THE operating philosophy and the challenge facing the emergency services component of a major U.S. city is to be prepared for anything and to protect the area's 2 million residents. The city's Bureau of Operations includes the fire department, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, four heavy rescue units, and a special hazardous materials team.
WHAT are portable air cleaners (PACs) and how are they used? Portable air cleaners (PACs) are small hand transportable air cleaning units used in occupied spaces (classrooms, offices) to reduce the concentration of airborne particles and sometimes vapors and gases. They typically weigh 10-20 lbs, are freestanding, use local electrical current, and can be placed anywhere in a room.
WHEN a fire breaks out, the immediate need to evacuate, contain, and suppress overshadows any thought about future contingency planning. The goal is to get out alive and put the fire out. Tomorrow will bring its own set of problems, or so the thinking goes.
ON January 6, 2005, a 42-car train traveling at approximately 40 mph through Graniteville, S.C., crashed into a parked locomotive. A number of the cars contained hazardous chemicals: resins, kaolin, and sodium hydroxide. Three cars were 90-ton tankers, each carrying full loads of chlorine.
IN order to succeed in today's competitive world, health and safety professionals may find the need to expand their skill sets and credentials. Companies are often seeking a generalist who can address a variety of health, safety, and environmental issues instead of hiring several different specialists. As licensed professionals, occupational health nurses are uniquely positioned to expand their practice into the safety and environmental disciplines.
HEXAVALENT chromium (CrVI) compounds are used in a variety of industries where potential exposures may occur. Metal plating, the use of pigments containing CrVI, and chemical synthesis where CrVI is used as a catalyst or as an ingredients can result in worker exposure. Welding on CrVI-painted surfaces can also result in the generation of CrVI.
THE evolution of automated doors during the past 40 years has provided real benefits to industrial customers. The ongoing changeover from slow, rigid doors to high-speed doors has brought about tremendous strides in the areas of increased productivity and energy savings.
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.