The captain of a tourist duck boat that sank near Branson, Missouri July 19 briefed his passengers about how to use life jackets before the amphibious vehicle entered the water, according to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) technicians, who’ve been studying a recording from “Stretch Boat 7.” Seventeen people died when the amphibious vehicle sank in Table Rock Lake during a severe storm.
No training can fully prepare emergency responders for a disaster or mass shooting, but coaching, hands-on training and virtual reality experiences can improve responses.
That was the goal of classes and training in a first-ever public safety forum at Shenandoah University on. The forum was attended by area firefighters, paramedics, police and other officials.
Savannah River Remediation (South Carolina) is implementing a virtual reality program to help new employees get a feel for walking in unfamiliar and unusual environments where tripping hazards can be common. In virtual reality, users wear a headpiece with goggles, foot and belt sensors, and hold hand controllers while “walking” through the simulations.
The statistics are shocking. On average, one child dies from heatstroke in a vehicle nearly every 10 days in the United States. Since 1998, there have been 760 pediatric vehicular heatstroke deaths – including 18 already this year.
Drones have thoroughly worked their way into a variety of non-business uses, from videotaping weddings to capturing beautiful images of scenic tourist attractions, so it’s likely that they are also finding their way into the nation’s favorite summertime holiday.
The Federal Aviation Agency wants drone operators to keep safety in mind.
What is the monetary value of a person’s life? Vanderbilt economist W. Kip Viscusi says putting a price tag on the value of a person’s life makes people and products safer.
Viscusi defines the “value of statistical life” or VSL as the dollar amount that people are willing to pay to avoid an expected death tied to a faulty product or job-related accident. His current estimate of the value of statistical life is $10 million.
As the nation’s fleet of small recreational and commercial drones keeps soaring — the government projects nearly 3 million will be in the skies by 2022 — safety concerns are rising even as federal enforcement stalls.
The Federal Aviation Administration has collected 6,117 reports of potentially unsafe use of drones from February, 2014 through April of this year, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office.
A fire aboard a massive cruise ship caused by leaking fuel could be a “dress rehearsal for a future tragedy” if the cruise industry and the company that operated the ship doesn’t make changes.
That dire warning from National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt came during the board’s Tuesday meeting about the Aug. 17, 2016 aboard the Caribbean Fantasy – an incident that resulted in injuries to dozens of passengers.
The Inspector General (IG) issued a somewhat bizarre report yesterday on “management challenges” at the Chemical Safety Board. The IG is required by the Reports Consolidation Act of 2000 “to report what we consider the most serious management and performance challenges facing the CSB.”
With preventable deaths at an all-time high, National Safety Council calls on parents to use National Safety Month to assess the greatest threats to young children’s safety
