephone game rules (short version):
- Teammate 1 whispers a story into the ear of teammate 2
- Teammate 2 whispers what they heard into the ear of teammate 3.
- Teammate 3 whispers what they heard into the ear of teammate 4.
- So on and so forth until you get to the last person. Once there, the last teammate tells the team what the message was. 9 out of 10 times it is not even close to the actual story.

Well, that is exactly what happened today. I was in the process of recording my first podcast with the host and the phone rang. It was our HR Specialist. I answered and she said, "There's been an accident and Supervisor XYZ has been trying to get a hold of you. Do you want to meet them at the walk-in clinic or the ER?"

"Is the employee seriously injured? If so, what happened?" I say.

"He had a metal T-post go right through his hand, there was a lot of blood, and there's 'MEAT' coming out of his wound," the HR Specialist says.

As you can imagine, I quickly grabbed the keys and told her to tell the supervisor, "Tell them I'll meet them in the ER," I said.

So I drove up to the hospital (maybe less than 7 minutes from my office) and waited for the injured patient and the team leader to arrive.

A few minutes passed and they pulled into the ER parking lot. As I was walked to their truck, the injured employee exited via the passenger-side. I asked how he was doing, what his pain level was, and I asked to see the wound.

The injured employee pulled back the paper towel and I was AH-MAZED. Remember the initial report? What was the scene you had originally pictured in your head?

1. Fence post.
2. Hand.
3. Post through the hand.

Well, that was an over-exaggeration of epic proportions. When he pulled back the paper towel, I was staring at a 2 -3" (length) cut on his wrist. It looked like a long paper cut. No meat spilling out of the wound. No massive bleeding.

Telephone game fail. Treated & released