Robot Attacks Swedish Factory Worker
By Wyatt Earp | July 29, 2009
Well, being a detective, I figure the motive has to be one of the following:
First, the robot revolted after being exposed to weeks and weeks of ABBA poisoning. Second, the automaton always had a thing for Swedish actress Lena Olin, and felt it was time to make his move.
A Swedish company has been fined 25,000 kronor ($3,000) after a malfunctioning robot attacked and almost killed one of its workers at a factory north of Stockholm.
Public prosecutor Leif Johansson mulled pressing charges against the firm but eventually opted to settle for a fine.
“I’ve never heard of a robot attacking somebody like this,” he told news agency TT.
Um, excuse me. Terminators? Cylons?? Al Gore??? Any of these things ring a bell, Mr. Johansson?
The incident took place in June 2007 at a factory in Bålsta, north of Stockholm, when the industrial worker was trying to carry out maintenance on a defective machine generally used to lift heavy rocks. Thinking he had cut off the power supply, the man approached the robot with no sense of trepidation.
But the robot suddenly came to life and grabbed a tight hold of the victim’s head. The man succeeded in defending himself but not before suffering serious injuries. (H/T – The Local)
How exactly does a man “defend himself” from a robot attack? It might be nice to publish that little safety nugget for the rest of us.
Besides, you never know when the blenders and toasters will start their uprising.
Topics: Evil = Funny | 6 Comments »
July 29th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I wonder if we could lease that robot to attack the guy here in Cleveland that traded you guys Cliff Lee. In fact we could introduce the robot to the rest of the Indians coaching and management too.
July 30th, 2009 at 12:52 am
There are just WAY too many comebacks for that one…
July 30th, 2009 at 7:58 am
What are the chances that the guy will develop Stockholm Syndrome towards the robot??
July 30th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Here’s a Swedish country singer you should check into. Bet she’d be good at charming robots.
http://www.beatricemusic.com/
July 30th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Jon – No offense, but: Bawhahahahahahahahahahahaha! He’s not Halladay, but I’ll take him!
Old NFO – Yeah, I suffered from snark overload for a second there.
Deathlok – Funniest comment . . . evah!
Doghouse – Wow. She could charm me!
July 30th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
WHY THE HELL DID THEY NOT PROSECUTE?
In my previous company somebody would probably have been crucified!! (Not quite literally but close enough.) And to find the offender they would have started from the top down, not by finding a scapegoat who did not know better.
I used to work on an electricity generating station (nuclear) and we had VERY strict rules for work on electrical equipment:
1) EVERY job needed a Work Order Card. ALL WOCs were risk assessed by a Senior Authorised Person, trained and appointed by the Station Director under the Safety Rules. He had the duty to stop any work that he did not consider capable of being done safely.
2) The equipment was turned off and locked off by a padlock (key retained).
3) The supply to the equipment was locked off by a padlock (key retained) and any fuses were removed (equipment was designed to allow this)
(Double isolation was the absolute minimum. Further electrical isolation might be called for, along with mechanical isolation of equipment that might move. Think of turning the fanheater off, removing the fuse from the plug on the lead and removing the fuse from the ring main.)
4) All the padlock keys (along with fuses and any other forms of isolation) were put into a locked box (the “key safe”), along with a copy of the WOC, and this was locked by at least one unique padlock.
5) This final key had only 2 copies – one was handed to the worker doing the job. The other was retained and could only be used by the direct authorisation of the Station Director (top man) or his shift deputy (top man outside normal office hours and only if the Station Director could not be contacted).
6) If several crews worked on a piece of isolated equipment they put their own padlocks on the key safe. As individual pieces of work were completed the Nominated Person holding the key would confirm his task was safely completed, his men clear and would then remove his padlock.
7) At the end of the task, the man overall responsible for doing the job would report the work was finished and every other person involved was clear. It was his direct responsibility to ensure this was the case – or be in breach of the Safety Rules (a near-automatic sacking offense). He would then use his key to unlock the key safe and the job of returning the equipment to service would be done by a Senior Authorised Person who was trained to do so.
9) If the Station Directors key was used there would be a formal inquiry into the circumstances.
RESULT:
Surprisingly enough (/sarc) we never had electrical accidents – just the normal slips, trips and falls! And that was with motors and powered equipment from 415 up to 11,000 volts.
(Incidentally, all normal lighting, instrumentation, extension leads etc used single phase 110 V AC i.e. +/- 55 V. This was considered too low to need the full application of the above process. The SAP would have to confirm this in his Risk Assessment. Hand-held lamps were all 25 V.)
Sorry this is long but:
YOU DO NOT PLAY SILLY GAMES WITH PEOPLE’S LIVES!!
(under UK law, male includes female)