Workers were preparing for the night shift at House Technologies Inc. (HTI) factory last Wednesday at 6 PM when a fire broke out at one of the insulation rooms and quickly spread across the factory. It would take the firemen some 70 hours to fully control the fire before they declared a fire out on Saturday at 4 PM.
While a lot of the workers were injured, no one died inside the factory; however, the fire claimed the life of Jerome Sismaet on Saturday, 11 PM.
Sismaet was identified as one of the line leaders in the factory; he was among the factory workers confined at the Divine Grace Hospital but he succumbed to severe burn injuries just a few hours after the fire was successfully extinguished.
But coworkers are now praising Sismaet for he died a hero. Several of his subordinates told the story of how he chose to be one of the last ones to leave the factory so as to ensure that all his subordinates were out of the burning building.
Due to that, he suffered the most burns and was already in critical condition when he was found by the firemen and rushed to the hospital.
Philippine Economic Zone Authority director general Charito Plaza lauded Sismaet as a hero, saying, “He is a hero, being one of the line leaders na tinulungan munang maka-evacuate ang mga kasama niya bago siya lumabas.”
She also revealed that HTI promised to foot the medical bills and funeral expenses of those affected by the fire.
What’s a Line Leader?
A line leader is simply the team person for a production assembly line at a factory. This person is tasked to oversee the output of the people under his/her team. As in the case of Sismaet, line leaders often take personal responsibility over the safety and performance of the people in the team.