Employees claim OH&S procedures were not observed following incident

Even as he complained of numbness in his left arm, and as co-workers pleaded with supervisors for the ambulance to be summoned, Pump Operator of the RUSAL-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Incorporated (BCGI), Glendon Timmerman, said nothing was done immediately after he and another employee suffered electric shock while on duty last Saturday.

Commissioner of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Newell Dennison, confirmed that the body has received a report on the matter and will be sending a team to investigate.

“We got information of it today [Monday] and we intend to do our typical follow up to gather information and take the appropriate necessary actions based on that. It would depend on what we find, so we have to determine what we find and that is currently what is being done. We have to get a team out there to gather information as to what really happened,” Dennison relayed.

After being hospitalized at the Kwakwani Hospital on Sunday, Timmerman, and the other injured employee, Mario Harris, were discharged on Monday, and are at home recuperating.
“They say the numbness in me hand, it gon tek a lil time, and they give me some tablet and they give me ten days sick leave, and I’ve to go back on the 23 [December]. With the numbness in the hand I can’t really do nothing with it right about now,” Timmerman explained to the Guyana Chronicle, when contacted via telephone on Monday.

Timmerman was at the time speaking from his home in the remote Aroaima settlement, owned by BCGI, questioning if his life is even valued by the company he works for, given how the incident played out last Saturday, when his life was put at risk.

“Is like nobody don’t really care ‘bout we. How I seeing it we could’ve dead just like that and nobody wouldn’t have got time with we. We explain to them that we just get shock and I can’t feel me hand and nobody ain’t really come to check we right away, is like nobody don’t have time,” Timmerman lamented.

Timmerman and Harris are said to have been working on electrical equipment, in a pond, at the BCGI Kurubuka mines, when another employee switched on electricity without checking first to ensure all were safe.

“I went in the water, in a pond like, fixing the pump, and [Mario] went on top the barge holding it together for I to fix it up. The electrician now, before they put on the current, they didn’t tell we nothing, they just put on the current just like that. Then we end up getting shock. It shock me and push me out the water. My father and everybody had to tell them y’all cut off the current, them man getting shock down here,” Timmerman recounted.
Timmerman said several of his work colleagues who were present, including his father, Derrick Frank, implored the Mines Foreman and another senior employee to call for the company’s ambulance, but this was not done.

The injured were made to wait approximately two hours for the regularly-scheduled transportation that take employees home at the end of the shift. The operations, being in a remote location, transportation to and from the mines are provided by the company.
“They asking the foreman,‘ y’all carry them boy out, y’all carry them out’. I tell them I can’t feel my hand right about now. All them said is just change yuh clothes and go upstairs; so I just do as instructed. The rest of my work colleagues them around start rowing and seh ‘watch how this man hand deh, they supposed to done call something and carry out to the hospital’ but nobody didn’t call the ambulance. I had to wait on the bus to come home,” Timmerman related.

Timmerman said it wasn’t until he came out from Kurubuka Mines and spoke with a Safety Officer at the Aroaima settlement that he was taken to the Aroaima Health Centre later that Saturday. They were not taken to the Kwakwani Hospital until Sunday, after complaining of feeling worst.
At the hospital, the doctor there cautioned that they should have gotten immediate medical attention.

“When I reach, right away he [the hospital’s doctor] admit me because he said it could be dangerous. He ask me why I didn’t come since Saturday. I tell he I didn’t have no transpee [transportation],” Timmerman said.
Chief Occupational Health and Safety Officer, Gweneth King, noted that when an industrial accident occurs, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the company has up to four days to report non-fatal accidents, while fatal accidents require reporting within 24 hours.

When last contacted on Sunday, General Secretary of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers’ Union (GB&GWU), Lincoln Lewis, said though the incident was reported to the union, they are still investigating and verifying information, after which the union would be better equipped to comment on the issue.

Calls made to the Union on Monday, for an update, proved futile.