Unplanned release of a chemical can have devastating effects. Skin and eye burns, damage to the lungs, fire and explosion, corrosive damage to materials, pollution of air, soil, and water, and danger to the public are just some of the possible consequences of a chemical spill. Chemical spills can be...
A “near miss” or accident without injury is easy to shrug off and forget. But there is a danger in brushing off accidents that don’t hurt, harm, or damage. When a “near miss” happens, it should immediately send up a red warning flag that something was wrong, unplanned, unexpected, and...
Every year nearly 100 fatalities and 10,000 injuries occur on scaffolding across the country, despite numerous safety regulations aimed to prevent such incidents. There are several different scaffold types, each with different rules and regulations surrounding it’s assembly, fall prevention requirements, and inspection procedures. The good news is that proper...
Portable grinding wheels are designed to operate at very high speeds. If a grinding wheel shatters while in use, the fragments can travel over 300 miles per hour. The potential for serious injury, material damage, and other losses from these shooting fragments is great. To ensure that grinding wheels are...
We all hope we never need an eyewash station, but if an accident should happen it’s our wish that the station is clean and accessible. If a foreign particle enters an eye, an emergency eyewash station is the most important initial step in first-aid treatment. Chemical burns to the eye...
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Tetanus is an infection caused by bacteria called Clostridium tetani (C. tetani) that are found in the environment. Tetanus is an uncommon but very serious disease, that requires immediate treatment in a hospital. Signs and Symptoms Symptoms typically occur between 3...
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...