Michael Lovett has a commanding presence. He looks like The Rock – the popular wrestler turned movie star – with his tattooed, buff body, shaved head and booming voice, Lovett keeps high school students rapt with attention as he delivers a lecture.
He has to come off like a powerful force, because he is trying to save teens’ lives, Lovett said after his talk to a Howe Sound Secondary assembly on Friday.
Lovett, 33, gives talks aimed at first time employees for WorkSafeBC on staying safe on the job.
He knows of what he speaks. Not being safe cost him his left leg in 1999.
He was 18 years old working at a Mission saw mill. Ten minutes before the end of his graveyard shift, his supervisor sent him to clean out the log conveyor – while it was running, so it would take less time.
“We all have that voice at the back of our heads, you know the voice – the right and wrong voice – it is the one that tells you, ‘Ya know what, not entirely safe,’” he said.
“The reality is, we don’t listen to that voice, we do it anyways.”
Eager to please and prove his work ethic, Lovett did what he was told.
“The conveyor hooked on to my boot,” he said. His leg was crushed in the machine.
“I remember thinking to myself, I sure hope I pass out; at least that way I wouldn’t actually have to watch the roller finish me off.”
He said the other senior workers should not have let him do the task, and technically it shouldn’t have needed to be done because the machine was supposed to be self-sufficient.
“There should never have had to be a guy sent in there to clean them out,” he said.
He didn’t pass out. It took 20 minutes before a worker found him trapped, another 15 minutes for paramedics to arrive, and a long time after that for the medical personnel to get him out.
He spent a month in hospital and went through nine surgeries before he could go home.
To this day, though he walks normally with a prosthetic leg, he still regularly experiences pain.
He said he knows many of the Howe Sound students won’t work in a mill, but the two industries with the most accidents are restaurants and retail.
His message for the students is to speak up for themselves.
“It is on you. It is on you as the employee to make sure you get properly trained. It is on you as the employee to make sure you have a full understanding of your job. Do not be so willing to place your life in somebody else’s hands.”
He said starting in job interviews, students should ask what needs to be known to stay safe, and once hired, they should stop and think when told to do something. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it, he cautioned.
The high school students on Friday paid close attention to Lovett’s speech.
