. IWA REGIONAL SAFETY CONFERENCE delegates meeting May 19, in Woodworkers’ House, Vancouver. WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER nn Death From The Sky NEW HAZARD FACING CHILDREN The following article reprinted from Family Safety, points up a new and deadly hazard facing our children. While the tragedies mentioned in the article all occurred in the U.S., the possibility of similar accidents happen- ing in Canada is very real with the build-up of our armed forces. By S/SGT. FRED PHILCOX, USAF Instructor, U.S. Naval School Explosive Ordnance Disposal The sleek Air Force jet carrying a 500 pound high explosive bomb flies over a small town on the West Coast. Suddenly a small red light flashes on the pilot’s control panel; the plane lifts and the bomb falls earthward. It lands harmlessly with a puff of dust and a thud only 500 feet from the home of Mrs. Marlene Wilson. The Wilson children, Mike, 9, Jimmy, 7, and Mary, 5, who are playing in the back yard run to- ward the strange new plaything. The bright silver fuse draws their attention and Mike pulls loose the wire that has been holding the fuse in safe position. They gather closer noticing the small vanes on the nose of the bomb, and unable to resist, spin them again and again. Small metal blocks fall away from the fuse and Jimmy reaches out his hand to pick them up, The stillness is shattered by the roar of the bomb as it detonates, blasting steel fragments through the air. The children are never found, only a fragment of cloth and a small charm bracelet given to Mary on her fifth birthday two weeks before. Tragically, this is a true story and its chances of happening are not so slight as you may think. Every day hundreds of aircraft pass overhead carrying some type ordnance, be it bombs, rockets, shells, missiles. These weapons hauled by our air- craft, of course, are not “live.” Al- though packed with explosives, they are held in check by a type of fuse that must be released before they will fire — just as a grenade’s pin must be pulled. A plane also has elaborate built- in safety devices which a pilot must manipulate before dropping ord- nance. But despite these, a mal- function of the firing mechanism can cause the explosive to fall out accidentally. This perhaps happens 10 to 15 times a month. 2 . uit fe erie LOCAL 1-85, member J. Mcintyre gives the loggers’ view on safety. Used Batteries Dangerous Who Finds the Bomb First? The pilot, warned by a flashing light immediately radios details of the mishap to the nearest Air Force base. If everything goes right, a squad from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team — a military unit whose job is to dispose of unwanted ordnance—will rush to the site, de- fuse the ordnance and the incident will go undetected by the civilian populace. But if a child should reach the explosive ahead of EOD! The re- sults can be deadly as we have al- ready seen. My vitally important point is: Children must be taught the danger of tampering with a strange object that could be explosive ordnance. As an EOD man, I have seen the bodies of unfortunate children who were literally torn limb from limb as a result of playing with grenades, shells and bombs. With nerve- wracking relief I have disposed of innocent - looking ordnance that could have gone off at the touch of a small inquisitive hand. And I shudder to think of the many, many potential killers that are still around — war souvenirs resting on mantels, shells on aban- doned gunnery ranges, dud bombs dropped during practice manoeuvers in World War I and II, Civil War cannonballs. Yes, even one of the latter contains enough black powder to demolish a house and just because it’s 100 years old doesn’t make it any less lethal than it was in the 1860’s. Black powder crystalizes with age and becomes increasingly more sensitive, so that even a change in temperature might set it off. Recently we were called to search a Virginia man’s property which had been the site of a major Civil War battle. We recovered three cannon- balls, one that was being used as a doorstop, and three projectiles, one at the bottom of a small lake. They were loaded and capable of firing. In September of last year, George Cuffe, 8, and his sister Irene found two hand grenades under their home in Deep Creek, Portsmouth, Va. The children first tried to open the gren- ades by prying off the fuse with a knife. Unsuccessful, they threw one of the grenades in nearby bushes. George, with persistence, placed the second grenade between his legs and with his father’s hammer hit the fuse as hard as he could. The small puff of smoke that appeared startled him and four seconds later he lay dead and Irene critically injured. In Ferndale, Md., two brothers, aged 14 and 10, picked up two mor- tar shells on a Ft. Meade firing range, carried them home and tried to take them apart with a screw- driver and hammer. The resulting blast killed them instantly. What To Do 1. Brief your children on the pos- sibilities of and dangers involved in discovering a piece of explosive ordnance, 2. Check your house for war sou- venirs. If you have any which you suspect have not been inerted, call your local police and ask to have it inspected. Usually the explosives can be removed and the souvenir return- ed to you. 3. Keep children away from aban- doned military bases and bombing ranges. More than 50 per cent of : Safety Meet Recommends Printing Policy Booklet A recommendation that the Union’s Policy Statement On Safety issued by the Regional Council be printed in booklet form and distributed to the Local Unions was approved by the delegates attending the Regional Safety Conference May 19, at Wood- workers’ House, Vancouver. The delegates attending the one- day Conference from both the Coast and Interior Local Unions were ad- dressed by Regional President Joe Morris and Regional Secretary- Treasurer Fred Fieber. Regional Officers The Regional President in a short speech informed the delegates that this would be his last appearance before taking up his new duties with the Canadian Labour Congress. He praised them for their contribution in accident prevention and stated that their work in this field had helped to make known the Union’s Accident Prevention Programme throughout Canada and the United States. Secretary-Treasurer Fred Fieber informed the delegates that a uni- form procedure would be establish- ed at the next Regional Convention for the credentialing of safety del- egates at future conferences. He also spoke on the brief to be submitted by the Union to the Royal Commis- sion on Workmen’s Compensation. Verbal Reports A number of verbal Local Union safety reports were made by the delegates prior to close of the Con- ference which indicated in most in- stances a keen interest in safety on the part of the membership. Unfort- unately, some Locals report they are still being handicapped in their safe- ty efforts by management who ap- pear to be far more interested in production than the physical wel- fare of their employees. w= «Pete ciate : 1 cba e ee } KEEN INTEREST in traffic safety was displayed by Mike Major of Westminster Shooks and a member of Local 1-357, IWA, during the Regional-Safety Conference. little boy just being released from a refrigerator-like “playhouse”. To learn the reactions of children dur- ing refrigerator entrapment, 201 refrigerators), two out of every five children made no attempt to escape. Some cooed and played happily; some lay down to go to sleep; some pounded on the door without attempting to push it open; others cried. If the child became unduly up-