EMERGENCY responders have helped protect Americans from hazardous substance releases since our nation's beginnings. From the bucket brigades of colonial times to today's in-plant and community hazardous materials response teams, response workers have taken action during emergency releases to save lives, preserve property, and protect the public good.
SUDDEN cardiac arrest (SCA) is an abrupt disruption of the heart's function that causes lack of blood flow to vital organs. This lack of blood flow results in loss of blood pressure, pulse, and consciousness. Most commonly, SCA is caused by a type of arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythm) called ventricular fibrillation, or VF.
With the media's focus on highway accidents involving bulk containers, resulting fatalities, and environmental pollution, we tend to forget the vast majority of hazardous materials are shipped in non-bulk containers such as paint cans, bottles, metal drums, pressurized cylinders, and cardboard boxes. Inside are flammable, corrosive, and poisonous liquids; gases; infectious substances; radioactive materials; and explosives, separated only by the containment method, the package.
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.
YOU are sleeping soundly in your own bed, for a change, after spending the better part of two weeks at the site of a chemical warehouse fire, where you assessed exposure--or the lack thereof, as it turned out--of neighboring buildings and the employees who inhabit them.
TRADITIONAL methods for illuminating signage are giving way to new/old technology. I say new/old because Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs, have been around since the 1960s. The technology has caught up and enabled LEDs to become commonplace within the last five to seven years because of new processes and the fact that materials have become less expensive to produce.
ACCORDING to the National Fire Protection Association, an average of five fires break out per day at our nation's health care facilities1 and more than 8,000 hospital fires occur each year. If not acted upon quickly and effectively, the results can be catastrophic.
LOCKOUT/TAGOUT procedures specify the steps electricians must follow to remove power from an electrical circuit or panel and to lock out and tag the panel or circuit so no one can re-energize it while work is in progress. An increasing number of specialty contractors, ranging from health inspectors to thermographers, must work around electrical panels and exposed circuits.
For their own safety, these contractors and anyone else who may be exposed to li
TOXIC VOC exposure is one of the most overlooked hazards in confined space entry. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds characterized by their tendency to evaporate easily at room temperature.
THE need to protect employees against air contamination in the workplace has become more critical than ever before.
"THE future is here to stay." In terms of safety training, this saying refers to the use and proliferation of Internet-based courseware for delivering training messages, as well as Internet-based software for administering and managing those messages.
THE anthrax incident of 2001 was a small bioterrorism attack in terms of the amount of agent used (the letter addressed to Senator Daschle contained only two to three ounces of anthrax spores, and the other letters contained similar amounts) and the resulting morbidity and mortality. (There were only 22 cases of anthrax and five deaths).
ADEQUATE preparation surely is the answer to many of life's challenges and dangers. It is well established that prevention's value outweighs the cost of incidents themselves (for example, the UK Department for Transport has calculated that the total value of preventing the 229,014 highway accidents in Great Britain in 2001, of which 3,176 were fatal accidents and 31,588 were serious accidents, would have been roughly $31 billion, or about $135,000 per accident).
HOW to prevent eye, face, and head injuries isn't a mystery. But knowing how to protect yourself or your workers does take some analysis, attention, effort, and money. Wearing inadequate protection or none at all is not an alternative if the hazards involved in a given task cannot be eliminated, engineered out, or solved through administrative controls.
FIRE, jolts, arcs, thermal burns, flash burns . . . . There are few workplace scenarios as potentially deadly as those that involve work with electricity or electrical items. Yet we all have a tendency to overlook the most basic of hazards in the workplace, too.
ARE you capitalizing on the benefits of the Internet to boost employee training?
AUTOMATED external defibrillators are becoming increasingly common in workplaces and public facilities across the nation.