NABNASSET — A worker was airlifted to the hospital after his arm got caught in a moving conveyor belt at the Newport Materials asphalt plant on Groton Road on Aug. 14.
According to Westford Fire Chief Mike Denehy, the Westford Fire Department and Police Department responded to an emergency call around 11:18 a.m. for reports of a worker injury.
When they arrived at the scene, Denehy said firefighters and paramedics found the worker on a hydraulic lift ten feet in the air with his arm stuck in the conveyor belt. Paramedics then immediately began to treat the worker and attempted to free him from the conveyor belt. They were assisted by other Newport Materials workers who were familiar with the machinery.
Lt. Michael Hanley-McCarthy, a Westford Fire Department firefighter/paramedic, was among the first to arrive at the scene.
“We were developing a plan to see what could be removed from the equipment safely,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “We attempted that initially and found that it was a little more complicated and involved than what we could handle right at that moment.”
Due to the difficult nature of the operation and severity of the worker’s injuries, Hanley-McCarthy said he made the decision to call in an airlift from Boston MedFlight. He said he then called Essex County Technical Rescue Team to assist with the extraction process, surgical teams from Lowell General Hospital and Lahey Clinic to provide specialized on-scene medical support, Lowell General Hospital Paramedics and EMS teams for advanced life support and all available off-duty Westford firefighters to the scene. Tyngsborough firefighters were also called to cover Westford fire stations.
“I assessed the situation a little more thoroughly and while the technical rescue team was being activated, I decided to activate a surgical team because I was thinking ahead as to what might be necessary to extricate the patient safely,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “I initiated a request through Lowell General Hospital for a surgical team. Shortly after, Boston MedFlight also arrived. They were actually transported to the scene by Lewis Tarbox from the Westford Highway Department.”
Hanley-McCarthy said the surgical teams needed to perform surgery on the worker at the scene in order to free his arm from the machinery.
“He was on a hydraulic lift, so the lift naturally will start to drop over time,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “Our primary focus was to keep that stabilized to reduce any risk of further injury to the patient. The technical rescue team was able to start securing the lift, making sure that the platform was stable and making sure there was a stable working surface for everybody. They were able to harness the patient using the harness that he was wearing and ropes to a higher point to make sure that he was stabilized in the position that he was in.”
Hanley-McCarthy said there were around 30 to 40 people at the scene at the highest point of the incident.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Denehy said. “It’s a first. With the amount of experience on scene, I’m not the only one that said that.”
Denehy said the worker was successfully removed from the conveyor belt around 1:30 p.m., nearly two and a half hours later. He was then airlifted by the MedFlight crew to a regional level 1 trauma center at Lahey Clinic in Burlington for further advanced care.
Hanley-McCarthy said he actually has experienced a similar incident once before, when he responded to an industrial accident while working as a paramedic in the Metro Boston area.
“It was that experience that allowed me to think ahead and know that we may need additional resources at the scene,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “That’s the only reason I was able to make the decision to initiate that type of response, because I have seen it before. Not in this particular fashion — it wasn’t any machinery that was this complex — but it was a similar incident that gave me the experience and knowledge to initiate that type of response.”
Hanley-McCarthy said the worker’s wife reached out to firefighters after the incident to express her thanks and told them that her husband has a long road to recovery, but he has a positive outlook and is doing well.
Following the incident, Denehy said operations at the asphalt plant were temporarily paused, while Westford police officers conducted an investigation.
The incident continues to remain under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“I will say that there is probably no puzzle that firefighters can’t solve,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “We have access to an incredible, infinite amount of resources, and we’re in an area of the country where we have excellent medical care and resources available that are atypical in a lot of places.”
The Westford Villager asked Hanley-McCarthy how firefighters manage dealing with such high intensity and stressful situations.
“Completing a big picture for us is a way of closure after an incident,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “Once we understand what everybody’s role was, what they saw, we’re able to develop a bigger picture of something, because we’re usually so task-saturated and focused and responsible for one part of the equation. We don’t necessarily know what everybody did until we all get together and discuss it. So that is a way of kind of closing it out, I guess I could say.”
Hanley-McCarthy said that while resources have always been available to support the mental health and well-being of firefighters, at the end of the day, dealing with high intensity and stressful situations is something that is part of their job.
“We do have mental health resources available,” Hanley-McCarthy said. “We have somebody in our department who is responsible for setting up additional help if people need it. But it is, you know, essentially our job. We’re used to common chaos and we’re used to seeing situations that are unusual. We are a little bit desensitized in that sense. But we all work together as a team and this incident was a really good example of a group of people who had never worked together before, coming together and making a positive impact and doing all of the steps correctly to make sure that it was successful.”
WestfordCAT reached out to Newport Materials for a comment but did not hear back.
