DC4MVP

You know, I was too afraid to admit that's what I was going through. I felt it was something that soldiers get seeing their buddies die or getting shot or blown up. I didn't see any of the stuff they do so, in a way, I felt like I was unworthy of it. If that makes any sense?

I'd shut the TV off to go to bed at, say, 11:00pm. Then I'd replay the accident over and over and over in my mind until I'd look at the clock and it's say 2:30am. Just non-stop until I passed out.

And apparently I was screaming in my sleep and kept saying "PAUL! PAUL!" in my sleep as he would be the guy closest to where I was stuck in the conveyor.

I eventually went to a psychologist and with the help of EMDR, I was able to over-come MOST of my troubles. There's times I'll still think about it for a minute or two and I've cried a few times thinking about it but 1-2 times a week is better than dwelling on it day after day.

I will probably take you up on that. Not a lot of people go through this stuff and fully understand.

And I feel it's good to talk about it and hopefully people learn from my screw ups....

1. A temp employee with the company started it up without checking to see if I was on it. One of the big problems is that LOTO took WAYYYYY too much time. Usually, the guy starting the belt (who was gone that day) didn't take eyes off me as I was on it. Well, nobody trained the new guy.

So we failed with LOTO and training

1. Luckily I'm a righty. The arm is probably going to max out at about 70% normal. My elbow can only bend 115-120 degrees and even that required a surgery to improve it from 90 degrees to the 115-120. I can BARELY touch my face now.

As for the pain....it is what it is! I'm "only" 29 right now and my surgeon is already saying I'll have a full shoulder replacement. We're hoping I'll make it to my 40's before that happens. Obviously WAYYYYYY to young still!

I actually went back to doing what I was doing this past December. (I'm a heavy equipment operator....so I operate life size Tonka trucks) I made it about a week or so full-time before my shoulder gave out on my and I tore my rotator cuff even more.

My surgeon told me I'll never go back to physical work after that mainly due to the arthritis being so bad at age 29. So we'll see what happens in a couple months when I heal up from this latest surgery.

Either the company can put me in an office type gig or I was tinking about going back to school for Construction Project Management.

A temp employee who wasn't trained turned it on. So we didn't use any LOTO.

I honestly don't know how the liability thing works but there were a lot of failures from the company, my boss, and myself. Pretty much boils down to improper training of employees, no LOTO (lock out, tag out) and I've been working around conveyors my entire career in heavy equipment....I knew better.

I don't blame anyone. Just a bad series of mistakes from a lot of people.