Attitude for safety

Every day we hear or read about accidents during transport, in factories, etc. Most of the time, reasons appear to be silly which could have been overcome. Still, it happens every day. 

Why it happens? 

Even though it is known that the accidents do take place for the causes in our control, occurrence indicates the perception of the person involved directly or indirectly ignoring the safety principles. 

Risk-taking is more in these instances. 

Risk-takers may earn more in financial circles, but, the benefits are always negligible compared to one major injury that cripples our as well as dependant's lives.

Easier said than followed, still one should always go for a safe method that protects him and others.

Death of crane operator

In a reported incident, a crane operator fell out on the road, after hitting another crane moving ahead on the road. The crane toppled and the person died under it.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/crane-driver-dies-in-freak-accident/articleshow/81280935.cms

It appears that the operator did not wear any seat belt. Safety requirements specify the use of a seatbelt to prevent such falls. It is often seen that operators of material handling equipment like cranes, forklift trucks, etc do not wear seat belts even though provided by the manufacturers. Some operators jump out sensing some trouble to protect themselves, but in the process, get injured from the crane/forklift or the load lifted falling on them. A seatbelt or restrain device keeps the person within the secured cabin.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/2019/jul/03/operator-dies-as-crane-overturns-in-hyderabad-1998767.html

Managers should ensure the use of seat belts to avoid such (fatal) incidents by education, supervision, and enforcement.

http://aluminiumplantsafety.blogspot.com/2019/11/crane-operator-dies-in-freak-accident.html

Power failure - exposure to toxic gases - deaths and injuries

As per reports on the internet, 5 persons died and 8 persons got injured on exposure to toxic gases. It is stated that a short circuit led to power failure, stoppage of exhaust systems. After the restoration of power, persons got exposed while entering the plant for work.

The preliminary reasons given indicate the importance of exhaust systems in chemical plants or in areas where toxic gases can accumulate (like in confined spaces, mines, etc).

The way it looks, risk assessment, and safety measures for protection appear to be inadequate. Power failure for about 90-120 minutes caused the work area to be filled with toxic gases. This indicates that workers were working in such hazardous environments with dependence on the functioning of exhaust systems. This plant area seems to be the most dangerous area with continuous generation and exhaust of toxic gases to maintain a breathable atmosphere. If this is the case, entry to such areas should be with breathing sets and for a short duration. These areas are not fit for long-duration works. There should have been online gas detectors with audio-visual alarms with emergency power backup.

https://www.shine.cn/news/nation/2102285210/

https://www.caixinglobal.com/2021-03-01/blackout-caused-gas-leak-results-in-five-deaths-at-northeast-china-factory-101668798.html

Significance of Leadership for Safety in Licensee Organizations: Self-Regulation

Yesterday, I listened to a seminar through virtual mode on the above topic. The message conveyed through all presentations was good. The presentations were also interesting and captured my attention. I attended a similar seminar a few years ago also. 

The important points to take home are as below:

1. Leadership is to be exhibited at all levels to ensure safety.
2. Self-regulation is important and is helpful to growing organizations.
3. Organizations shall have self-imposed goals and should work for them (self-regulation), rather than looking to the regulators to identify their drawbacks (here, third-party audits will be helpful, if the organizations do not have the competency to identify their problems).
4. The Decision-making process is an important activity to identify and correct the situation before it escalates.
5. We can't sit quietly by taking pride in our past successes. Our past weaknesses are there still and can endanger us.
6. Self-regulation through safety culture will help in safety management and lead the organizations to a successful path.

EHS article on, how to identify fake N95 masks

https://www.ehstoday.com/ppe/article/21155518/how-to-identify-fake-n95-masks?oly_enc_id=1936G3569489I9F

High levels of PM2.5 and PM10 during early hours - morning exercisers to protect themselves

It is reported that particulate matter PM2.5 and PM10 levels are very high even during early hours, particularly in winter. This is when there are no activities like construction or movement of vehicles. It is stated that condensation with low temperature leads to the formation of tiny particulate matter which suspended in air is leading to airborne matter.  High dust levels can also be due to the settling of fine particulate matter that got suspended during day time from various activities. Depending upon the size and wind speed, the particles are either carried from other places or taking the time. Temperature inversion can be another factor in delaying the settling of dust particles.

I too observed the air quality index levels in my mobile, which continued to be high in the night and early hours, though, not high compared to daytime levels. 

Another observation is the formation of a fine dust layer on the vehicles parked in garages and inside the houses after a few hours, even after wiping the surfaces in the night.

This indicates poor air that may not be suitable for us even in early morning hours and we can't go for outdoor exercises, particularly in winter. We may also get into respiratory problems by inhalation of condensed moisture as particulate matter. Maybe we have to cover the face with masks to avoid inhalation of harmful matter, not thinking that it is safe as there is no vehicle movement on the roads.

Importance of readily available data for preventing disasters - an article

Recently, I came across an article from Kinsmen Group, as given below. It discussed the importance of readily available data on workplace activities and incidents to prevent workplace disasters and protect the employees. It is called smart data, in the news item. 

Following are some of the issues and observations made (data seems to be for USA):

1. As per OSHA and Labour department, in the year 2019, more than 5000 persons died 9,00,000 were injured at workplace.
2. Companies spend an average USD 7,500 for each lost-time workplace injury (we can call this as direct cost). Other costs consist of replacement of damaged equipment, reconstruction of facilities, compensation, etc. (As per theory, direct cost is only like a tip of the iceberg. And, cost of preventing an accident will be only about one fourth of the direct cost).
3. As per National Safety Council, cost of workplace injuries in the year 2018 was USD 170 billion.
4. Each fatality costs USD 1.0 million in medical costs, employer costs, and wage losses
5. In a fatal fire and explosion incident, it seems, the emergency personnel do not have information of chemicals involved, otherwise, they could have saved the lives. 
6. Digitization and availability of data easily is not yet compulsory by many certification agencies. Organizations follow data retrieval in general age old methods like physical search instead of going for easy methods by using the computer/cloud technology/internet
7. Data should be latest

Many of us definitely would have spent a lot of time in search of some information. It is my personal experience that on most of the occasions, I spent more than two hours to retrieve, and sometimes more than one person was engaged for information retrieval. And, on some occasions, I didn't find what I want. Availability of signed information will help us to support what remember/believe and use it to convince others for implementation of safety or whatever we would like to.

Digitizing the records with a provision to search will be helpful for us and our future generation. Some believe digitization means scanning the documents. But scanning without search option makes it useless. It is a primitive form. Instead of paper search, we have to search in computer page by page. Indexing these types of scanned pages may make life somewhat better. But, if scanning of documents is in readable text form to enable search with key words, and is available in encrypted form in cloud, like dropbox, mega, onedrive, pcloud, etc and is accessible with password protection to prevent unauthorized access, it will help a lot for productive use. 

Searchable scanned records helped us greatly in the analysis of similar incidents and find suitable solutions to prevent recurrence of the incidents for a safe workplace  

Updating of data is a continuous process. 

Knowledge management is very important and critical to ensure safe productivity. World renowned safety professional Dr Trevor Kletz stated in one of his books (What Went Wrong) that incidents keep repeating either in the same or different similar organizations. We have to learn from them and implement measures to prevent recurrence.

Another safety professional Mr O.P.Kharbanda stated in a booklet about Bhopal accident, that Safety is not costly. In fact, it is free. What we need is the will to implement. 

In one of the investigation reports, EPA made an observation which states, it is not the lack of knowledge that is responsible for the accident. It is the lack of use of the available information that is responsible for the accident.

How we can get the information at first place. If it is made available in a readily searchable form and is known the personnel how to use it, then this information management will help to achieve what we intended to.

Qualified technologies and personnel should be assigned for this and definitely organizations will reap the benefits from this.

https://www.prweb.com/releases/two_strategies_help_prevent_workplace_disasters_protect_employees_with_smart_data/prweb17681313.htm