Tag: safety

Understanding the Roles of Behavior in Safety

SAFETY2Behaviors have always had a role in safety dating back to prehistoric times, and they always will. Behaviors were the primary, and sometimes only, tools for survival, remaining today as the last tool when all else fails. When in an environment you do not control or when you lack the right tools or systems fail, it is up to you to behave in a manner for self-preservation. This is popularized with the common statement, “You are the one responsible for your safety.” This is not ideal; it is, however, reality.

via Understanding the Roles of Behavior in Safety — Occupational Health & Safety.

What causes a concussion?

Your brain is a soft organ that is surrounded by spinal fluid and protected by your hard skull. Normally, the fluid around your brain acts like a cushion that keeps your brain from banging into your skull. But if your head or your body is hit hard, your brain can crash into your skull and be injured.There are many ways to get a concussion. Some common ways include fights, falls, playground injuries, car crashes, and bike accidents. Concussions can also happen while participating in any sport or activity such as football, boxing, hockey, soccer, skiing, or snowboarding.

via Concussion – WebMD: Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention.

Quick Tips for Preventing Salmonella

  • Cook poultry, ground beef, and eggs thoroughly. Do not eat or drink foods containing raw eggs, or raw (unpasteurized) milk.
  • If you are served undercooked meat, poultry or eggs in a restaurant, don’t hesitate to send it back to the kitchen for further cooking.
  • Wash hands, kitchen work surfaces, and utensils with soap and water immediately after they have been in contact with raw meat or poultry.
  • Be particularly careful with foods prepared for infants, the elderly, and the immunocompromised.
  • Wash hands with soap after handling reptiles, birds, or baby chicks, and after contact with pet feces.
  • Avoid direct or even indirect contact between reptiles (turtles, iguanas, other lizards, snakes) and infants or immunocompromised persons.
  • Don’t work with raw poultry or meat, and an infant (e.g., feed, change diaper) at the same time.
  • Mother’s milk is the safest food for young infants. Breastfeeding prevents salmonellosis and many other health problems.

via CDC – Prevention – Salmonella.

What Can Safety Learn from Lean?

If you think lean is only for manufacturing, look it up on Wikipedia. You will find that lean principles, lean thinking and lean tools have been adapted and applied to everything from service industries to software development and now are being used to reduce the greatest waste of all: workplace injuries.

via What Can Safety Learn from Lean? | Safety content from EHS Today.

Safety Committee Meeting Tips

Health and Safety Committee meetings should be held regularly on a specific day and time and at least on a quarterly basis (i.e. the first Thursday of each month/quarter at 8:30 A.M.). New committees should consider meeting on a more frequent basis. When a meeting schedule is planned well in advance, the members are then in a better position to arrange for their attendance and prepare for discussion.

A typical Committee meeting should include:

  • Review of unfinished items from the previous meeting(s) and/or activities.
  • Status reports from any sub-committees.
  • Discussion/review of safety inspection reports and the actions taken to correct observed hazards.
  • Review of accident/incidents sustained since the previous meeting and a discussion of measures to prevent similar accidents and incidents.
  • Review of the status of current action plans or training programs.
  • Review of outstanding recommendations developed by outside loss control consultants and/or Department of Commerce health and safety compliance inspectors.
  • Discussion about activities related to future action plans and/or training programs.
  • Discussion about special activities such as health fairs.
  • Discussion about new business, future agenda items, projects and meeting dates.

via Safety Committee Guidelines.

The 10 Objectives of a Safety Committee

In order to accomplish these objectives, the successful Health and Safety Committee should:

  1. Develop a written mission statement and charter.
  2. Clearly define the duties and responsibilities of officers and general members.
  3. Identify and prioritize goals and establish action plans to achieve each goal.
  4. Include representation from different levels and areas of the organization.
  5. Meet at least quarterly/monthly.
  6. Record and disseminate minutes of each meeting, documenting attendance, problems and issues and corrective action proposed and actions taken to address each issue.
  7. Make attendance mandatory with the penalty of removal for repeated absences.
  8. Develop methods to increase and maintain safety awareness.
  9. Organize special sub-committees to address specific issues and projects.
  10. Communicate the purpose, activities and accomplishments of the committee to all employees.

via Safety Committee Guidelines.

What Is Total Worker Health?

Total Worker Health™ is a strategy integrating occupational safety and health protection with health promotion to prevent worker injury and illness and to advance health and well-being.

The protection, preservation, and improvement of the health and well-being of all people who work are goals shared by workers, their families, and employers. Today, more than ever, there is increasing evidence that the work environment and the overall health, safety and well-being of the workers within it are strongly connected. Diminished health and injury, whether caused by work or resulting from non-work activities, reduces quality of life, opportunity, and income for workers and those dependent upon them. Conversely, workplaces with low risk of injury and enhanced opportunities for the total health of workers can lead to a vibrant, engaged and highly performing workforce.

via CDC – Total Worker Health What Is Total Worker Health? – NIOSH Workplace Safety and Health Program.

OSHA – Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Standards

The following is a list of the top 10 most frequently cited standards following inspections of worksites by federal OSHA. OSHA publishes this list to alert employers about these commonly cited standards so they can take steps to find and fix recognized hazards addressed in these and other standards before OSHA shows up. Far too many preventable injuries and illnesses occur in the workplace.

  • 1926.451 – Scaffolding
  • 1926.501 – Fall Protection
  • 1910.1200 – Hazard Communication
  • 1910.134 – Respiratory Protection
  • 1910.147 – Lockout/Tagout
  • 1910.305 – Electrical, Wiring Methods
  • 1910.178 – Powered Industrial Trucks
  • 1926.1053 – Ladders
  • 1910.303 – Electrical, General Requirements
  • 1910.212 – Machine Guarding

via Top 10 Most Frequently Cited Standards.

The Impact of Off-the-Job Injuries

“Off-the-job” injuries are injuries that involve employed people when they are not working. For example, a restaurant cook cuts his hand on a knife while fixing dinner at home or a truck driver who slides off an icy road while driving his car to work, hits a tree, and suffers a sprained wrist. These injuries occurred off-the-job. If similar injuries had occurred while in the restaurant or driving a truck, they would have been on-the-job injuries. If the cook and the truck driver had been retired, then the injuries would have been neither on-the-job nor off-the-job because the people were not employed. They would have been classified and nonwork injuries. Off-the-job injuries are of concern to employers because statistics show that for each on-the-job death due to unintentional injuries there are about twelve off-the-job deaths of workers due to unintentional injuries. And for each on-the-job injury involving lost time there are about three off-the-job injuries. There are about six times as many days lost from work due to off-the-job injuries as for on-the-job. Employers have to deal with the same disruptions to production and work schedules whether the injury occurred at work or away from work.

Source: National Safety Council

Gravity Can Kill – Fall Protection Saves Lives

The following tragic accident is an example of why it’s critical to wear fall protection.

A worker hanging cable was suspended about 18 feet in the air in the bucket of the truck, working with a a steel cable that was attached to utility poles on both sides of Central Avenue Pike.  The cable was stretched across the roadway.

A pickup truck drove over the cable, and the cable hooked on the rear bumper, causing the cable to stretch tight before breaking free.  The worker was hit by the cable and thrown from the bucket of the truck, then fell to the ground.

via Report: Worker hanging cable died after falling 18 feet to the ground | wbir.com.