It's always fun to mock 'elf and safety, but when it comes to the Kitchen I'm a zealot...
This is because in my time I've seen so many avoidable accidents at work which have resulted in awful and in some cases horrific injuries to people. Here are my top five terrible kitchen injuries and why I'm a health and safety 'old woman' :
5) Hot Light blues
The passes of most kitchens have hot lamps to keep the food warm. In a kitchen communication is everything and if you are going behind someone it is best to shout 'behind you!' Unfortunately whilst I was plating up some food a trainee decided that she was going to go behind me and put some chicken on the grill and then she asked something like 'how long is this going on for?' Unfortunately she gave me such a surprise , I involuntarily jumped and my right hand made contact with one of those hot lamps. Within a few seconds the centre of the hand was burned and I was off work for several months with my hands in a bandage thicker than a mummy .
4) Ladder and Fryer
A colleague decides he is going to clean the grease kitchen filters, so he gets on a ladder and starts to clean them. Unfortunately he forgot that the below him are 4 deep fat fryers and they haven't been switched off. He falls and some how managers to not get his feet into any of the fryers, however his lower arm briefly goes into one. Despite putting his arm under cold water within minutes a blister has formed and has burst. Underneath bits of sagging flesh are being held into place by me (I was a potwasher at the time). I'd never seem a grown man crying in such pain...
3) Lots of blood
I remember this one as a Chef slicing chicken breast into two halves; unfortunately chicken can be quite slippery so when cutting it you put one hand on the meat to keep it steady and you use a knife to cut, but in the opposite direction to your hand. Unfortunately this fool decided to cut toward him and ended up slicing through his thumb and the muscle underneath. I'd never seen so much blood.
2) Brandy Self Immolation
A cocky temp chef was drunk, but even worse was that he was on Flambe. As a result of his drunk behaviour he managed to not only Flambe his dishes , but himself. Thankfully we had fire blankets to put the fire out.
1) Combo Arms
This is probably the worse I've seen and I still shudder at it now. Combination ovens are a mixture of electric fan ovens and microwaves, but much bigger. Like an oven it is kept on up to a maximum temperature, in this case 250 C, but like a microwave it cooks with a programmed or manual time limit and at what power. The door to them is pulled down. One day a colleague was putting a pie into the oven, but had only pulled down the door halfway down and as he was putting the pie into the oven the door sprang up and kept his arms and hands inside. Thankfully we managed to get him out of it within seconds, although to him and everyone else it seemed like hours, even in that short space of time, he'd got 3rd degree burns on his arm and hands: it was a terrible sight and something which still gives me shudders to this day.
No comments:
Post a Comment