In Clearwater, Florida, a construction worker was killed Tuesday morning when he was struck by a backhoe. According to Clearwater police, the incident occurred as crews were clearing land for a town home development. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene. In New Oxford, Pennsylvania, 44-year-old Eva DeVincentis was killed Wednesday afternoon in a forklift accident at her workplace, Winter Gardens Quality Foods.

Gilster-Mary Lee Corp. of Steeleville, Illinois has been cited by OSHA for six safety violations including three willful after two maintenance employees conducting welding operations sustained serious burns to their upper bodies as the result of an explosion within a dust collector at the company's pasta manufacturing plant on Oct. 6, 2011. The incident occurred as the two employees were repairing a hole in the side of a metal trough.

Specialty Plastics Company (SPC), in Enid, Oklahoma, is a small company that can boast of a big achievement. Since 2016, SPC has experienced zero recordable workplace injuries. In contrast, for NAICS code 326122, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the industry average total recordable cases rate was 4.1, and the average cases with days away from work, job restriction, or transfer rate was 2.55 for this period. [NOTE: 2017 is the most recent year national averages are available.]

An oil company that puts safety first – and one that doesn’t; a surprising hazard for firefighters and how cooperating with an OSHA investigation got two workers fired – then got them a million dollar settlement. These were among the top occupational safety and health stories featured on ISHN.com this week.

Research confirms that new guidelines to prevent worker hand, wrist, and elbow musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) better protect workers. MSDs can be debilitating and costly workplace safety and health issues. In Washington state alone, direct costs for hand, wrist, and elbow MSD workers’ compensation claims accounted for over $2 billion and 11.8 million lost work days from 1999-2013.

Workers who produce clothing, process food, or perform administrative work had the highest rates of work-related carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in California, according to NIOSH-funded research published in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)external icon. CTS is a musculoskeletal disorder that develops when repetitive, forceful motion causes pressure on a nerve in the wrist. Workers with CTS often experience pain, tingling, weakness, and numbness in their hand.

A Hollywood motorcycle stunt that looked dangerous actually was – to the filmworkers who were executing it. A recent incident during the filming of “Bad Boys for Life,” starring Will Smith, Vanessa Hudgens and Martin Lawrence, resulted in injuries to two people and OSHA citations against their employer, Garden Films Productions LLC.

In the study, “Suicide and drug‐related mortality following occupational injury,” published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, researchers found that workplace injury significantly raises a person’s risk of suicide or overdose death. Earlier studies have shown that injured workers have elevated rates opioid use and depression.

In 1970, the Occupational Safety Health Act created a government body tasked with nothing more or less than helping ensure safe workplace conditions for all. The most recent report from OSHA shows that the organization is struggling in that mission. There are several reasons for the downturn in workplace safety OSHA describes in its most recent report on inspections and fatalities in U.S. workplaces. But first, we need the details:

If you’re seeing the hashtag #SafeHands a lot these days, it’s because the International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) has launched an awareness and education campaign to help workers and employers focus specifically on the safety of hands, the second mostly commonly injured body part in the workplace.