A Malaysian technician suffocated to death in an oxygen-deprived underground chamber that was part of a machine meant to stun animals before slaughter.
Hoe Chee Meng, 44, from Johor Bahru, was a maintenance technician at a pig abattoir and pork meat distributor in Singapore since 2015, Channel News Asia reported.
Last year, on July 18, part of the machine, which was a carbon dioxide stunner, in the abattoir broke down and four maintenance staff began to work on fixing it until the end of their shift at 5pm.
The underground chamber, accessible through a manhole in front of the machinery, warning of a confined space in the chamber, with two bolts securing the manhole and a safety interlock switch on the underside of the manhole cover ensuring the machinery would not operate if the cover has opened, accessed using a ladder at the opening.
The four staff resumed their work the next day and opened the manhole cover at around 11.30am, believing the issue could be traced to “faulty electrical wiring” of the interlock switch.
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One of the workers, Kathiravan Narajan was taking apart a bracket securing the machinery door which slipped and fell into the chamber in which he entered, only wearing a surgical mask and a respirator covering half his face, despite his colleagues advising him against it – felt overwhelmed within 32 seconds and was assisted by his colleagues in getting out of there.
Afterwards, Chee Meng comes in after Kathiravan reached out to him and repeats Kathiravan’s actions by going down into the manhole with only a N95 mask and told assistant manager of maintenance Martin Ng Soo Leong who expressed his concerns for his safety so he quietly trailed after him.
When entering the chamber, he started shivering 30 seconds upon entering and tried to climb back up but lost his grip and fell into the chamber, losing consciousness.
Martin told his staff to call for help and then doused Chee Meng with water to revive him as well as set up air blowers to supply ambient air into the chamber.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force arrived promptly at the scene and extricated Chee Meng. He was pronounced dead the same day.
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Following Chee Meng’s death, Singapore’s Manpower Ministry looked into the incident and conducted a re-enactment of the accident which revealed the residual carbon dioxide levels were heavier than the air in the atmosphere, with oxygen levels in the chamber calculated at 13.5%, which is not the within the safe range of 19.5% to 23.5% in Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) (Confined Spaces) Regulations.
The ministry also issued a stop-work order after observing “non-compliance”, as quoted, which was later lifted at October 2023 following the company implementing measures to prevent such incident recurring.
Not only that, the ministry contemplated taking action against the parties involved in the incident during the coroner’s inquiry.
Coroner Wong Li Tein found that the workers in the company knew they were prohibited from entering the manhole partly due to safety measures deployed to enter it together with the company also engaging “external contractors” for work related to confined spaces since 2019.
It was also revealed that Chee Meng was well aware of the control measures deployed before entering confined spaces due to professional training in such areas and this was not his first time trying to do maintenance work in a confined space.
“Prior to entering the manhole, he was asked by his colleagues not to do so and was even warned that Mr Kathiravan tried to do so earlier and was overwhelmed by the gas in the chamber,“ Coroner Wong was quoted as saying.
She confirmed that no foul play was involved in his death.
