Tanker 'bomb' man sacked
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THE DAY transport supervisor Christopher McComisky decided to do welding work on a tanker he ignited a bomb. For the tanker contained petroleum waste. And when the heat generated by the electric welder ignited the gases, it exploded.
As a result, mt. McComisky, the employee responsible for safety in regard to transport, received very serious multiple injuries and spent many months in hospital.
Three months later, Mr McComisky, of Whitburn, West Lothian, was dismissed by P. D. Pollution Control Ltd, 'Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Mr McComisky had worked at their premises in Whitehill industrial estate, Bathgate, since 1964, and had been transport supervisor responsible for maintaining the firm's transport fleet at Bathgate in good running order since 1975.
The firm gave the reasons for dismissal as: his total disregard and contravention of health and safety regulations; the fact he was doing welding — a job which he was neither qualified nor authorised to do and failure to take recognised safety precautions, thereby endangering other employees' safety.
Now an industrial tribunal in Edinburgh has rejected Mr McCornisky's application against unfair dismissal.
A judgment said Mr McComisky had no training as a welder. It was acknowledged that the firm operated in a dangerous field with the everpresent risk of explosion, and it was common knowledge there were vital safety practices.
On November 23, 1976, a tanker driver told him of a load levelling valve bracket defect. He told Mr McComisky the tanker had petroleum waste. The driver said Mr McCom isky mounted the top or the tanker, complete with welding equipment and proposed to weld there and then.
But as it was only a tack weld, it broke the following day. The tanker was still in the same condition when Mr McComisky decided to carry out further welding.
The foreman labourer, tubordinate to Mr McComisky, could not force McComisky not to do the job and sug gested, instead, he should wait until he went for water and then heard the explosion.
William Nelson, the firm's industrial cleaning supervisor, said he found McComisky and a fellow employee injured.
Dereck Pratt, the appointed officer in terms of the Health & Safety at Work Act, 1974, and Leslie Baker, an industrial chemist, said they considered McComisky's action had been "dangerous and reckless".