Random reminder

Press, 16 July 1979, Page 22

Random reminder

FIELD EXERCISE

It seems that proofs of the old adage — “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” — will never end. Somehow, the more virtuous the intention, the more fitting and humorous it is that it should come unstuck.

A recent example of this was enacted in a major industrial plant ■which is so committed to safety that it employs its own safety supervisor. This worthy gentleman was checking through a storeroom when he came across a 4.5 kg (101 b dry powder fire extinguisher. True to his trade, his firt thought was to see whether this extinguisher was indeed safe. To check that the propellant bulb was still intact and operable, he gently tapped the trigger.

It was intact — at least until he “tested” it.

All that dry powder going off makes quite an impressive display, rarely seen in an enclosed space, but the more impressive for that. It was fitting that the first person to materialise through the resulting great white cloud should be the plant’s great white chief — the acting general manager. As this column is sometimes read by the young and impressionable, we will not record what this august personage said. But soon afterwards the safety supervisor spent some considerable time researching the amazing powers of fire extinguisher dry powder to penetrate and spread over a wide area.

His main tools for this research were a bucket and a mop.