Know First Aid

Overview
Workplace injuries can be costly for all involved. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in a typical year, there are,
• More than 10,000 work-related fatalities.
• Approximately 1.8 million work-related disabling injuries.
• Approximately 35 million lost workdays from non-fatal injuries.

Prompt, properly administered first aid can mean the difference between life and death, rapid versus prolonged recovery, or temporary versus permanent disability. Your company emphasizes a safe environment, but when accidents happen it is important to have someone who knows how to handle the situation effectively.

What must my employer do?
Your employer must provide:
• medical personnel to be available for advice and consultation on occupational health matters.
• a person or persons adequately trained to provide first aid, in the absence of an infirmary, clinic, or hospital in near proximity to the workplace which is used for the treatment of all injured employees.
• adequate first aid supplies.
• suitable facilities for quick drenching or flushing of the eyes and body, where the eyes or the body of any person may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials.

Training can be conducted in-house or from an outside agency, like the Red Cross. Wherever training is conducted, the following topics should be covered:
• Health emergencies.
• Procedures to follow when approaching an accident scene and the victim(s).
• CPR.
• Review of possible injuries that may occur at your facility.
• Universal precautions for first-aid procedures.
• First-aid supplies.

Emergency response time
Your employer must provide an emergency response time of:
• 15 minutes in non-life threatening situations.
• three to four minutes in life threatening situations.

This information is provided by: Assurance Agency.com  http://www.assuranceagency.com

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to All

Highway and Street Construction Work Zones

Each year, more than 100 workers are killed and over 20,000 are injured in the highway and street construction industry. Most of these injuries and fatalities occur in what is known as the “work zone.”

What is the “work zone?”
The work zone is an area where highway construction, maintenance, or utility work activities are taking place. What makes this work area dangerous is that passing motorists, construction vehicles, and equipment are moving through the same space that the construction employees are working in.

Accidents
Accidents that occur in work zones are usually caused by:
- Poor traffic control procedures,
- Unsatisfactory construction vehicle and equipment maintenance (such as malfunctioning warning devices),
- Poorly designed work zones, and
- Failure to establish and follow policies and procedures for ensuring safety on the job.

Vehicles and equipment operating in and around the work zone are involved in over half of the worker fatalities in the heavy and highway construction industry. Sometimes passing motorists are at fault for the injuries and fatalities that occur in the work zone. Workers are often injured or killed by moving vehicles entering their work zones. Other times, it is the construction vehicles and equipment operating within the work zone that causes the accidents and injuries.

Work zone hazards
There are two basic types of work zone hazards:
- Internal hazards are activities within the workspace such as moving vehicles.
- External hazards are ones presented by passing cars and trucks and the debris they kick up.

Potential hazards associated with work zones include:
- Traffic and construction equipment accidents,
- Working above level,
- Slippery conditions,
- Machinery pinch points,
- Crush zones,
- Drop-offs,
- Trenches,
- Airborne lead and silica particles,
- Truck tip-overs, and
- Energized electrical lines and conductors.

There are many internal and external work zone hazards, but you can avoid them if you think safety first, use procedures required or recommended by regulatory agencies and industry experts, and be alert to situations that might result in accidents.

This information is provided by: Assurance Agency http://www.assuranceagency.com

Emergency Eye Washes and Safety Showers

 No one can predict when and where a chemical accident will occur. Therefore, you should be famliar with the location and operation of emergency eye wash facilities and safety showers. These can include eyewash fountains, drench showers, hand-held drench hoses and emergency bottles. Very simply, they all flush affected areas of your body with water.

Before a chemical accident . . .

• Identify chemical hazards: Identify all your work areas and tasks which create potential splash or eye hazards. Be familiar with the chemicals with which you work. Caution: Some chemicals are water-reactive and become toxic or corrosive when mixed with water.

• Know locations: Know the locations of all eye wash and shower facilities.

• Check distances: Your eyes can be damaged very quickly by many contaminants. The first fifteen seconds after the injury is the critical period. Because of this critical time period, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), suggests that eye washes or showers be within 100 feet or a 10 second walk of the work area (ANSI Z358.1). Avoid placing machines and equipment in the pathway to an eye wash or safety shower.

• Check water delivery: Ask your employer how much water your eye wash stations deliver. Eye washes should supply 0.4 gallons per minute of water for at least 15 minutes. Safety showers should supply 20 gallons per minute for at least 15 minutes. Note: Many portable eye wash stations have a capacity of 5 to 10 gallons for a maximum usefulness of 5 minutes. Squeeze bottles and other plastic containers have even lower water capacities. These eye washes are meant to be supplementary to eye wash stations or showers that provide 15 minutes of flushing.

• Check emergency telephone number: Where 911 is not available, ensure the telephone number of medical help is posted on site telephones.

• Practice: Practice using the eye wash station to become familiar with how it works.

Inspection and maintenance
Eye washes and safety showers should be inspected according to manufacturer instructions. Squeeze bottles also require frequent testing, refilling, and maintenance since they lose water to evaporation, become contaminated, and are easily misplaced.If a chemical splashes into your eye . . .

If a chemical splashes into your eye . . .
1. Quickly flush your eyes with lots of water for at least 15 minutes (for best results, do so at an eye wash station or safety shower).
2. For serious burns (i.e., strong alkalies or acids), flushing should continue for 20 to 30 minutes which requires a considerable amount of water.
3. Try to force the eyes open to wash chemical out.
4. Do not bandage eyes.
5. Seek medical attention.

This information is provided by: Assurance Agency http://www.assuranceagency.com

Stay Safe on Portable Ladders TBT

Overview
Your ladder can be a great help on the job. It is uncomplicated and simple to use. But don't be fooled; you shouldn't take ladder safety for granted. As with any other workplace task, care is required on ladders to maintain your safety. The following points serve as guidelines for portable ladder use.

1. Use the ladder only for its intended purpose. Don't use step ladders as single ladders or when partially closed. Likewise, don't climb the back sections of combination ladders, when used as step ladders.

2. Don't use a ladder as a brace, skid, lever, guy or gin pole, gangway, platform, scaffold, plank, material hoist, or any other use for which it was not intended.

3. Don't build makeshift ladders out of chairs, benches, or boxes. If the job calls for a ladder, take the time to find one.

4. Don't set up a ladder on a scaffold to gain extra height.

5. Make sure there's only one person on a ladder at a time.

6. Don't move a ladder while anyone is on it.

7. Check the ladder's condition before climbing. Don't use a ladder with broken or cracked rails or rungs or with rungs made slippery by grease or oil. The ladder should have safety feet and sit on a firm, level surface.

8. Don't use ladders on ice, snow, or other slippery surfaces.

9. Don't place a ladder on boxes or blocks to make it taller.

10. Inspect all ladders for defects before you begin climbing.

11. Face front and use both hands as you climb.

12. Don't overreach from a ladder. If your waist reaches past the uprights, you've gone too far—move the ladder.

13. Set ladders up properly by using the 4 to 1 rule. The distance from the wall to the base of the ladder should be one-fourth the distance from the base of the ladder to where it touches the wall.

14. Set up ladders so that the tops of the rails are supported equally. Avoid supporting the top of the ladder at a window or wall opening, but when you must, attach a support across the back of the ladder that is wider than the window opening.

15. Don't set up a ladder in front of a door, unless the door is locked or kept from opening.

16. Fully open stepladders so that spreaders are locked and the feet are level and firmly supported.

17. Set up extension ladders so that the top section rests on the base section, with the rung locks engaged.

18. Hoist tools or materials up to you after you reach the top of the ladder. You need both hands for climbing.

19. Don't stand on top of a step ladder. Also be careful not to get too close to the top of an extension or straight ladder.

20. Be careful when using ladders around electrical circuits. Keep the ladder from getting too near or hitting any energized circuit or conductor.

21. When you use a ladder to climb onto a roof:
  • Make sure it extends 3 feet above the point of support at the roof line.
  • Tie the ladder down to prevent slipping before climbing up.
  • Take care not to tip the ladder sideways and avoid having the base slide.

Don't forget! Be careful when using portable ladders!

This information is provided by: Assurance Agency  http://www.assuranceagency.com

Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) TBT

Overview
Nearly 350,000 people die of sudden cardiac arrest each year. Currently, the chances of surviving sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) without the aid of an automatic external defibrillator (AED) are one in twenty.
However, with an AED, chances of survival improve to one in three. The use of AEDs could save 100,000 lives per year!

What is SCA?
The heart normally has a rhythmic beat which causes the blood to move in a consistent, predictable way. When someone has an SCA event, the heart begins to pump irregularly and ineffectively. This is called ventricular fibrillation (VF). VF is not to be confused with the heart attack where blood flow to the heart muscle is blocked. With VF, the blood stops circulating adequately, breathing stops, and eventually the victim will die.

Another SCA event is ventricular tachycardia (VT), when the heart muscles start to “quiver” instead of working together to push blood through the system.

CPR alone does not replace defibrillation in an SCA incident. CPR can only assist the victim for a short time until medical help arrives. However, medical assistance can be many minutes away. According to the American Heart Association, the chances of survival decrease 10 percent with each passing minute that the heart beat is not returned to normal. Very few people have survived SCA after 10 minutes with no medical treatment.

Unfortunately, we don’t know why SCAs occur, nor how to prevent them. We do know, however, how to fix them if they occur—AEDs.

What is an AED?
You’ve seen full-sized defibrillators on television. When the doctor shouts “Clear” and shocks the victim, they are using a defibrillator. The AED works the same—it shocks the heart back into a normal rhythm to restore a pulse.

Manufacturers have developed lighter, smaller, battery-operated, computer-controlled models which nearly anyone can use.

Signs and symptoms of SCA
Symptoms of SCA are very sudden and dramatic. Typically, the victim will collapse, and show no sign of a pulse. At this point, emergency medical help must be summoned, and the AED used.

The victim’s chest is bared, all visible jewelry or medicine patches are removed, and the electrode pads are attached.

This information is provided by: Assurance Agency http://www.assuranceagency.com

Hand Protection - On the job tool box talks

Overview
We all use our hands a great deal without really thinking about it. Because we use our hands so much at work, for a variety of tasks, they can become injured.
To demonstrate the need for effective hand protection, look at the following statistics.
• There are about 500,000 work-related injuries occurring to hands, fingers, and arms each year.
• About one-quarter of all work-related injuries are to the fingers and hands.
• Injuries to fingers and thumbs are second on the list of most injured parts of the body.

Types of hazards
A few of the types of injuries our hands are prone to suffer include:
• Mechanical hazards which cause cuts, punctures, scrapes, or crushing.
• Extreme heat or cold.
• Electrical shock or burns.
• Skin irritation from chemicals or germs.

What must my employer do?
Your employer must assess the workplace to determine what hazards can be eliminated through engineering controls such as machine guards and improved workstation design. If hazards remain after attempting to eliminate hand hazards, then your employer will provide hand protection.
Your employer must train you on the need for and use of PPE for your hands. Training should include:
• Information on when PPE is needed.
• An explanation on what protective hand wear is required, and where to obtain it.
• How to put on, take off, adjust, and wear PPE.
• The limitations of the PPE.
• The proper care, maintenance, useful life, and disposal of the PPE.

What must I do?
For your safety, it is crucial that you understand and follow your company’s procedures for hand protection. If you have any questions regarding how to protect your hands from injury on the job, ask your supervisor.

This information is provided by: Assurance Agency http://www.assuranceagency.com