Articles Tagged with ''injuries''

The medical technology advancements that have occurred in the past few decades are nothing short of astounding. Many surgeries and treatments that used to require extensive hospital stays are now performed in a doctor’s office, and the patient is back at home within hours.  A few of the amazing medical applications include: scar removal through plastic surgery, titanium bone replacements, tape replacing sutures, and stents taking the place of vein removal and relocation.

OSHA in 2012 cited Interstate Electrical Services, a North Billerica, Mass.,  electrical contractor, for alleged willful and serious violations following a November 2011 arc flash blast at an Andover jobsite. Two workers installing electrical service were seriously burned when a piece of equipment made contact with an energized part of an electrical panel, resulting in the arc flash.

Griffin Schultz, general manager at Predictive Solutions, recently participated in a podcast entitled “Ending Deadly Workplace Accidents” in which Dan Clark of Creative Safety Publishing interviewed Schultz. In the interview, Schultz described the mission of Predictive Solutions and its parent company Industrial Scientific to end death on the job in this century.

Recently, a manager in one of our service organizations asked some questions about recurring injury trends.  The trends revealed a higher incident rate among newer employees and also an injury pattern around time of day. The manager understood how newer employees can have a higher injury frequency rate; however, he was intrigued by the other data.

It is a widely held belief that an arc flash incident is rare. Not so. Check out these statistics compiled from various sources and pertaining to arc flash incidents in the U.S.:

An arc flash occurs during a fault, or short circuit condition, which passes through as arc gap. The flash can be initiated through accidental contact, equipment which is underrated for the available short circuit current, contamination or tracking over insulated surfaces, deterioration or corrosion of equipment and, or parts, and other causes.

Despite significant advancements in workplace health and safety over the past four decades, 150 people are killed on the job or die from job-related illnesses and diseases every day in the U.S, reports the 2014 edition of the AFL-CIO’s annual Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect.

An Austin, Texas fertilizer company that was inspected after a worker's leg was entangled in an auger was cited for 12 violations, including failing to ensure adequate safeguards were in place to prevent workers from coming into contact with the auger during servicing and maintenance.

A follow-up inspection by OSHA at San Cast Inc. found workers still exposed to amputation and fall hazards at the Coshocton, Ohio, casting and foundry facility – despite previous citations stemming from a leg amputation suffered by a worker in June of 2013. OSHA has issued 17 additional violations, carrying proposed penalties of $155,900 as a result of the November 2013 inspection.