Most people in the petrochemical and related industries remember October 1987 as a bad month, to put it mildly. Monday, Oct. 19, is better known as “Black Monday,” the day the stock market crashed when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points, or 22.6 percent of its total value. That number represented the largest single-day decline in the Dow’s history.
Crude prices reflected that precipitous drop, hovering at less than $19 per barrel. But on Black Monday, Randy Royall had other problems. A haz-mat specialist based on the Gulf Coast, Royall began his career with a petroleum company in 1982. He was 29 years old, responsible for responding to hazardous leaks wherever or whenever they might occur.
VPPPA National and Regional Speaker Randy Royall
Thoroughly trained, he was doing his job and living his life with his wife and children. On Oct. 7, 1987, 12 days before Black Monday threw the world into financial malaise, Royall was involved in a disastrous on-the-job accident that would change the course of his life.
The accident involved a leaking railroad tank car. The specific details are traumatic and better left for Royall to provide himself in the presentations he shares with industry audiences under his current role as a national and regional speaker for the Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (VPPPA).
Suffice it to say, his injuries were extensive: He suffered broken vertebrae, a spinal compression, a concussion, internal injuries and paralysis — then hospitalization, rehabilitation and stress that, he said, impacted every aspect of his life. It would be nearly two years before he could fully return to work.
Recovery and reality
More than two decades after his neardeath experience, Royall continues to share his story in hopes of helping others avoid the trauma he sustained on Oct. 7, 1987.
“Everything you do impacts somebody,” Royall said during an inspirational presentation at the OSHA Construction Safety and Health Conference in Houston.
“That’s why we do things right,” Royall said. “We do things the right way the first time, every time, because we never know whose life it’s going to impact.”
Royall employs a mnemonic device to help illustrate each of those “impacts”:
• Is this job necessary, and do I need help?
• Make a plan before starting the job.
• Proceed with the plan when it is safe.
• Aware and alert! The situation can change.
• Complete the job with care, and clean up.
• Talk to others who may perform the same job.
• Safety always! No job is worth getting hurt.
One of the greatest dangers affecting the workforce, Royall said, is complacency.
“No one ever plans on getting hurt,” he said. “No one ever plans on getting killed.”
What Royall hates about complacency, he said, is that “you can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t hear it and you can’t feel it. It sneaks up behind you.”
Royall challenged the audience to ask themselves if they truly care about their employees. That care is reflected by making sure employees take adequate breaks and are given the tools and training to perform their tasks with accuracy and confidence.
Royall also encouraged owners and managers to listen not only to what their employees say but also how they say it. The best response, he said, is to provide the help employees seek.
All persons associated with any company — owners, managers, employees and contractors alike — have to be fully committed to safety, Royall said, adding it is everyone’s responsibility to be their brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.
“Safety’s a little personal to me,” Royall concluded, tearfully recalling his years working as a safety professional. “We are not guaranteed another breath or another step. Always kiss the ones you love goodbye and tell them you love them.”
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