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TRANSCRIPT
Brendan Torazzi
This is an ohs.com.au production Welcome to Episode 24 of the Australian Health and Safety business podcasts on Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show and today I'm with Anton Guinea. Good morning Anton. How are you?
Unknown Speaker
Brendan on fine, mate. How are you tracking online?
Brendan Torazzi
Great start for the new financial year.
Unknown Speaker
It is and it's actually it's day one of the month after national burns months. There you go. Did you know that fun fact?
Brendan Torazzi
Okay, so that's probably a good segue to start the podcast really? How did you get involved with the world of health and safety?
Unknown Speaker
Oh my god. I started life as an apprentice electrician back in the day. And I finished my apprenticeship at the ripe old age of 21 at a alumina refinery in Gladstone, Queensland, which is my hometown, actually, we went away for many years and have been back to living here for probably the last 15. And not long after finishing that apprenticeship. Brandon, I actually was doing some work. It was a Tuesday morning, it was about 930 or 10 o'clock in the morning, it was just after smoko actually. And I was working with a tradesman and the tradesmen and I were doing some work in a switchboard. And, and the sad part is it was such a simple job. And it was not a big, not a complex job. It wasn't a job. I was tasked with by my tradesmen measuring where we were going to put this little electrical component, aka overload block into this switchboard. We had about six of these switchboards to do and the tradesman asked me very nicely as they do to measure where this overload block was going to be, because he was the tradesman, he was going to do this, the smart stuff after me. And he just wanted me to measure up where it was gonna go so that he could come behind and wired in and screw it in, and all those other things and then test it today. Cool. So I really do remember vividly looking down into my tool bag, and I had nothing to measure with. And so I I went and saw someone else on site that I knew, and this is a chemical factory and gladsome that I'd gone to work at just for a very short term, because I finished my apprenticeship and there's no work around in town and I finally got a job on what we call shutdowns in industry. So the plant was shut down. And there was a couple of weeks work while an intensive maintenance effort was conducted on this part of the plant. And so we're in the middle of a shutdown and the tradesmen asked me to go and measure where this thing's going to be all locked down, nothing to measure were sold go and grab a steel ruler Would you believe off one of the mechanical trades people that I knew. So strangely enough at 21 and even though I knew better, I came back to Dean at the time and was all excited that had something to measure with because remember, this was my first job out of my apprenticeship. And as I started measuring in the switchboard with this steel ruler, which was a really, really bad, uncool idea to jam, a steel ruler and a switchboard. As I started measuring the switchboard exploded like it literally erupted, it blew up. The technical term for Brennan is an arc flash or an arc blast. And I suppose it's safe to say that it blew the bejesus out of me and everything else around it, other than the tradesmen that I was working with. Thank God.
Brendan Torazzi
So you you took the brunt of it. Being in front, I guess.
Unknown Speaker
I did Brandon. Yeah, yeah, my hands, my neck, my face and my sort of wrists and forearms to just the absolute worst of the heat intensity of the arc blast. So yeah, it blew up instantaneously. We now know because arc flash wasn't a big thing back in the day, and no one really knew much about it. And now we study it or industry studies arc flash. And we now know that at the source of the arc, it gets to 20,000 degrees C, right. So it's pretty high. And it's really hard to explain that to people and I don't really try to because they say it's five times as hot as the sun. And I do crack and funny and so I don't know I've got nothing related to so I've never been to the sun but so yeah, it's just
Brendan Torazzi
so what happened now Next, were you unconscious? So do you remember what happened after that?
Unknown Speaker
Good call, so I got blown back out of the switchboard Brennan did, I'm gonna say that I, I blanked out for a very, very short period of time because I remember sort of coming to if that's the word. And it might be just that I lost my faculties for a sec I, I really, it was sort of a weird moment or two in time where I remember being on my back in the switch room, and all this had just happened. And it all happened so fast and, you know, happens in Half a Second art blasts, they come and go, they literally, they appear and they disappear. So I don't remember seeing anything I don't remember. Like it happening. I just remember being on my back in the switchboard and opening my eyes and me is going Holy crap, what just happened and, and it was, my eyes were really, really blurry because it was so bright, and my ears were ringing because it was so loud. And I remember, I pushed myself up off the ground Brennan. And as I did that, I peeled like all of the skin off the hand that I pushed myself up with. Because my hands had been so badly burnt, like, literally, it just tore peeled, I don't know a better way to put it skin off the palm of my hand and which was hanging down now in a flap. And I could see some bright pink skin underneath, which was actually pretty crappy as well. So those first few moments after the incident occurred were were really scary, I guess to a degree and they are actually quite painless, because the pain of second degree burns doesn't kick in, immediately, it's a weird thing, that it takes a few moments for your body to register that all of your skin has just been cooked and basically chargrilled and is now dead. And it needs to now sort of send some fluids, some cooling agent internally to the parts of your body to actually start to try and cope with the pain that you're about to experience and the recovery that you're going to go through now for the next month or two or years. If you're burnt more badly than I was, I was very lucky. I only had second degree burns, thank god to about 15% of my body. So you know, for the first moment or two I remember standing up and I said to the tradesman, I said I can see my hands or conceal the skin peeling up my hands, how's my, my face? And he said, Well, you're pretty lucky. Many said it didn't get your face. And, and it had. And it had sort of blown some of my face off, which was interesting. And I was glad that he told me that at the time just for a few moments, because it just sort of gave me a little bit of comfort in that moment because I really was instantaneously worried about scarring and recovery. And there's a whole lot of weird stuff happens in your mind in a very, very short amount of time when something like this happens. And wasn't until I got out of the switch room, Brandon, which was probably 10 meters walk. And I turned left to go down to the medical center to get some help. And it wasn't until I got out of the switch room that the pain kicked in. And then I realized that the tradesman had been lying to me, which was okay, or had lied to me. Because it had got my face because I could feel my face burning now and my hands were burning so. So those first few minutes it was great question, how do you react in that moment in time, and those first few moments are really scary. Very lonely. Very. Very, the most I find fast so much happens. So your mind races? And yeah, it was one of those really scary moments.
Brendan Torazzi
And so you you go to the medical center, and then and are they equipped to deal with it or the straight to hospital or why?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, great question. I'm going to say probably not I don't think many people are Brennan able to deal with the pain of second degree burns because really all they've got is sort of water and ice and stuff. And maybe they've got morphine this particular medical standard didn't and it wasn't until the the ambulance turned up probably 10 minutes later that that they were able actually to administer morphine. So they first tried Well actually not officers didn't know that I think about it. They gave me this thing called a green whistle. Have you ever been injured
Brendan Torazzi
or not? Not to that agreement or broken an arm? That's probably Yeah. Touchwood that's probably the the worst I've had.
Unknown Speaker
Good Onyema Well, that's good. Good on you lucky. Yeah. Did they give you anything for it? Like, was it at a footy game or anything? Yeah. Green whistle?
Brendan Torazzi
No, I haven't had the green whistle.
Unknown Speaker
Right, right. It's this thing that yeah, you sort of hold on to on this. It's MIDI oxy. Fluorine is the chemical compound that's in it. Strangely enough. I don't know why I know the name of that. I just remember. And, and you use your self administer this thing, which was interesting, because both my hands was burned so badly that I couldn't use them. And I had to convince the ambulance drivers to allow it to hold it for me basically. Because they said they are breaching procedure and protocol by doing that. And I said, look on, I'll let you often all I tell anyone if you don't given that I'm in immense pain, you guys helped me out. It was almost a beggar, I think in a plate. So the medical center wasn't equipped. She, uh, what was interesting was that she actually asked me, you know, are you and she was weird. She said, Are you in pain? And I said, I'll look intense. So bad. I, you know, this is just horrific. She said, Gee, you're lucky. And I said, Oh, that's funny. I've had feel lucky. And she, she said, You've got second degree burns, not third degree burns. And she says, so if it was only first like sunburn, it'd be days recovery or weeks recovery. If a second it's it's weeks, two months. And if it was third, it's a month, two years. So she said, Because you're in so much pain, it's most likely second degree. And there might be some third degree, she said, and then she looked at my hands and where I'd peel the skin off that hand, it was pink skin underneath. And she said, you're very lucky. You've still got that skin underneath that second degree burns. And so she tried DME on the nuttin dumping the pain and she couldn't we call the ambulance, he gave me methi, oxy flew around through the green whistle, which didn't help. And finally, they got to the hospital where the nurses up there, and the doctor, I think I saw, were able to administer morphine, thank God and that sort of dulled it significantly. Thank God.
Brendan Torazzi
And so I take it I mean, this happening to you at such a young age. It changed your trajectory on your life path, I would imagine
Unknown Speaker
are absolutely Brandon Mattia, there's nothing like a significant emotional or physical event like that, to actually change everything that you think about everything that you know. So I went from, you know, a happy content, living at home, 21 year old who just finished his apprenticeship, who was, you know, probably going to become a electrician for life, at a local factory somewhere and take it take life fairly carefully, in a fairly carefree way to never ever wanting to work as an electrician, again, bitter and twisted with the world. So why me to being now having to recover for the next few months, and not knowing what I was going to do with the rest of my life, given that I didn't want to be electrician anymore. And that was all I knew. And so, talking about trajectory, the decision to not become electrician anymore was an interesting one. Because even to this day, I'm so scared of, like, if we have a circuit breaker trip in our house, even I send my kids out to reset it. Because it just just yucky.
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, yeah,
Unknown Speaker
as you can imagine, and you know, people say Brian, and I just get back up on the horse mate. You know, it's not that easy. It's hard when you've sort of had something and it's really difficult to get your head around and, and still, like I say, to this day, I still see that that switchboard that black switchboard and that switch room and, and it's just, it's just a weird thing to explain, because I had to go back to my trade because I didn't know anything different. And what was weird was that if I knew then what I knew now I'd never would have I know that there's so many things in life that you could go into. I've changed career about five times since then, which is true. At the time, though, I'd actually started putting in for jobs, which was interesting. And one of the jobs that I put in for was a mining job as an electrician over in WA. And would you believe that while I was in the burns unit for that month, the HR person who was recruiting for that role happen to ring home and mom said, Oh, no, he's injured he's in the burn unit. And finally, she tracked me down I guess through Mum Mum spent most of the time in the burns unit with me actually. And finally, it turned out she was going to be in Brisbane where I was in the burns unit the day that I got out of hospital. All right, wow, would you believe it? And so I got interviewed I, I kid you not for my first job out of the burns unit, the day that I got out for a job in the mines and WA which I subsequently got, because I think she felt sorry for me in all seriousness. And even though I didn't want that job, I convinced myself because it was in a mine. It was low voltage electrical, so I was working on on big mining equipment, like tracks and cables and stuff. It wasn't working in switchboards per se. So I sort of reconciled it with myself that way. And even after I started, I recognized I'd been at the mine, I reckon, probably six months, and I and I was walking around the the workshop floor, and I remember looking up at guys and gals that were on this, like level above, you know, where the officers were. Yep, that used to look down on all the tradesmen to see if we were working, would you believe. And I remember saying to a guy that was working up there, now I'm down here. I don't enjoy this anymore, because I really didn't enjoy the trade. after that. I said, you're up there on down here. How do I get off the tools and, and do something different with my wife? Because this is really, you know, I don't like being electrician anymore.
Brendan Torazzi
So this sorry, this or that? You were what? 2122? So this one? Wow. Okay,
Unknown Speaker
still 21. So it was May I sorry, march 2000. And so in March 1994, the incident occurred. So then I started over in the mine about eight, eight weeks later, in May 1994. So and then and my birthday is in October 94 When I was going to turn 22. So yeah, so So at the age of 21. All of this was happening and I remember get this here's I'm just going to backtrack just for a sec, the first day on the job run and get this. So walk into the workshop. And the senior electrical guy comes down from on high from upon on the mezzanine level. You know to greet nominate your your your new electrician, he said I said yeah. And he said, Mike, we don't know how you got a job here. How the heck you know, you don't even deserve this job. This is a mining job, which you're not qualified for and and you haven't got the right experience. So I was deflated on the first day it was right because I didn't do my apprenticeship in the mines. I did it in a factory or in a chemical plant and alone a refinery. And they hired me for the other part of the business. So where were they mined the iron ore and they sent it over to like a refinery. I was hired for the refinery. But what they did was took the electricians from the mine and put them in the refinery, and put the new guys out in the mind who knew nothing about mining, which was interesting. So now I'm in a job that I didn't like working on gear I didn't know, working for people that sort of had no faith in me and then and then I remember the the supervisor walked out and we he pointed at this big mining truck and said he said oh, that's, you know, one of the the whole packs I said, okay, cool. Yeah, this thing's like hundreds of tons. It's a massive machine. And he said it's got no propulsion. I said, Oh, what's that mean? Yes, it doesn't go. So okay, cool. And he said in its electric truck. I said it, I made it. And he said, he said, Okay, so where do I start? And he said, Well, here's the book. Here's the manual, which is like a big fat folder. So I just start working my way through that which was interesting. So anyway, cut a long story short, six months later on, starting to study a business degree. Yeah, and I, I finished that degree a few years later, and, and a few years after I started at the mine, the same guy that said, I didn't deserve that job, I suppose, which are really, it's been one of the biggest motivating conversations I've had in my whole life. He, he promoted me off the tools into, I guess, a senior role up in those offices upstairs. And so it took me three years to get off the tools and not working electrician anymore. And you know, the day that I got that phone call, I was so so happy. And
Brendan Torazzi
that's awesome. That's awesome. So a bit of adversity to it, you know, as a young guy, fair bit of adversity to cut through into the next level,
Unknown Speaker
absolutely made to a new career. And that took me to I suppose the work that I'm doing today I realized there was people that lead others that you know, inspired others to do work and you know, I ended up in training roles. I ended up climbing in inverted commas, the ladder of corporate success, which was interesting and ended up in superintendent and manager roles and industry, which was really nice. Did all that quite young, probably too young. So I was sort of superintendent at 29 and managing not long after which was interesting. And, you know, they're all really nice roles and really cool. And then, yeah, I
Brendan Torazzi
was just gonna say So fast forward through to today, it's been fantastic hearing, really focusing on those early years. I'm keen to hear what you're doing today like, so it sounds like you've spent a fair bit of time in the mining industry. But you've also reinvented yourself a number of times. So what is Anton up to today?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, right. So today, Mike, what we do is we work with leaders, and we work with teams, we help develop people that develop businesses Brennen. So we spend a lot of time coaching consulting leaders to get the best out of their team and to create high performing teams. So that is done in a range of ways, whether it's training, so we do a lot of leadership training, we do one on one coaching and consulting. And then we work not only with the team leader, but we also work with the team. So we do team building, as well. So we'll work with your business and with your team. And we'll use systems like team management system to understand what the profile of your team is, and what your individual profiles are, so that we can all understand how the team can work better.
Brendan Torazzi
And so are you working with any particular industries? Like you're still working in mining? Or you're in other industries as well?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, most of our work, believe it or not, because of my background ends up in that heavy industry space, I guess I've got that, that background, and that understanding of what that looks like. So, you know, were involved with council work are involved with things like utilities, providers, whether it's electrical utilities, or water utilities, for example. And then we're involved with, you know, a refinery or a factory and mining industry, of course. So you got a really diverse, diverse range of clients. And, and that's, and we also do some work in the corporate space, which is nice now. So we get to work in, in businesses that that aren't industrial that that have, for example, a marketing business or a sales business. So one of our clients, one of our favorite clients is the local Toyota dealership, which is nice. So we get to help their salespeople develop and grow. And their salespeople have just received some amazing sales Awards, which is really cool. And that's nice for us to be part of. So. Yeah. So we got this really diverse range of clients and diverse range of services that actually that we offer when I think about it, and and it's just really rewarding to be able to, I guess go from from that really crappy thing that happened at age 21, to two being able to share a whole knowledge base around leadership and around mindset and around growth and our contribution and inspiration to a whole range of leaders around the around the country, which is really nice. Actually. Can I tell you very quickly, Brennan, how I got into this work? Is that okay?
Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, please, please do. We're going to we are going to wrap up in the next few minutes. So you're going to have to give me the elevator pitch.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, all right. Well, the elevator pitch was I wanted to share the story basically, with everyone and talk about it happened to me, it might happen to us. So I started in the leadership really in safety leadership, and to try and inspire people not to make silly decisions at work and not to take shortcuts. So that's where that's where it all started. And it went through safety leadership, and now it's in general, business leadership. So
Brendan Torazzi
yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. So I'm just going to ask you a few quick questions to wrap up Anton. How old are you 46 And what do you like to do to keep fit?
Unknown Speaker
Ah try athalon Bryan
Brendan Torazzi
awesome, awesome guy the
Unknown Speaker
Iron Man so I got a got a half Ironman coming up in six weeks time and I want to qualify for the World Champs and turbo next year. So in representing our fine country, again, runaway, the green and gold again, so it's pretty special.
Brendan Torazzi
Fantastic. How many hours sleep you're getting each night? No, not
Unknown Speaker
a great deal, man at the moment, too busy training. Unfortunately, and it's and it's wearing me down.
Brendan Torazzi
Yep. Okay, and do you have any personal achievements you're looking to do in the next 12 months?
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So there's some more books on the cards. And obviously, to grow this business, and to keep to take it to the next level into really? Probably. Sorry to double, I guess the size of our business in the next 12 months is our big goal. And we've heard personally to write the next book.
Brendan Torazzi
Fantastic. So if people want to find out a little bit more about you, Anton, how can I do that if you got a website or?
Unknown Speaker
Absolutely so if they go to www dot the guinea group.com that I use, so that's the GU mi ne Agru p one word.com.au. Enter, or they can email Anton at the guinea group.com.au. Brenna.
Brendan Torazzi
That's great. All right, anytime. Thanks very much for coming on the show today.