Coping with the Hazards - Assignment Example

Hazards Part Hazards Falling Falling is a hazard that involves someone accidentally and involuntarily descending from a high level working to a lower one and incurring an injury due to either the force of the fall, landing on or making contact with sharp or hard objects. OSHA takes cognizance of the fact that accidents that involve falls are often complex events resulting from the interaction between numerous factors such more so in the construction industry. The most affected sector in as far as falls are concerned is the construction industry, falls are the main courses of worker fatalities with an average of 150 to 200 workers dying annually as a result of fall accidents, over a 100,000 are injured. Most of the affected are workers working on scaffolds, unprotected edges exterior constructions, ladders and stairs; these are normally construction laborers engineers and supervisors (Courtney, 2001). Falls are statistically the most common cause of death and injuries in the construction industry, it is axiomatic that their risk level is very high. As long as one is working over 6 feet above ground, they are likely to be exposed to this hazard. Since many of the construction, workers have to work from elevated levels they are frequently exposed to the threat (Construction Safety and HealthOutreach Program, 1996). When one falls, they will in most cases suffer injuries since they will land on hard ground and uneven ground or rough objects. Fall Protection, 29 CFR 1926.502(k) is the standard regulations developed to protect workers from falling through working levels or being struck by falling objects(Federal Register, August 9, 1994, pp. 40672-40753) (Navon, & Kolton, 2006). To protect from falls, the working areas should be furnished with guard rails, safety netting and any other devices that protect workers, when these are not applicable, the sight managers should come up with measures that satisfy the 29 CFR 1926.502(k) standards. Hands Hand and Arm Protection hazards can cause injury to ones hands or arms while they work through mechanical injury such as cuts burns and bruises or chemical reactions should they be exposed to corrosive substances. Workers engaged in painting or construction work that involves handling sharp or heavy objects or liquids that can be corrosive or hot such as tar in road construction (Sorock et al., 2004). Employees involved in jobs such as sewing with machines, or working in chemical plants are also at risk as are catering staff more so cooks. The OSHA standard (1910.138(a)) stipulates that “Employers shall use appropriate hand protection when employees hands are exposed to hazards such as those from skin absorption of harmful substances; severe cuts or lacerations; severe abrasions; punctures; chemical burns; thermal burns; and harmful temperature extremes”. When injury to the hand occurs, it means that the employee was not provided with protective gloves, such as metal, leather fabric coated and liquid resistant gloves depending on the nature of the job they were doing and this is violation of the 1910.138(a) standard. To prevent such accidents and violations, employers should ensure they first assess all the possible hazards to hands that could occur when their staff is engaged in their job. Secondly, they should provide their staff with all the necessary protective equipment for the protection of their hands from injury. Pressure Hazards Pressure hazards occur when there is a leakage in a storage tank that has been designed for operations at pressures above 15 p.s.i.g, when such vessels in work places are cracked, they result in risk of rapture and failures which can cause injury to staff.    Pressure hazards affect anybody who is directly in contact with affected containers even if it means being in the same room with them. For example, anyone working on the floor of a chemical factory even if they are a messenger or chemical engineers will be at risk by virtue of proximity to the containers. Most of the victims are normally contactors who were working in very close proximity with the pressurized containers. One of the results of pressure hazards is Nitrogen asphyxiation, which has caused 80 recoded deaths between 1992 and 2002; most of these were in medical facilities and industrial plants where victims were exposed to pressurized tans that were found to have leakages. The threat severity levels are normally very high since most of the pressurized substances can cause explosions or in the case of nitrogen asphyxiation and instant death. However, these are not very frequent hazards. OSHA Directive STD 01-10-001 [PUB 8-1.5], (1989, August 14), is the standard that gets violated when firms use nonstandard tanks or fail to regularly inspect them for cracks to reduce the risk; it provides technical overview of the information designs and codes for the material to be used for specific substances as well as schedules and protocols for inspection. To mitigate against such hazards, employers and site managers should regularly inspect the storage tanks in so as to locate fix any cracks and leakages before they can affect the staff. Secondly, there should be safety gear such as visors and an alarm system so that leakages can be quickly detected and safety measures deployed. Pressure danger to humans Pressure hazard could result from the exposure of employees to atmosphere levels in controlled environments that is below 100 mm of mercury at sea level (Construction Safety and HealthOutreach Program, 1996); OSHA deems that exposing employees to partial pressures below this margin leaves them with no safety margin and they could as a result suffer from sudden debilitating effects. The people who are most at risk are those who work in pressurized environment such as in submarines, underwater or underground structures. This is because in this environment they have to be provided with everything from an artificial sources including oxygen and pressure and failure to effectively regulate them could easily result in fatalities. While the severity of the risk is quite high since exposure to unhealthy pressure levels or oxygen supplies can cause, serious health effects or instant death the frequency is low since very few people work under such conditions and even then, the standards are usually competently managed. Respiratory Protection Standard, 29 CFR 1910.134 requires that that employees working under oxygen-deficient conditions should be provided with reliable oxygen supply not below, 19.5% Oxygen and making staff work under lower conditions is violations of this standard. The consequence of this is that the workers will be unable to effectively function with insufficient oxygen, which will then result in their inability to respond to other hazards in the environment and lead to injury or even fatality. Sources of Electrical Hazards Electrical Hazards are some of the most common both in industrial and home scenarios, in most cases they result from people coming to contact with exposed electric wires. In 1999 for example 278 employees died due to electrocution burns and other power related incidences; electric hazards accounted for over 5% work related deaths that year (Koumbourlis, 2002). The most commonly affected are workers who deal with electricity in various capacities such as installing power generators and fixtures. However there are many deaths of employees who are just using electricity, say to operate a power drill who are affected due to poorly maintained fixtures and cables or failure to follow safety protocol. The risk level is very high as is the frequency since anyone operating electronic tools can be affected even if not directly, the frequency is also quite high but most cases go unreported since they are either not severe or are a result of negligence. There are several OSHA designations in respect to electricity, the 1910.335 addresses Electrical Safety-Related Work Practices Standards which generally covers employees on the factory floor or those working in proximity or with electrical tools. To protect employees from electricity hazards, they should be provided with effective training on procedure to follow when using or working in proximity to power lines and other power sources. In addition, equipment should be carefully checked so there are no loose or frayed power cables that can cause staff to accidentally electrocute themselves. Fire Hazards The fire hazard in one of the universal hazards that can occur in any place especially in industries where there are heating systems, electric appliances and flammable substances such as chemicals (Mannan, 2004). There is no specific group that is not particularly prone to fires since incidences of fire tend to spread and can affect everybody and everything that is near them. However employees who work in factories where flammable liquids and gasses such as petro and oxygen are used at a greater risk since a small leakage could have fatal consequences. The severity of fire damage is often high especially when the incident is not controlled in good time and properties and lives could be easily lost not to mention numerous injuries. The risk and severity levels are moderately high since although fires are common most of them are minor and have few or no injuries. The employers have a primary prerogative of employers in as far as safety of their staff is concerned and according to the OSHA standard, [1910.39(c) (3)], they should provide regular maintenance and safeguards to prevent combustible materials from accidentally combusting resulting in fires (Khan,Husain & Abbasi, 2001). To protect employees from fire related accidents, employers should provide them with adequate training on how to deal with fires and related accidents; this should include special drills; secondly, they should be provided with special equipment such as gloves and fighting equipment such as extinguishers fire hoses. NIOSH Guidelines for Respirators The respiratory hazard has to do with dangers that are associated with works using respiratory protection especially for the first time. In such cases, they may fail to use the properly and as a result expose themselves to health risks by inhaling poisonous gasses. Those affected are mostly working in emergency and fire rescue services where they are perpetually exposed to harmful fumes; other instances include when people work in areas of low oxygen concentration (Methner, 2000), workers welding in confined spaces, as well as abrasive blasting especially during mining. The risk assessment can be described as relatively high since the use of respiratory protection systems is common in the industrial sector. Incidences of contamination are likely to occur with a great deal of frequency since not many people are aware of all the protective measures. According to the 1910.134(a)(2), a respirator should be provided to all the employees as well as any other equipment necessary to ensure they are fully protected from respiratory hazards; the employer should be in charge of protecting and ensuring they are functioning safely and effect. The mitigative action that should include ensuring that the safety requirements are followed and the respiratory devices provided are functional after being inspected under the requisite standard regulation. In addition, employees should be furnished with training so that they can identify possible threats and take measures to protect themselves. Part 2 Hazards in order from the most to the least critical Fire hazard It is one of the most frequent hazards since it can be caused by any number of elements; it tends to be very severe and it can cause numerous casualties and fatalities. Electric Hazard The levels of threat tend to be relatively high since many people work with or near electrical connections and wires which expose them to the hazard (Construction Safety and HealthOutreach Program, 1996). It is in many cases very severe since it causes the deaths of majority of those who come into direct or indirect contact with live wires. Falling Is a common cause of death and injury more so in the construction industry, its levels of severity tend to be relatively high especially when one lands on sharp objects. Pressure Hazard The severity is moderate since not all exposure is dangerous; they are also not very frequent since most installations carefully monitor their containers Pressure danger to humans Pressure in this case has to do with situations where people are working in controlled environments. The frequency rate is very low since few people operate in such environments and even then accidents related to pressure are few. The severity tends to be quite high since exposure to insufficient oxygen may lead to instant death. NIOSH Guidelines for Respirators This involves the risk of inhaling poisonous chemicals, which results in health complications. The frequency rate is relatively high but the severity of the risk is low since most of the systems do not allow for extreme exposure thus minimizing casualties. Hand Hazard to hands involves cases where one’s hands may be injured as they operate machinery or come into contact with corrosive substances. This is probably the most common but least severe hazard since in most cases it results in only injured or bruised digits and palms. Part 3 Findings There are several ways through which employees are exposed to various hazards at work and these include, fire, electricity, pressure, injuries to hands, falling as well as respiratory challenges. For each of these there is a specific OSHA standard, which can be used to determine the type of threat and action that should be taken to protect and mitigate against future occurrences of the same. Some of the hazards are more severe and frequent than others, for example the fire and electrical hazards can occur literary in any environment. The best way to protect employees from being affected by the hazards is to ensure that they are both informed about their existence and courses as well as trained on how to effectively handle themselves when exposed to the aforementioned hazards. References “OSHA Act, OSHA Standards, Inspections, Citations and Penalties”(1996). Construction Safety and HealthOutreach Program. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/doc/outreachtraining/htmlfiles/introsha.html Navon, R., & Kolton, O. (2006). Model for automated monitoring of fall hazards in building construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management,132(7), 733-740. Khan, F. I., Husain, T., & Abbasi, S. A. (2001). Safety weighted hazard index (SWeHI): a new, user-friendly tool for swift yet comprehensive hazard identification and safety evaluation in chemical process industrie. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 79(2), 65-80. Sorock, G. S., Lombardi, D. A., Peng, D. K., Hauser, R., Eisen, E. A., Herrick, R. F., & Mittleman, M. A. (2004). Glove use and the relative risk of acute hand injury: a case-crossover study. Journal of occupational and environmental hygiene, 1(3), 182-190. Methner, M. M. (2000). Identification of potential hazards associated with new residential construction. Applied occupational and environmental hygiene, 15(2), 189-192. Koumbourlis, A. C. (2002). Electrical injuries. Critical care medicine, 30(11), S424-S430. Courtney, T. K., Sorock, G. S., Manning, D. P., Collins, J. W., & Holbein-Jenny, M. A. (2001). Occupational slip, trip, and fall-related injuries–can the contribution of slipperiness be isolated?. Ergonomics, 44(13), 1118-1137. Mannan, S. (Ed.). (2004). Lees Loss prevention in the process industries: Hazard identification, assessment and control. Butterworth-Heinemann. Read More