Every year the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) supports National Fireworks Safety Month. It may be in June or July each year, but they have a lot say about the safety issues during fireworks activities. This time we will focus...
Employers must provide a workplace free of recognized hazards that may cause serious injury or death, but unfortunately every month workers are killed in trench collapses. An excavation is any man-made cut, cavity, trench, or depression in an earth surface formed by earth removal. Trench (Trench excavation) means a narrow...
Let’s talk about the most common electrical shock hazard–ground faults. Ground Faults A ground fault can cause severe electrical shock or electrocution. In normal conditions, electricity runs in a closed circuit; Electricity flows out on the “hot” wire and returns on the “neutral” wire, completing the circuit. A ground fault...
Summer is coming soon and the temperatures are beginning to rise. So too does the risk of heat illness. Heat-related deaths and illness are preventable, yet every year many people will succumb to the effects of heat. Heat-related illness is also an underlying cause of a high percentage of non-fatal...
If you operate, clean, service, adjust, or repair machinery and equipment, be aware of the hazards to which you are exposing yourself. Powered equipment could put you in danger, something that can be prevented through lockout/tagout/tryout procedures. Before working on or near any energized equipment, perform an inspection of the...
It is important to understand how occupational hearing loss can occur and how it can be prevented. Occupational hearing loss can occur when you are exposed to loud noise or ototoxic chemicals while at work. Noise is considered loud (hazardous) when it reaches 85 A-weighted decibels (dBA) or higher. A-...
We expose our eyes to increasing amounts of artificial blue light every day when we use our electronic devices, like a tablet, smartphone, laptop, flat screen TVs, and other digital devices. They all have one thing in common, they each will give off blue light. The colors in the visible...
Arc Flash is a type of electrical explosion/discharge resulting from a connection through air to ground or another voltage phase in an electrical system (i.e., when a wire contacts a grounding system). The temperatures at the source of an arc flash can reach 20,000 degrees Celsius (36,032 degrees Fahrenheit) –...
Employees often bring their cell phones to work, a choice that could potentially cause numerous hazards on the job. Cell phones can be a dangerous distraction in the workplace. Just like other workplace distractions such as horseplay and chattering with co-workers, cell phones can cause us to lose focus on...
Many workplaces contain spaces that are “confined” because their configurations hinder the activities of employees who must enter into, work in, or exit from them. In many instances, employees who work in confined spaces also face increased risk of exposure to serious physical injury from hazards such as entrapment, engulfment,...