Dangerous lift, boy looses life

A boy died in the lift of an apartment under construction while playing inside the lift. The lift moved with boy's leg between the lift door and the wall. The lift stopped after moving some distance by which boy died. A case was registered on lift maintenance agency under IPC for rash/negligent act.
It is not clear from the reports,  how the lift is allowed for use without interlock between lift movement and door position. It is not clear from the news, whether the door is foldable grill type and the boy while playing put his leg through openings of the grill and somebody in someother floor pressed the button causing the lift to move.

Confined Space Entry ,BP Guidelines

Confined space jobs are very dangerous as one has to work in unknown atmospheres. Here is a link to BP Guidelines on confined space entry, found at Petroleum Community forum.

Confined Space Entry ,BP Guidelines

LINK

List of issues to be looked for during safety inspection

Link for a post on the above topic appeared in the internet is given below.

http://www.chemicalplantsafety.net/safety-inspection/a-must-have-list-of-safety-inspection-checklist/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChemicalPlantSafety+%28Chemical+Plant+Safety+Resources%29

Mine accidents - a way to reach the trapped workers

This post is about a rescue operation of trapped miners about 45 years ago, narrated to me by a known person. He was working as a doctor in those mines. Some mine workers were trapped during drilling and authorities could not find it easy to rescue them. Then, based on the advise of an employee, they contacted local thieves, who used to steal valuables from the mines. One of them, confessed about a secret way to reach the location of mine collapse, by which all trapped miners were rescued within a day of the incident.

It is funny, but is a valuable lesson.

Charge the vehicle owners for parking on the roads

At many places, people park their vehicles in front of their houses on the roads, leading to narrowing of roads and accidents. It is mandatory to leave sufficient space (about 10 ft or more depending upon the plot area) in front of the house upto their compound wall. But, hardly this norm is followed. Overcome by greed, people leave little space and construct the houses upto their boundary, and may be sometimes encroaching their neighbour's area or public road. Naturally, this leads to no parking space and occupants park their vehicles on the roads. All such vehicles should be taken over by local authorities and charge heavy penalties. If there is no response within specified period (say two weeks), the vehicle should be put up for auction. There are thousands of vehicles of all categories that are parked on the roads and I feel this brings sufficient income for the local authorities and also bring discipline among the greedy.

Polluter pays - recovery of cleaning costs from company

In an incident involving overturning of tractor trailer leading to chemical spillage (50 gallons of tetra chloro ethylene) on the road, it is stated that the cost of cleaning, overtime charges of police personnel, cleaning personnel, emergency center setup expenses will be charged to the trucking firm. During clean up operations, the road traffic was stopped. Quantification of the loss incurred by those on the roads shutdown will be much higher than the bill that will be served to the trucking firm. However, billing is a good idea as many have scant respect for the national wealth spoiled by their acts.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Did-you-cause-the-wreck-that-shut-down-I-10-for-3388775.php

Standing under the coconut tree - a nearmiss incident

Yesterday, I went to my friend's house and while leaving he came out upto the gate to see me off. While talking at the gate, all of sudden there was cracking sound and a dry big leaf (about 4 m long) of the coconut tree that is adjacent to the gate fell down, almost touching the backside of my friend. The tree is about 12-15 m high. When we saw up, one more such leaf is loosely hanging dangerously at the top and may fall any time due to heavy wind.
In the city where we do not see coconut trees due to apartment culture with no room left for trees, I forgot the dangers of standing under the tree, though we have a coconut tree at our house in the native place. My mother says, scorpions and even snakes are likely to be encountered when a person goes up to cut the coconuts from the tree or for removing the dried leaves. Same is the case with various types of palm trees. But their leaves are not as heavy as coconut leaves.
The incident is a near miss and a few millimeters made the difference to avoid getting hit by the coconut leaf.

Holi (colours) festival - painful incidents

Every year Holiday will be celebrated in the country, by sprinkling colours on near and dear. Children and elders like the festival alike and play cheerfully, distributing sweets. People other than children also drink bhang and dance. At the end, they take bath to wash coloursAnd every year, there will be news of,

• persons admitted to hospitals because of effect of use of harmful colours, causing irritation, temporary/permanent damage to eyes, skin, etc
• persons vomitting because of excessive consumption or poor quality of bhang
• persons getting drowned in ponds and lakes as they do not swimming
• eruption of fights between groups of people because of indescent behavior

Like Diwali, this festival also some people suffer because of improper use of colours and others. Elders in the family should teach safety precautions and keep an eye so that Holi festival can be celebrated without pain.

Auto rikshaws - dangers due to narrow front

Sometimes, the drivers of autorikshaws on the roads take sudden unexpected turns on either directions leading to accidents. Any vehicle coming behind or along the auto-rikshaw will get involved in collision either from behind or on the sides resulting in verbal dual and traffic jams. For two wheeler drivers driving along, such turns lead to imbalance and falling on the road and getting over run by vehicles coming in opposite direction.

I feel there is a basic deign problem with auto-rikshaw. The driver takes turn as he wishes because he view is restricted both vertically and horizontally and being a narrow cabin in the front side, his perception of vehicle width is that of his cabin width and not that of passenger seat portion. If the autos are uniformly wide where the width of both driver seating area and passenger seat area are same, this perception problem will not exist. And there should two wheels in front also instead of single wheel and along with a steering instead of a handle to control directional movement will ensure safe driving.

Emergency exits - how they should be?

Recently, I attended a seminar and found the two doors marked as EXIT inside in the conference room, are leading to the same corridor. The conference room is located somewhat deep inside the building. I thought it is dangerous as any fire in the corridor will trap the seminar room occupants. Then during lunch time, I went behind the screens used for display of presentations and found two doors leading to outside of the building. Though, these doors are not marked as EXIT, still they serve the purpose. However, as they are not visible and there are no directional marks, people may or may not use them in an emergency.

Some of the guiding principles for emergency exits are,

1. doors should open outward
2. there should be one emergency exit for every 75 ft distance
3. emergency lighting along the corridor to maintain minimum illumination in case of failure of regular power supply
4. self glowing display signs (EXIT, arrow marking, etc)
5. availability of keys near the doors marked emergency exit, with hammer to break the box containing keys
6. not blocking the emergency exits
7. not having stairs in front of emergency exit doors

At some places, it looks funny to see signs of EXIT and directional arrows exactly on the doors instead of direction marks along the wall from inner rooms to outdoors.