The required use of safety hats is common place in our industry. The following story covers a worker who fell and suffered a head injury. It is unknown if he was wearing a hard hat or not. Nor do we know the distance that the worker fell. Nevertheless, as the APSB has done in the past, present, and will in the future, is to offer our sincere condolences to the deceased worker's family, friends, and coworkers. Here is the story.
The name of the employee who died after suffering a head injury in an accident has been released. (The APSB does not publish names of workers nor companies when an injury/death occurs)
The worker was seriously injured in a fall just before 5 am at the aluminium extrusion plant in New Zealand on the week of November 11, 2012.
The worker had three young children and was taken to a hospital by ambulance but died later in the afternoon.
New Zealand's Business, Innovation and Employment Ministry is investigation.
The aluminium extrusion chief executive confirmed the accident happened in the foundry where the scrap aluminium is taken to be melted down. The worker "was working on a platform and we think that he was trying to free some metal and in that process he has slipped," the chief executive said.
"A lot of people who have worked with him in the company are in deep shock," the chief executive said. "Some have decided to stay on and others have said that they wanted the day off. We didn't want any further accidents."
The chief executive visited the deceased worker's family yesterday.
Local union spokesman said "We would obviously have some deep concerns about how the accident occurred and whether or not it could have been avoided."
Senior police officer said police were told of the incident about 10:30 AM.
"Because the injury is very serious we have been notified by the hospital," said the senior police officer.
The senior police officers said the police would assist the ministry in its investigation if required.
OSHA has literature dealing with personal protection equipment (PPE) here:
OSHA has literature dealing with fall protection which can be found here:
Here is a YouTube video demonstrating the importance of hard hats.
Here is a YouTube video demonstrating the importance of hard hats.
In the USA, for the year 2011, fatal falls, slips, or trips took the lives of 666 workers in 2011, or about 14% of all fatal work injuries. OSHA instituted a change in the recording process to include, height. In 2011 the height of the fall was reported in 451 of the 541 fatal falls from higher level. Of those 451 cases, about one in four (115) occurred after a fall of 10 feet or less.
Please comment.
27 comments:
I WAS STUNNED TO HEAR THAT THE LIQUID SLAG IS REMOVED BY USING GLOVEHANDED . WAS REALLY SURPRISED
I realize that this news report was posted as information but before we start speculating as whether the worker was wearing a hard hat and whether this might have prevented the death we should be asking ourselves why was a worker working on an elevated platform without guard rails and/or a fall protection system? What safe work procedures were in place, what training had been provided and what level of supervision was in place? I find it disturbing that we are willing to consider a hard hat as the deciding factor in a fall from elevation.
Way to much information missing to make an judgement call about a hard hat. Plus you have to wonder if the hard hat would have even stayed on his head during the fall.
I definitely agree with your comment and your assessment Joe,I am of the impression that through experience that the hard hat would not have stayed on his head,as in general workers wear hard hats but do not use or make use of the required chin strap when working at height,Have a look around building and construction sites in particular.Safety Managers and management often do not highlight or enforce this point.Also a hard hat is not a helmet or does not function as helmet or to the same degree.Next is we will be enforcing the use of full face helmets and Leate neck braces for workers working at height.Not that it would not be a bad idea.However I am an advocate of Eliminate,Change job or work process,Separate or segregate,Engineering controls,Administrate and implement and lastly PPE.
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In a fall from a height, I doubt that a hardhat would have prevented his death. If it were a piece of metal that fell on him, then the hardhat would have very likely prevented the fatal injury.
I completely agree with the comments,as PPE is the last resort and it will come only after the Engineering controls and the Administrative controls.
Anyway,Security is NO.1.
Workers with sore hands work slower or not all. Good safety means good business.
Thanks for the comments. The news articles did not said what height. I am amazed at what height a person can be killed upon falling. Here is an article of a man who fell less then 8 feet. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/10/26/Man-who-died-after-fall-at-Toys-R-Us-identified.html
There are fatalities from falls on the same level too. A hardhat is NOT a means to prevent injuries from a fall.
I agree with your comments. When I was involved in the steel industry, I dealt with an EHS officer who had a unique fit test for hard hats. The test would involve the student bending over to touch their toes. If the hard hat fell off it was not (in the EHS officer's opinion) secure enough.
As stated above hard hats are not for fall protection. If you are looking for those types of items you need to go to a Petzl or Black Diamond type of helmet. Impact from dropped items from above can render a hard hat useless as well. I see them as glorified bump caps. I was on the floor of a drilling rig and a man working on the monkey board accidently kicked a wrench off. It fell and impacted the brim of the hard hat on one of the guys working below. thank goodness it missed him as it took out a chunk of the brim and kept going. One of my friends was working in a mine many years ago and had a piece of rock fall from the ceiling. It went through his "hard hat" into his head. He was transported out of the mine with his hard hat still on and the stone projected from the hard hat and into his head. He woke up three days later after they had operated on him to remove the stone. He still has a crease in his head to show what can happen. Like I said glorified bump caps.
I have never been required to wear a hard had in an aluminum foundry. Plus i'm in China now. do not even need work shoes or safety glasses if i do not want But I wear them.
I recommend all industries in which loads and material are being transported over heads, or sharp edged machinery is mounted, or liquid metal is being moved. That hard hats, safety shoes, and safety glasses must have to be used. Every accident that happens is one to much! Best regards!
When wearing a hard hat, you have to use the chin strap which can keep the hat at the right place. Thus the hard hat can protect your head from impact of a fall or striking against an object.
Please tell me what damage ould have been done if person was not wearing a hard hat? Death at best I think so if hat stops a "bump" then good it has done its job!
I did not say they should not be worn. Just that like any other type of PPE one should realize its limits and not expect protection beyond what it is designed to provide.
A hard hat, chin strap or not, is not designed, tested, or intended to protect the head from the impact of a fall head first. Should a person survive such a fall while wearing a hardhat, this would be an incidental, fortuitous occurrence.
The likely result of a head-first fall, hardhat or not, on a hard surface such as a plant's concrete floor, is death or permanent total disability.
It is also not designed to be struck by a bullet, run over by a tank, or for sticking your head under a 10-ton press.
Accident description is really poor. Supposing it happened in a empty
VDC pit, with oiled sufaces, once we developed a plataform to be layed on top of starting blocks to perform this kind of tasks safely.
Thanks for the comments! We agree that the description is poor. Which is not unusual, most of the incidents come from the news media and the articles are not very detailed. But, it is the hope of this blog that awareness of these accidents brings education and prevention of re-occurrence.
We never finish the safety work. This accident tells the neccessary story, why focus is important
As the one situation demonstrates, safety policy is just a starting point; complying satisfies the site management. The situation determines what else is required, over and above the minimum requirement.
The plant where I used to work required the use of a hard hat while operating a crane. At least once, I saw someone else stand nearby without a hard hat. Technically, he was not OPERATING the crane, but was every inch as close to the load as the crane operator.
So policy falls short, sometimes. Safe operations start with safe operators. It's a mindset.
Thanks for your comments. I agree it is a mindset. That mindset can grow like a seed. The seed should begin with training.
Yes our facility requires wearing safety equipment, however, different departments of a foundry have different requirements.
It is not uncommon especially in LCC's for the workers to prefer NOT to wear safety equipment for the sake of comfort. Under direct pressure from us, our management puts in considerable efforts to ensure that rules be followed, with a hefty fine system in place for non-compliant personnel. Its not the supervisors, engineers etc but the workers who will try to get away with not wearing had hats while under an operating crane. usually gloves, saftey glasses, aprons and the like are not a huge issue, its the hard hats that we have problems with especially given the heat conditions in India.
Yes, facility requirement. Visitors included, full PPE. Green sand foundry. Good safety revolves around meaningful policies and subsequent auditing of those policies for compliance.
Good post regarding the importance of safety helmets. Very informative. Thanks.
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