The Fork Lift Truck Association has released the story of Lisa Ramos in order to raise awareness for forklift safety alongside the upcoming September, which is the Fork Lift Truck Association’s National Fork Lift Safety Month.

Lisa Ramos had an accident on Friday 24th March 2006 that was avoidable but led to her losing her leg. Lisa worked as an administrator for NYK Logistics, which operates from Findern in Derbyshire. Lisa’s role in the company was to make sure that each pallet was loaded with the correct cargo. Right before the end of her shift on her son’s 13th birthday she was knocked over and her leg was crushed by a 3-ton fork lift truck. Lisa was following the health and safety precautions by walking on the proper walkways that surrounded the container bays. The operator of the fork lift didn’t know that they’d hit her until she screamed, and he moved forward off her, causing more horrific damage. Her co-workers believed that she’d dislocated her knee but after having to go through numerous operations, Lisa has lost almost all of her leg.

Lisa was following the correctly set up walkway which is distinguished by tape but was on floor level, which Lisa has always believed does not separate pedestrians enough from the forklifts, equating it to pavements being marked with a line of paint on the floor as opposed to a raised kerb.

While working on her physical and mental recovery from the accident, now facing life as an amputee, Lisa has now become a Safety Ambassador for the Fork Lift Truck Association in order to encourage companies to do more to improve workplace safety. The Association has launched the Safetember campaign because of Lisa’s story and many similar accidents that have led to serious injury or death. The safety campaign will hopefully make everyone in the industry think more about how them can advance their safety procedures in order to protect workers and make the workplace safer.