As a Petrotrin employee lay gasping for breath, pinned by a pumping jack, villagers of Lowkie Trace, Penal, begged for a chance to resuscitate him.
However, Charles Mitchell’s co-workers refused to let anyone touch him and while everyone waited for an ambulance to come, Mitchell, 58, passed away. He remained on the ground for more than 20 minutes before the Petrotrin ambulance arrived and medical personnel pronounced him dead.
During an interview yesterday, Maria Fabien said Mitchell would have survived if the ambulance had responded immediately. Fabien, who is a certified First Aid attendant, said a hiab truck was used to pull the pumping jack’s crank arm off Mitchell’s chest.
“He was having difficulties breathing so I told them that he needed resuscitation but they said we not allowed to move him in case he had other injuries,” Fabien said.
She criticised Mitchell’s co-workers for not putting him in their vehicle and taking him to hospital.
“What they were saying made no sense because they already moved him. Why didn’t they put him in a van and take him to the hospital? That man stayed there for a long while and I think if he was taken to the hospital quickly, he would be alive today,” Fabien said.
Another resident, Edward Fabien, expressed dissatisfaction that the Petrotrin ambulance took 20 minutes to respond.
“The EHS ambulance also arrived more than half-an-hour later and by then Mitchell was dead,” Edward said. He revealed that workers on the site told him that the brakes on the well had collapsed.
“The wheel came down and crushed him. The foreman should have taken charge of the situation and sent the man to the hospital,” Edward added. Relatives of Mitchell declined comment yesterday.
A woman who identified herself as Mitchell’s sister said she did not have details of the accident. “All I know is that the Petrotrin people came and went with my brother. They gone to do some business,” the woman said.
Meanwhile, OWTU’s president general Ancel Roget is blaming Petrotrin for Mitchell’s death, saying a shortage of technical staff was causing too many accidents at the State-owned company.
Speaking to reporters at the site where Mitchell died, Roget added: “Petrotrin has not been filling vacancies in critical operational and technical areas.”
He said the mechanical crew that responded to service the pumping jack had one employee short. Saying there is a stipulated number of workers required to do maintenance works, Roget said a restructuring proposal was sent to the Petrotrin board but no response was forthcoming.
“We have complained incessantly to management and even to the board about how HSE is being delivered. Therefore, we are saying that the company has to be properly re-organised to deliver greater levels of efficiency, accountability and safety so that workers will be able to perform their duties,” Roget said.
He added: “We are demanding that the proper investigation takes place to unearth the cause of this fatality. Within the past five or six years, we have had 11 fatalities. This is unacceptable.”
Roget said proper staffing and proper numbers of crews had to be brought into question.
“There is a requisite number of persons required to perform particular tasks and when you go below that you compromise the ability of the crew to perform the job safely,” Roget said. He said staff members have retired but vacancies in the technical and operating areas have not been filled. Roget said a team, which includes a union representative, had begun investigations.
Petrotrin in a statement said Mitchell, a technical craftsman II attached to Petrotrin’s production operations, was working with a mechanical crew when the incident occurred around 11.30 am on Tuesday.
Mitchell, who was employed as a permanent worker for more than 40 years, was examined by the company’s medical team but was subsequently pronounced dead. Officers from Petrotrin’s Employee Assistance Programme have visited Mitchell’s family and are providing counselling.