Tag: Toolbox Talks

Confined Space Fatality

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Some time ago, OSHA received notification of a construction site fatality where an employee was found at the bottom of a newly installed manhole. The employer was a small construction company that installed water and sewer lines, and was completing a project laying sewer pipe and constructing manholes for a new housing development.

There were six employees on-site the day of the incident. Five of the employees were laying pipe over the hill from the manhole where the incident occurred. The victim was grouting the manhole.

The work area was previously farmland and was slightly hilly. The manhole was placed in the terrain with a slope of 1-4, and was adjacent to entrance ramps to a highway. The manhole had four sections, with a total height of approximately 17 feet when measured on the outside (per drawings). The inside measurement was 16½ feet when measured with a trench pole. All of the sections were made of concrete and were coated with a water proofing substance. Ladder rungs were present in the interior surface.

At the time of the incident and the inspection activity, the inlets were plugged. The project manager installed a vacuum pump at the opening of the manhole and pulled a vacuum to test the tightness of the joints. Because the test failed, the joints required grouting. Workers didn’t follow confined space protocols. Everyone thought there was no hazard because the manhole was new.

Further investigation revealed the vacuum pulled in-ground gasses that suffocated the worker as he descended into the manhole. In the Midwest, acidic soil can combine with limestone (calcium carbonate) causing a neutralization reaction that produces carbon dioxide (CO2). The vacuum test pulled a higher-than-normal level of this CO2 into the manhole space, which displaced the oxygen.

The moral: Be aware that hazards exist in new construction. Confined space protocols were developed to eliminate these hazards. Make sure you understand when and where you should use these protocols.

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Struck-By Injuries

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Falls, electrocutions, struck-by and caught-between accidents account for the greatest number of fatalities in the construction industry. In fact, over 90 percent of all construction fatalities involve one of these four hazards. Thirty-three percent are attributed to falls, 22 percent to struck-by accidents, 18 percent to caught-between accidents and 17 percent to electrical shock. This has led OSHA in recent years to focus on these four hazards, especially when conducting onsite inspections. These hazards are often referred to in the construction industry as the “Focus Four Hazards” or the “Big Four.”

With this Toolbox Talk, we will single out the “struck-by” accidents and the hazards associated with them. It is important to know and understand how these accidents occur and what safeguards need to be in place. On a construction site, the potential is there to be struck from several angles. One of the more common struck-by hazards is being struck or run over by vehicles or equipment, especially those with obstructed rear views.

In order to prevent struck-by incidents involving vehicular traffic and construction equipment, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health recommends:

  • Implementing policies that require workers on foot to maintain a safe clearance from mobile equipment.
  • Requiring equipment operators to operate equipment only when pedestrians are in plain sight.
  • Instructing workers on foot to approach construction equipment only when the operator recognizes their need to approach and assures them that it is okay to approach.
  • Requiring all workers to wear high-visibility clothing at all times while on the job site.

Construction vehicles and equipment are not the only potential sources of struck-by hazards. There are many occasions when workers are exposed to overhead hazards such as tools, materials and other objects that can be dropped or released and strike a worker. Two practices to put in place that will help to avoid these types of injuries are:

  • Pre-planning routes for suspended loads to ensure that no employee is required to work directly below a load. This is a practice that should always be used. Some have even chosen to hoist materials via crane or derrick before a shift begins to minimize the number of personnel working in the area.
  • Using toeboards and screens to prevent objects from falling on individuals at a lower level.

Safety is recognizing potential hazards, and putting controls in place to avoid injuries. If we follow some basic precautions, we can prevent struck-by injuries from occurring.

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Distracted Walking: More Serious Than You Think

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Almost everyone has heard about the dangers of distracted driving. Distractions may be anything from talking on a mobile phone to interacting with a passenger – anything that moves our attention away from what we’re doing. When this happens, we can make harmful mistakes.

These same issues apply to distracted walking. Take a look at the large number of people walking while doing some other activity – talking on a cell phone, using earbuds to listen to music, watching a video or reading a message on a mobile device. People trust themselves to be able to walk while doing other activities that draw a lot of attention. It’s as if people think that walking is so automatic, they don’t need to pay attention.

A new study on distracted walking released by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) finds that more than three quarters (78 percent) of U.S. adults believe that distracted walking is a “serious” issue. Some people referred to this as “zoning out.”

“Today, the dangers of the ‘digital dead walker’ are growing with more and more people falling down stairs, tripping over curbs, bumping into others, or stepping into the path of on-coming vehicles causing a rising number of injuries—from scrapes and bruises to sprains and fractures,” said Alan Hilibrand, MD, AAOS spokesperson. Emergency department hospital visits for injuries involving distracted walkers on cell phones more than doubled between 2004 and 2010, according to a 2013 study appearing in the journal Accident, Analysis & Prevention.

One of the challenges in combating distracted walking may be that we’re overly confident in our ability to multitask. When asked why they walk distracted, 48 percent of respondents in the AAOS study said “they just don’t think about it,” 28 percent feel “they can walk and do other things,” and 22 percent “are busy and want to use their time productively.”

The issue of distracted walking is especially serious when it takes place on a construction site. The possibility for severe injury is much greater because of the configuration of walkways and the unfinished state of most walkway conditions. A further hazard is moving equipment in and around the construction site. Often times equipment operators are watching the condition of their loads and not paying attention to workers who are walking around the site. If a worker on the ground isn’t paying attention to what’s happening on the site, too, the situation could end in tragedy.

Safety professionals have developed a practice to control distracted walking caused by mobile phones – the cell phone safe zone. This is a designated place on the construction site where no traffic or trip fall hazards are allowed, enabling a worker to use a phone safely without worrying about anything else that’s going on in the area.

Outside of the cell phone safe zone, companies should prohibit distractions or constantly remind workers to engage – that is, pay attention while we walk.

“The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons urges workers to avoid musculoskeletal and other injuries by engaging with their surroundings — drivers, other walkers and obstacles,” said

Dr. Hilibrand. “Many of us simply need to force ourselves to set down our devices and focus on what’s in front of and around us.”

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Powered Industrial Trucks

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OSHA defines powered industrial trucks (PITs) as “any mobile, power-propelled truck used to carry, push, pull, lift, stack or tier materials.” Regardless of the trade, every construction company uses PITs.

Most people think of PITs as forklifts. Forklifts come in many shapes and sizes, and are all regulated under OSHA’s Powered Industrial Truck Standard, 29 CFR § 1910.178. PITs also include man lifts, scissor lifts, boom lifts and motorized hand trucks. Though this Toolbox Talk will often refer to forklifts, the requirements apply to all PITs.

OSHA’S TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

 The employer must ensure that each PIT operator has had proper training and is competent to operate the truck safely in any environment.

  • Employees must have separate training for each type of PIT they will be operating; however, they do not need separate training to operate the same type of PIT made by a different manufacturer.
  • Employers must develop a written PIT operation training program, and conduct classroom training. They must observe the employee operating the assigned equipment under the physical conditions of their workplace, such as aisles, ramps, loading docks and construction sites.
  • Employers must provide a certificate stating the employee has completed the training.
  • Employees must be retrained and recertified at least every three years, or after an accident or near miss that resulted from an unsafe act.

MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION REQUIREMENTS

 OSHA prohibits operating a forklift that is not in safe operating condition. The agency also recommends employers conduct an inspection of each forklift at the beginning of each shift, and following maintenance and accidents. Lift operators should use checklists when conducting an inspection and employers should review completed checklists periodically to ensure employees are utilizing them.

Employers must remove a forklift from service under the following conditions:

  • It is not in safe operating condition (example: controls aren’t operating properly);
  • It emits hazardous sparks or flames from the exhaust system;
  • The temperature of any part of the forklift exceeds the normal operating temperature; or
  • It has a leak in the fuel system.

Violations of the PIT standard are often the basis for an OSHA citation. Failure to follow this standard can expose an employer to potentially broad liability.

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Fall Hazards

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Falls are still the number one reason workers get hurt or die on the job. In 2014, a person died every day due to a fall. The most frequent reasons for falls are: slipping on walk surfaces and ladder rungs; tripping over clutter in walk areas; and inappropriate use of ladders.

It’s easy to spot and fix these hazards, but first we must perceive these conditions as safety hazards. If we continue to ignore them, workers will continue to get hurt.

Slipping, Tripping and Jumping

Here is a recently reported list of preventable accidents:

  • A worker slipped on the muddy floor of an equipment cab and fell into the control levers. He suffered bruised and fractured ribs.
  • A worker slipped off the rung of a ladder while attempting to get off a large excavating machine. He fell more than four feet to the ground, spraining an ankle and breaking a wrist bone on impact.
  • While off-loading pipe from a flatbed truck trailer, a worker stepped on a piece of unsecured pipe. The pipe rolled under his foot, and he fell off the truck bed, twisting an ankle and breaking an arm.
  • A worker jumped from an excavator cab five feet to the ground below. He severely injured his knee on impact.
  • A worker stepped on a piece of rebar, which rolled under his foot, causing severe bending and strain on the ankle.

If you pay attention to work area conditions and engage in preventative behavior, you can keep accidents like these from happening.

Ladders

The Bureau of Labor Statistics evaluated 1,400 ladder accidents and found:

  • Fifty-seven percent of the victims in the study were holding objects with one or both hands while climbing or descending the ladder.
  • Thirty percent had wet, greasy or oily shoes.
  • In 53 percent of the cases, workers had not properly secured or braced the bottom of straight ladders, and in 61 percent, the ladders were unsecured at the top.
  • In 66 percent of the cases, the accident victims never received training to inspect ladders for defects before using them.

These findings clearly indicate that it’s important to focus on safe climbing techniques. Don’t carry objects while climbing. Keep three points of contact with the ladder at all times. Don’t climb with wet, muddy, greasy or oily shoes, and inspect your ladder.

It’s up to each of us to do our part to eliminate falls, put an end to the injuries and reduce fatalities. No one wants to lose a worker per day to falls. Let’s work together to eliminate that statistic.

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Insect Bites and Stings

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In the United States, ants sting 9.3 million people each year. Wasps, bees and spiders account for more than a million stings and bites annually. Sometimes that pesky mosquito bite needs nothing more than a little hydrocortisone cream and time to heal. But occasionally, it’s not so simple.

While most bug bites and stings are harmless, some can be dangerous if we don’t treat them properly – especially if you have an undiagnosed allergy to a particular venom, or if the bug is a disease carrier. According to the Center for Disease Control, insect bites (including spider bites) accounted for 36,100 non-fatal injuries and illnesses involving time away from work between 1992 and 1997. That’s more than 7,000 cases per year, and there is no indication that the number has decreased since that time.

In extreme cases, a reaction to a bite or sting can cause a trip to a hospital emergency room. Dr. Margaret Parsons, dermatologist and associate clinical professor of dermatology at the University of California, Davis, advises people to go to the emergency room after being stung or bitten if they experience the sensation that the throat is closing, chest pain, a persistent racing heartbeat, dizziness or vomiting.

According to the American Academy of Dermatology, the most common bites and stings in the United States come from mosquitoes, fleas, spiders, bees, wasps, hornets, biting flies, mites, ticks, fire ants and bedbugs. Tick bites have the potential to carry Lyme disease. Spider bites can cause serious, localized skin destruction, depending on the species. Several mosquito species carry and transmit the West Nile virus. West Nile is tricky since between 70 and 80 percent of people don’t exhibit symptoms once they’re infected. But in severe cases, patients will typically experience headaches, body aches, joint pain, vomiting, diarrhea and/or rash. Hospitalization to provide fluids intravenously and pain medication may be necessary in these cases.

Types of insect bite and sting reactions include:

Localized

Within minutes of a bite or sting, localized inflammation occurs. With bee and wasp stings, pain may range from mild to severe. In some cases, swelling can last from 48 hours to one week.

Toxic Systemic

Caused by venom injections, this reaction can be difficult to distinguish from systemic allergic reactions because the signs and symptoms are similar.

Systemic Allergic

This Type I hypersensitivity causes an immediate and obvious reaction resulting in skin hives or deep tissue swelling.

Delayed

This Type III hypersensitivity has a delayed reaction that can lead to serum sickness, which typically occurs days or weeks after the sting or bite. Serum sickness can cause inflammation of different organ systems, affecting the blood vessels, nerves, brain or kidneys. It can also cause clotting abnormalities.

Fall is an active time for stinging insects and spiders. Take precautions to prevent bites and stings:

  • Avoid scented insect repellents and other products with sweet fragrances;
  • Avoid bright-colored clothes;
  • Tuck in your shirt and pant cuffs;
  • Wear long-sleeved shirts; and
  • Cover all drinks and containers.

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