Injury and fatality

In addition, a properly designed JHA is a good learning tool that you can use to evaluate incidents. Job-related incidents occur every day in the workplace. These incidents, which include injuries and fatalities, often occur because employees are not trained in the proper job procedures. One way to reduce these workplace incidents is to develop proper job procedures and train all employees in the safer and more efficient work methods. 

The objective is to estimate, numerically, the probability that a system composed of many components will fail. The obvious question is, "Why don t you just estimate the failure rate of the system from operating experience " There are three reasons IJ the system may not exist, so new data are not available, 2) the injuries and fatalities from the developmental learning experience are unacceptable - the risk must be known ahead of time, and 3) by designing redundancy, the probability of the system failing can be made acceptably remote in which case system failure data caimot be collected directly. The only practical way uses part failure statistics in a system model to estimate the system s reliability. 

Figure 9.1. Injury and fatality levels for thermal radiation (Hymes 1983).

Both the OSHA incidence rate and the FAR depend on the number of exposed hours. An employee working a ten-hour shift is at greater total risk than one working an eight-hour shift. A FAR can be converted to a fatality rate (or vice versa) if the number of exposed hours is known. The OSHA incidence rate cannot be readily converted to a FAR or fatality rate because it contains both injury and fatality information. 

Injuries and fatalities from asphyxiation are often associated with personnel entry into inerted equipment or enclosures. Guidance on safe procedures for confined space access are provided by OSHA (OSHA, 29 CFR 1910.146, Confined Space Entry Standard, 2000), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI, Z117.1, Safety Requirements for Confined Spaces, 2003), Hodson (Hodson, Safe Entry into Confined Spaces, Handbook of Chemical Health and Safety, American Chemical Society, 2001), and BP (BP, Hazards of Nitrogen and Catalyst Handling, 2003). OSHA has established 19.5 vol % as the minimum safe oxygen concentration for confined space entry without supplemental oxygen supply (see Table 23-18). Note that OSHA imposes a safe upper limit on 02 concentration of 23.5 vol % to protect against the enhanced flammability hazards associated with 02-enriched atmospheres. 

In addition to causing injuries and fatalities to plant personnel and the public, reactive incidents can also result in environmental harm and equipment damage. These impacts may be due to fires, explosions, hazardous liquid spills, toxic gas releases, or any combination of such (Figure 6). Fires and explosions are the most frequent occurrence in CSB data, followed by toxic gas releases. 

For the lower estimate, Leger assumed that the same proportion of injuries and fatalities resulted from maximum sleepiness-induced work-related accidents... 

Historically, injuries and fatalities have been reported from acute methanol overexposure via ingestion, inhalation, as well as prolonged or repeated skin contact. Inhalation toxicity can occur in occupational settings or as a result of inhalant abuse (huffing). Clinical studies of individuals acutely poisoned by methanol ingestion have identified visual disturbances and possibly blindness as the most notable toxic effects in humans. Methanol is also a CNS depressant, although less potent than ethanol, and has also been shown to produce liver damage upon overexposure. 

In order to understand the potential physical hazard-type risks associated with consumer products, it is important to utilize a multidisciplinary approach. In order to identify the population that is at risk, it is necessary to investigate injury and fatality incidents with similar products. Following this identification, characterization of the physical interaction of a consumer and a product reveals hazard and associated severity levels. Characterization of product attributes allows for the development of strategies that may mitigate product hazard and therefore reduce the probability of injury. 

If a consumer can gain access or become exposed to hazardous product characteristics, the probability of this event must be determined. Probable exposure to the hazard may be determined using injury and fatality data analysis. 

Learning from history through the analysis of variables associated with real-life injuries and fatalities allows for an understanding of the connections between product characteristics, child behavior, and... 

Approximately 300 infants have died over the past 4 years as a result of accidental suffocation associated with a variety of consumer products (plastic films, toys, and packing materials). Suffocation injuries and fatalities are most common to children under the age of 2 years (Figures 8 and 9). 

National statutory reporting requirOTents for occiqiational diseases, injuries and fatalities... 

While the exact number of hazardous material accidents occurring each year may not be known, available data does suggest that for most incidents there are few, if any, injuries (Sullivan and Kiieger, 1992). However, terrorists use of a chemical or biological weapon is likely to lead to scores of injuries and fatalities. The rapid implementation of effective triage and initiation of decon will be vital to optimizing victim survivability and responder safety. But how these two processes should be conducted is neither well known nor extensively studied in the civilian setting. Most hazardous material teams and hospitals have limited... 

The maintenance people who were a part of the survey usually do nonroutine work. As was previously stated, they have a disproportionate share of the serious injuries and fatalities. 

I propose that adopting the concept incorporating pre-job planning and safety reviews for nonroutine work within the culture of an organization would greatly reduce the risk of severe injury and fatality. Establishing the concept will be emphasized here, with the intent of not proposing extensive procedures and reports when that is not necessary for the particular nonroutine job to be undertaken. 

To achieve a greater reduction in large truck and bus crashes, injuries, and fatalities by identifying drivers and motor carriers that pose safety problems and intervening to address those problems as soon as they become apparent. 

Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) initiative to improve large truck and bus safety and reduce commercial vehicle-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities. 

Clastic dikes and clay veins found in coal mines have caused numerous injuries and fatalities. These structures plague all phases of mining, including entry development, pillar recovery, and panel extraction. Clastic dikes and clay veins also increase production costs and may disrupt or halt mining. 

Once new OSHA regulations take effeet June 16, any employer who is not providing aeeept-able forms of fall protection for affected workers will be cited, unless they can demonstrate why conventional fall protection was not feasible or why it presented a greater hazard if used. Of course employers have always had a responsibility to protect their employees from work-related hazards, but improved guidelines from OSHA will help to lead the construction industry and all industries in a safer direction. This will result in better work environments and reduce the amount of fall-reMed injuries and fatalities suffered on the job. C... 

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