LIFE-CHANGING ACCIDENT
Wally Power recalls the 1963 accident that changed his life
Limb lost to machine didn’t hold Wally Power back.
Wally Power of Port Hastings recounted the moment his life changed forever when he was a 24-year-old man working at the Stora Forest Industries Ltd. pulp mill in Point Tupper.
In 1963, Power was working in the mill’s wood room and had his hands in an idle Cambio debarker with its “five halfmoon shaped knives” that tore strips of tree bark off logs that were pushed through the machine.
“I was working on the machine, probably changing knives at the time,” Power said.
“There was about eight of those machines in the wood room but for each two machines, up on the catwalk above the machines, there were two switches.
“I had my arm in the machine (while) my co-worker was working on his machine. He finished ahead of me. He went up on the catwalk to start his machine and he accidentally hit my switch. My arm was taken off at the site.”
His right arm fell to the discharge belt below. There was an opening in the floor and Power also fell, landing on the discharge belt where he was rescued by his co-workers.
Policy stated that ambulance drivers on the work site were not available beyond daytime
hours. Because the accident happened in the evening, Power said driving the patient to hospital was left to “whoever got to the ambulance first.”
Surgeons were not able to surgically reattach Power’s arm. He stayed at the St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish for 18 days. He said he would receive needles for pain every three to four hours.
Upon returning home, a new reality set in where he had to be retrained on the most mundane tasks of everyday living.
“It was a whole new challenge
like trying to tie your shoes using one hand,” Power said.
But he wasn’t about to allow depression set in. He said he saw his greatest asset being his positive attitude.
“I wasn’t going to let the accident or the injury define who I was in a negative way. I decided then and there that the accident wasn’t going to hold me back.”
Power returned to work at the pulp mill six months following the accident, working in the company laboratory until the day he retired.
He told his story in front of 27 people attending the sixth annual Safety First in Cape Breton symposium at Cape Breton University on Tuesday.
Several workshops highlighted the progress made in safe workplaces and the challenges that remain.
Violence in the workplace, safe patient handling and mobility, and a seminar on leadership at the management level were open to all participants.
Power volunteers with national charity Threads of Life to present his story to audiences across the country.
The organization is dedicated to supporting families after a workplace fatality, lifealtering injury or occupational disease.
With the deaths of two lobster fishermen off Port Hood last weekend, Power said there still remains work to do in improving safety in all lines of employment.
He said there have been some gains for worker safety in recent years but deaths still do occur on worksites.
“We still have people falling off roofs with no harness on. Now, who’s to blame for that? The employer is not pushing the issue enough or the employee saying, ‘I don’t need it?’ That’s happening in Nova Scotia.”