After reading “Lessons Learned” I have one incident that I will never forget.

A number of years ago, we had an employee who suffered from epilepsy. He was a transfer from another property and we were unaware of a medical condition when he was hired. Not that we could discriminate and not hire him based on this. If the employee took his medications appropriately, he was fine. But, as we found out, he didn’t always do this. This employee worked in the Kitchen. Shortly after starting here, he had a seizure while working the hot line. Luckily, he went straight to the floor and was able to recover without injury. We took steps to remove him from the Kitchen and reassign him to a position and environment that didn’t have the hazards that exists in a commercial kitchen. He got a lawyer and the company’s lawyer recommended for us to back off. It’s hard to fight a claim such as this when medical conditions and disabilities are protected and there is no existing injury as a result of the persons condition. Well, the employee had a number of seizures, all resulting without injury.

One morning I receive a call and the employee had suffered yet another seizure. After he recovers, I interviewed him. He didn’t take his medication again. I was curious if this has ever happened when he was driving. He informed me that when he feels a seizure coming on, he pulls over till it passes. I recommended to the employee that he go home till he’s fully recovered and the medication has time to take affect. He refuses and we’ve been down this road with his lawyer before. He returns to work. A couple of hours later, I receive “the” call. Upon arriving to the Kitchen, the employee is on the floor still experiencing a seizure. This time, he’s burned; badly burned. His right hand, arm, chest and part of his face are charred. You can see the white bones of some of his fingers. He’s beginning to come out of the seizure and appears to be going into shock. EMS is already in route. I sit down on the Kitchen floor with him. He’s lying against me as I’m holding him trying to calm him while keeping his wounds from contacting the Kitchen floor. It’s a gruesome scene. Other employees are having to leave the area due to the disturbing sight and smell. EMS finally arrives. They quickly assessed him and immediately place the employee on the stretcher and rush him to the Hospital. This was one of those ‘forget the vitals’ and get him to the ER before he’s gone.

Afterwards, I interviewed the other employees working in the Kitchen during the time of the incident. The employee was working over a four top burner. If you’ve ever seen these burners in action, they look like the flames of a jet engine when the pilot whomps on it. The employee began having a seizure and instead of falling straight to the floor as before, he fell forward over the burners. Another employee (whom we call a Hero) working nearby turned and saw what had happened. The Hero pulled the employee who was in full seizure mode from the burners and laid him on the floor. I wonder to this day, that if the employee could tell when a seizure was coming on, why he wouldn’t just stop working and move to a safe area until the seizure was over, like he would while driving.

The Employee had three fingers amputated and skin graphs over the other areas that were able to be saved. He did recover to a point he could return to work after about 18 months. Yes he wanted to go back to work in the Kitchen. He was offered a number of open positions in other Departments. His lawyer contacted us. We told his lawyer to go to hell. The employee’s wife even came to Human Resources and screamed about how unfair we were treating her husband. I guess she really cared about him; not his well being but it must have been something else she cared about . . . I guess. After a couple of months the employee found another job with another company . . . in the Kitchen!

Dan Hudson
Company Name Withheld

Editor’s’ Note: What was your most frightening close call or injury incident? And what did it teach you? Send your stories to catherinej@bongarde.com and let us know if we can use your name/company name.

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