An employee cutting rubber material at a New Philadelphia, Ohio, plastics manufacturing facility suffered a severe injury when a pneumatic bench cutter severed her finger. OSHA inspectors found that her employer, Lauren Manufacturing, failed to adjust the machine's light curtains, which serve as safeguards to prevent a worker's hand from coming in contact with the machine's operating parts.
For the second time in less than two months, federal safety and health inspectors found a worker at a commercial laundry equipment manufacturer had suffered an amputation because a machine lacked adequate safety guarding.
Just five weeks after a 28-year-old maintenance worker lost part of his right arm in an improperly guarded bread wrapping machine at the Cincinnati-based Klosterman Baking Co., federal safety inspectors investigating the injury found another worker exposed to the same hazard.
Visit any emergency department in the United States and you may find individuals who were injured or who became ill on the job. In 2013 alone, an estimated 2.7 million workers received treatment in emergency departments for nonfatal work-related injuries and illnesses.
Individuals who are exposed to high temperatures or flames and those who must handle flammable liquids are at increased risk for burns of the hand and wrist. Burns are most frequently sustained at home (72%), whereas 5% occur in relation to motor vehicle accidents and 9% are work-related, The most common type of burn injury to the wrist and hand is a scald injury, usually from a hot water source, followed by flame burns, flash burns from explosion of flammable gases or liquids, and contact burns.
This article provides an overview of the new final rule “Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses” issued by OSHA to revise its recording and reporting requirements.
Falls remain a leading cause of unintentional injury mortality nationwide, and 43% of fatal falls in the last decade have involved a ladder.
Among workers, approximately 20% of fall injuries involve ladders. Among construction workers, an estimated 81% of fall injuries treated in U.S. emergency departments (EDs) involve a ladder.
Two contractors who scaled an 8-foot tall fence topped with triple-strand barbed wire were among those injured when an explosion blasted through a Newark, Ohio food additive manufacturer.