Every day, an estimated 1,200 eye injuries occur in the workplace, and about 120,000 of these injuries per year are disabling. Thousands of people are blinded each year from work-related eye injuries that could have been prevented with the proper selection and use of eye and face protection.
Since its start in 1913 as the National Council for Industrial Safety, the National Safety Council has weathered its share of storms. In 1941, it answered the call from President Franklin D. Roosevelt to "mobilize its nationwide resources in leading a concerted and intensified campaign against accidents, and to call upon every citizen, in public or private capacity, to enlist in this campaign and do his part in preventing wastage of human and material resources of the nation through accidents."
The path to floor safety is often obstructed by procedures
and ideas that tend to focus on the overall safety
program of a facility, with floor safety being only
one component of that safety program.
A chemical emitted from an individual site and the effect of that release — on not only the emitting site, but also on neighboring sites and nearby communities — are of concern to plant personnel, community leaders, and regulators.
It is generally accepted that around 80 to 85 percent of workplace "accidents" are traceable to some specific human behavior, either at the time of the accident or preceding it. Therefore, to achieve improvement, it is necessary to understand the root cause(s) of the unsafe behavior taking place and how that behavior can be replaced by new, safe behavior.
As a certified First Aid/CPR/AED instructor, I've trained many, many people during the past few years. I've learned a great deal from those I've trained, as well. As a certified EMT—Intermediate and former first responder for the local fire department, I've assisted in some cardiac emergencies and have learned a lot there, too.
Workplace safety is a major concern of every employer — more now than ever before. Through the years, stringent regulation and an ever-growing concern for the health and well-being of employees have brought advancements in processes, safety procedures, and first aid protocols to treat the injured. This movement has had a profound impact on emergency equipment, including eye irrigation and personal hydration.
Hazmat teams at fire departments, industrial companies, and military units have enough to worry about in hazardous situations without having to be concerned about whether their hazmat suits fully protect them. In an effort to help hazmat professionals ensure their teams are fully protected, below are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions about chemical protective suit standards.
I received a call recently from a large electric utility. A line worker, we'll call him Bill, had been badly burned while performing work near a 69kV piece of equipment. This incident illustrates several issues that a safety professional or engineer must consider in development of an electrical safety training and PPE program, two of which are not directly addressed in regulations or the consensus standards.
The construction industry expanded at an exponential rate in recent years, not only in countries such as the United States, but also in emerging mega-economies such as China. The UAE experienced a construction boom in the past few decades. But as the global economy faces recession, construction has become stunted in many areas around the world.
Pause for a moment to take a few deep breaths. Inhale, exhale, and repeat. For something we do continuously, it's strange how seldom we actually think about breathing. In fact, beyond activities such as meditation and exercise, we're rarely conscious of breathing, simply because it's an automatic process.
As baby boomers begin to retire, an infusion of new workers is vital. However, abuse of illicit drugs and alcohol is a concern.
HEAT STRESS
Many workers are medicated today for various ailments, but few are aware of the dangers their drugs can cause with heat stress.
The American public's concern about potentially pandemic influenza A(H1N1) waned in early May as schools in some affected states reopened and Mexico appeared to have its outbreak in hand. The number of confirmed cases and countries in which they were found continued to rise steadily, however, primarily in the Americas and Europe, the World Health Organization reported.
G4S Wackenhut tried out a new slip-resistant shoe with about 800 security officers at two offices in Cincinnati and Fort Myers, Fla., early this year. Asked April 28 how the trial was going, Director of Safety Frank Knapfel said the results were excellent at that point in the trial.
Total annual health care costs reached $2.4 trillion in 2008 and are projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012. In fact, there appears to be no end in sight to this trend.1 As a result, organizations and individuals continue to search for strategies to deal with escalating health care costs that are outpacing the rate of inflation.
Each year when federal statistics are released, it comes as little surprise that violations of OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard are among the top 10 safety citations issued to general industry. With more than 4,000 violations issued each year, OSHA continues to make it quite clear that having a dusty, nearly empty binder of MSDS wedged on the top shelf of someone's office is not enough.