Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 34


     
     1        vat was for shortening, then it is used for cooking, it is
     2        hot, this is the temperature it is set at, but you will
     3        still get people who maybe, say, drop a french fry in there
     4        or drop something in there as they are cooking and put
     5        their hand in after it.
     6
     7   Q.   It says "slipped"?
     8        A.  It does not say "slipped"; it says:  "Hand slipped into
     9        the vat", it does not say the hand -----
    10
    11   Q.   The implication is it was not done deliberately?
    12        A.  No -----
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It does not mean it was a slip on the floor.
    15
    16   MR. MORRIS:  I am just saying that accidentally a person's hand
    17        goes into hot oil or some part of that palm, that is not an
    18        untypical thing?
    19        A.  We are not going to deny that there are fryers in the
    20        kitchen and that from time to time people do burn their
    21        hand on it, one way or another.  Again, I do not know the
    22        circumstances of this accident and whether it is one that
    23        again meant something to us, or could have meant something
    24        to us that we could have learnt from generally, I do not
    25        know, but certainly it is the sort of thing I would expect
    26        the management team to follow up on locally.
    27
    28        Coming back to this "it could not happen to me" scenario,
    29        if managers follow up on accidents, make sure they keep
    30        crew up-to-date, if something serious does occur, then it
    31        does chip away at that "it cannot happen to me".
    32
    33   Q.   There is also quite a few references to filtering, which
    34        I think you have already identified as a hazardous task,
    35        the filtering unit.  But in referring to shortening
    36        splashing or going over there -- on that page, for example,
    37        there are two above that one I just referred to,
    38        "shortening over foot from the filtering process".  Is
    39        that something you found that happens at a typical store?
    40        A.  You know, as we have discussed before, the inherent
    41        hazard with filtering, certainly as we used to do here, was
    42        from time to time you could get a splash.  That is why we
    43        specified protective equipment but, again, because
    44        technology has moved on, we are now starting to see stores
    45        that have self filtering vats.  There is no need to take
    46        the shortening out every night.  The vats will filter the
    47        shortening themselves.  So that, again, is reducing the
    48        risk there.
    49
    50   Q.   But have you introduced that in some pilot stores or 
    51        something? 
    52        A.  It is going into new stores.  It is still technology 
    53        that is settling down, shall we say?  So, if you are coming
    54        to, should we put it in all restaurants, we have not done
    55        so yet, but its something we have an open mind on, and,
    56        just recently, have retrofitted 100 restaurants with the
    57        new types for all sorts of reasons, but that is one of the
    58        benefits in there too.
    59
    60        The other thing, as I mentioned before, we are looking at

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