Injury from fall

Presently, I am in Portblair for site seeing. Came two days ago and staying in a hotel room with sea view. It's drizzling now and then whole day and corridor is wet.

On the day of arrival at night, I tried to go to corridor,  slipped, lost my by balance and suffered left hand ring finger fracture,  cut injury on right foot, impact on left side of my back. 

I was clueless, how I fell, though holding the door side with left hand. Impact might have been severe, but for me taking support of door frame of hotel room. 

Last few years, the floor tiles used are very smooth,  let it be in office rooms, residences, hotel, banks, railway stations, airports, etc.

A standard should be brought to ensure that floor tiles are made anti-skidding.

Smooth finish tiles 

Fracture on ring finger lower phalanx

Gas tanker topples-explosion

Gas tanker topples-explosion

What can be done to avoid such incidents?

Ensure vehicle in good condition.

Make a checklist, verify before every trip.

Use speed lockers to limit speed.

Use GPS trackers and monitor at a central location with immediate audio alerts to driver and monitoring controller for action.

If possible,  provide automatic engine stoppers, if crossing set speed or acceleration. 

Finger injuries from wrong placement of door handles

I was in a hotel for a day. The door handle of washroom is very close to door frame.  I could have got finger injury,  while closing the door, if not alert. 

Same was the case with the handle of handwash water tap in a restaurant,  which was very close to the wall.

These are small things, but with potential for finger injury or fracture and to be taken care with sufficient gap.

Road driver responsible to give signal before stopping

LINK

Perception and safety

Last night, I slept in a different room. Woke up at night, and while going back to bed, I hit the cot and almost fell, getting hit injury on the knee.

I thought to be careful and my injury may be due to getting old and loosing my control over my movements. 

Later today,  it occurred to me that my fall is due to presumed bed position in regular room, though I slept in another room.

This presumption without realizing facts can happen anywhere. Someone removes guard on rotor, but regular operator not realizing will work closer to it and may get injured. Because,  he will be under notion of existence of machine guard. 

A caution Board will help to make users to know the change made and to be careful. 

Fall of persons from smooth and wet surfaces

I came on official work to a project site and staying in our guest house.  Yesterday morning, I saw one server skidding on smooth mosaic floor, which was mopped a few minutes ago. He regained his position before fall and didn't suffer any injury,  but could have happened. 

I too had such escapes, quite a good number of times at home, which is a marble surface. 

Use of tiles with smooth finish is increasing everywhere. Airports, end to end, have such floors. It is, even,  difficult to have normal walk. 

It's my opinion to ban smooth floors and may permit on side walls. National Building Code needs such provisions to protect persons or occupants.

Preventive maintenance and inservice inspection

Preventive maintenance (PM), inservice inspection (ISI), calibration,  periodical load or pressure tests, electrical continuity and earth resistance checks, carrying out repairs on identified problems are generally delayed or ignored in many industrial facilities. 

Either the systems are not released for checks or concerned agencies are not bothered. Facilities will be operated without checks, tests, repairs.

They may think that, nothing will happen and they can continue without checks or tests.

But, such checks help in knowing the integrity of the systems,  functionality as per design and operational requirements,  and thus ensure safety of persons,  protection of environment and add to the profitability. 

Occurrence of an event or incident can lead to catastrophic consequences and closure.

This realization should occur to everyone.  It is true even in our day-to-day lives outside industrial organizations also.