Safety Daily Advisor : Office Workers: The Forgotten Workforce?

Office safety is as important as industrial safety. Normally, our safety inspections, audits, training programmes are focused on production plants and seldom we think about administration block, canteens, parking areas, etc. We may not get any report on incidents that occurred in these places unless otherwise it is something of serious nature. Those working in these places also may not be aware of safety programme that's going on in shop floors.
Once, when I pulled upper drawer of a filing cabinet (with 4 compartments one above another), due to load, the filing cabinet tilted forward thereby causing all drawers to come out. I missed narrowly of getting hit.
Similarly, when you take out two cabinets and absentmindedly close the lower one, definitely you will injure your fingers.
Few years back, my younger boy tried to climb the open refrigerator and due to shifting of centre of gravity it started tilting forward. As I was nearby, immediately jumped and held the refrigerator. Else, it would have fallen on the kid.
It is common to hear fall of persons in the change rooms. Same thing can happen in wash rooms also.
We see dumping of files in loft / on cupboards / on tables, which can be a fire hazard. These files may fall on the persons below and injure them. Apart from these, there can be reptile movement or damage to files due to termites, and so on.
The article below stresses on importance of safety for office workers and a safety plan for them.

Safety Daily Advisor : Office Workers: The Forgotten Workforce?

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Safety Daily Advisor : Napping at Work? You’re Not Dreaming!

Taking a nap at work for sometime in between helps in reducing the errors and increasing the productivity, so says this article. It is well known that chinese will get time to sleep during the work. I also saw in a paint factory, when I went for inspection, that in the lunch time of 30 minutes they quickly finish their lunch and sleep. Exactly at 1230 hrs when they hear the siren sound, they get up and resume work. During this time, even if the top most person comes, they do not get disturbed. They switch off all lights and will have their nap.

Workers who had put long hours earlier will be unable to work continuously as they enter into fifties and definitely some rest in between helps the organisation more than the worker because if there is some mistake, then organisation also is at loss and may lead to shutdown of the plant for sometime depending of the severity of the consequence.

Then, it is wrong to assume that only those who do physical work will be strained/fatigued. It is also true for all as mental strain also can lead to tiredness, more errors and reduced output. The article mentions that tired doctors are prone to 700% errors and this can be true for other professions.

Safety Daily Advisor : Napping at Work? You’re Not Dreaming!

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Safety Daily Advisor : Six Steps to a Safer Workplace

Here are the six steps that can help providing a safe work place and result in higher productivity as well. It starts from commitment from top management to empowering line managers to take necessary actions on improving safety, monitoring and encouragement.

Safety Daily Advisor : Six Steps to a Safer Workplace

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Difference between danger, warning, caution

I was not clear about what is a danger sign, what is a warning sign and what is a caution sign, till I read this article in Safety Daily Advisor. It also explains about biological hazard sign and instructions.
Danger sign is about a hazard that can lead to death, warning sign is about potential hazard and caution sign is in-between.

Whatever be the display of signs, the articles mentions, that if one can't understand what it means and what should be done, then it serves no purpose.

It's better to provide training and provide booklets containing the information to all employees. Also, display the measures to be taken, near the area where it can be seen by the employees.

Failure to use PPE - associated hazards

I read an article about failure to use personal protective equipment (PPE) by workers for various reasons and the hazards associated with it. From the survey, it is found that one of the reasons for not using PPE is that it is not attractive. It appears some of the workers value their appearance more than their life. It is common to see motorists not wearing PPE; glass/sheet/stone/wood cutters not wearing goggles;  welders using a small piece of tint glass instead of face shield; many construction workers not wearing safety shoe, helmet; workers doing concrete mixing not wearing any gum boots, etc. At some construction sites, the helmet worn by the user will be of substandard quality which can pierce/break his head, if something falls from top. Even by appearance, these helmets look fragile(?), but it will have all stamps of compliance to applicable standards.
Though, PPE is the last resort of protection, neither other measures will be in place not PPE will be used, thereby endangering the invaluable lives of workers.

Electrocution

A person died due to electrocution, as reported in a news paper. He received electric shock when he tried to cross a water pool and held nearby signboard rod for support. Due to rain, the signboard is wet. It is not clear why earth fault did not cut off power supply when current was passing through pipe and the water pool below.

Activities that burn your calaries

An article in Times of India on 5th July 2011 is about guidelines of Hyderabad based National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) for changing the lifestyles and help in maintaining better health. Following is the calorie consumption for different activities.
Sleeping, resting, relaxing-1.0 kcal/min
Sitting (light activities like eating, reading, writing, listening and talking)-1.5 kcal/min
Standing (light activities like washing face, shaving, combing, watering plants)-2.3 kcal/min
Walking (slow), driving, dusting, bathing, dressing, marketing, childcare-2.8 kcal/min
Light manual work, sweeping, cleaning utensils, washing clothes, other household chores-3.3 kcal/min
Warm-up and recreational activities, walking up and down the stairs, cycling, fetching water-4.8 kcal/min
Manual work (moderate pace), loading/unloading, walking with load, harvesting, carpentry, plumbing-5.6 kcal/min
High intense manual work and sports activities - tournaments, wood cutting, carrying heavy loads, running and jogging-7.8 kcal/min

From the above, one can calculate energy requirement for their routine. There is an article to find energy requirements in the internet.
Recommendations: Consumption of 300 gm/day of vegetables, 6 gm/day of salt
Use of large amounts or big pieces of food items in microwave oven are discouraged as heating may not be same for entire quantity and cold spots can lead to entry of bacteria into human body. Similarly, cooking frozen food in microwave oven directly is not recommended.
A calorie calculator may be useful for assessing daily needs.

Food calories charts are available here to plan for food intake as per requirement.

Sleep walk, sexsomnia, etc

A news item in Times of India today is about the innocence of a person suffering from sexsomnia. Experts told the court that the person will be telling the truth about his problem. The wife and ex-girl friend too supported the case with similar events in their life with him. Wikipedia has an article on the subject along with diagnosis methods. It is not clear why the person did not go for treatment when ladies in his life already encountered such behaviour and because of continued disorder, a girl has become victim. Letting of people with disorders can create law and order problem as people can misuse. Persons suffering from such disorders should be sent to hospitals for treatment and till it is cured, they should be under supervision.

Similarly, people suffering from sleep walk can create problems to the society by their actions, not known to them consciously. Whether such problems lead to split personalities and pose problem to others is not clear. Hypothetically, if we assume existence of such workers in the workplace, imagine what are the consequences and impact on coworkers and public outside factory premises.

Trench cave-in

The following article appeared in free e-mail news letter of bongrade.com on Wednesday,July 6, 2011, Volume 2, Issue 27. The important points to be noted for any worker in trenches are marked in different colour. One should be grateful for publishers of the news letter. Trench workers can learn a lesson from this and follow good safety practices at their workplace.
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The sight was enough to make three grown men cry. Their co-worker was chest-deep in mud and only a few inches from death.

Glen D. Rogers of Elsah, IL, said the trench cave-in at his worksite felt like an entire football team had piled on top of him. He couldn’t move and could barely breathe.

“I thought I was going to die…I just wanted to talk to my wife and kids.”

Those were his desperate thoughts as co-workers and firefighters worked feverishly to save him.

Not long before that, Rogers, 34, was busily working in a trench to tap into a sewer line for a new house. He had just cleared off a section of pipe and began walking away when a contractor yelled that the trench was collapsing. Rogers looked behind him and then at his feet, which were buried in mud. Seconds later his legs disappeared, followed by his waist.

At one point, co-workers quickly jammed a couple of boards in the hole to offset the pressure that was crushing Rogers. Both Rogers and his wife believe this is what saved him from certain death.“His co-workers basically saved his life. If they hadn’t done that (with the boards), he would be dead,” said wife Audrey Stewart.

A grateful Stewart said all employees should receive some type of emergency rescue training.

For Rogers, the cave-in fortunately stopped at his chest, but with every breath he took, the dirt acted like a vice tightening around him.Rogers instructed his co-workers to begin a rescue plan by digging a ditch on the other side of the trench he was in. When firefighters arrived, they continued the work.“They dug down to my waist and the blood rushed back into my legs. I thought I had lost my legs because I looked down and they were flat.”

The rescue took about four hours. Luckily, Rogers recovered quickly and was back on light duty a few days later.

Since the ordeal, Rogers and fellow workers have adopted a new sense of job safety by taking nothing for granted and always wearing their safety gear.

“I now find myself green again, being real cautious about where I walk”, Rogers said.

BLEVE explanation with video

The following link gives explanation for BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion). The explanatory text below states that BLEVE is possible even with nonflammable liquids which should be noted. Many experts differ with this statement and they talk firmly that BLEVE is possible only with flammable substances. Though, the phenomena is same whether it is with flammable or non-flammable substances, I do not understand why some experts in the field differ about BLEVE with non-flammables. If the substance is flammable, then BLEVE is followed with a fireball, else no fireball. Thermal radiation from fireball can trigger secondary fires (domino) if flammables are present nearby.

http://my.firefighternation.com/video/bleve-explanation