Safety Alerts / Recalls

Product RECALL:
Capital Safety is aware of a reported inadvertent disconnection during use of the locking snaphook used in a series of Y-shaped Protecta lanyards with twin elastic lanyard legs that both attach directly to the eye of the snaphook. The locking snaphook used on these lanyards is part number 9502573. The affected products are:

Product RECALL/Stop Use Notice: 3M™ G-Series Self Retracting Lanyards: Immediately stop use and quarantine all inventory of G-Series products. Contact Ray Mann, 3M Fall Protection Technical Service, for product return information at 704-743-2406. For more information, see full notice at www.3M.com/FallProtection. G-Series 11 ft Web Retractable Lifeline, Snap Hook, Swivel Top, Carabiner

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WASHINGTON – The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a hazard alert, warning workers and employers of the dangers of using certain Eaton/Cutler-Hammer molded-case circuit breakers that were incorrectly rebuilt. [see more]

Petzl America Recalls Scorpio and Absorbica Safety Lanyards due to Fall Hazard

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product. Name of Product: Scorpio and Absorbica Shock Absorbing Lanyards [see details]

OSHA Top-Rated Agency in Voter Poll; Workplace Regulations also garner support among a group of seven regulatory agencies, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration drew the most positive ratings in a recent poll of likely 2012 general election voters.
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Harris Product Recall

The highest priority of The Harris Products Group is the safety of our products and our customers who use them. For this reason, Harris has implemented a recall on certain torch-type swivel flashback arrestors which were shipped from Harris between May 1, 2010 and January 14, 2011. [see details]

Boomlift Fatality

On Wednesday 8th December at the Holcim Australia’s Kalgoorlie Boulder concrete batch plant, workers from Programmed Group were in the process of cleaning down and painting the batch plant silos and conveyer. Two men were in the basket of JGL 860SJ Boomlift at the time when it was travelling along a grassed area near the plant compound (photos) when the right hand front wheel broke through a soakwell causing a catapult effect to the boom lift resulting one worker to be thrown out of the basket... [see more]

Safety Headlines

Critical Stroke Indicators
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough. [See more]

Safety Jacket
MCR Safety introduces 597JH, our newest Navigator jacket, which features a polyurethane outer shell combined with a soft polyester inner lining for comfort. A zipper front closure with a storm flap protects from wind, dust and moisture. An adjustable drawstring closure around the waist has quick-release stoppers. This jacket features two outer pockets with storm flaps and one inner pocket.
Click here for more information from MCR Safet

Flame Resistant Fabrics
Ultimate comfort. Uncompromising protection. With Milliken Flame-Resistant fabrics, you do not have to choose. We combine innovative textile solutions with chemical technologies that bring you comfortable FR protection. Whether it is amplitude fabrics for arc flash or CXP fabrics for flash fire protection, when you choose Milliken, you choose advanced and highly effective protective materials.
Click here for more information from Milliken & Co

Fight back the FLU
It’s that time of year again! Each year the flu accounts for 200,000 hospitalizations, 41,000 deaths and an economic impact in excess of $80 billion. However, the risk of outbreak in your place of employment can be significantly lowered through the implementation of engineering controls, administrative controls and work practices.
[see details]

Personal Protection
One too many accidents happen every year and most of the time it’s because of the absence or lack of PPE. Personal protective equipment is designed to guard you against any risk present in the workplace. This can be anything from molten metal to falling debris to electric shock.

OSHA strictly regulates employers to provide their employees with proper PPE. In some cases, though, accidents happen not because of absence or lack of PPE but because some employees choose not to wear it.

Here are a few of the PPE commonly used in the workplace. Take note of how each provides protection and what you must remember to maximize its benefits.

Outrigger Deployment
A recent safety awareness alert concerns outrigger deployment and cites five steps of responsibility in avoiding accidents. [see more]

Excessive Levels of Lead

You may be interested to learn that a recently filed lawsuit claims that Disney’s park in Anaheim, California is poisoning visiting children with lead. It seems to be a serious, legitimate case.

That is the allegation by the Mateel Environmental Justice Foundation, which has gone to court seeking to force the Disney company to post warning signs about the lead or to cover lead-laced surfaces throughout the 56-year-old theme park in Anaheim, CA.

Environmental groups say the Disneyland theme park, which opened in 1955, is riddled with lead. You can find the article here: http://www.paintsquare.com/news/?fuseaction=view&id=6548&nl_versionid=1417

Lessons Learned

Employees task involved extracting de-energized 4/0 high voltage cable running through various underground manholes. An energized 4160v cable was mistakenly cut. It was a near miss.... [see more]

The image (rt) shows damage sustained to the cutting tool.

Damaged ratchet cutting tool used to cut the high voltage cable.

Long Hair, Loose Clothing, and Hazardous Equipment:
A Deadly Combination

No one knows for certain why Michael Smith was trying to go up the down escalator at the Powell Street BART station in San Francisco on April 19, just as no one knows what caused him to fall. But once his hair and clothing became caught in the escalator, he couldn't escape.

Emergency responders shut down the escalator, cut Smith free, and performed CPR, but to no avail. He was declared dead at the hospital.

No one was around to respond this quickly on April 13 when Yale University student Michele Dufault was working on her senior project late at night. By the time fellow students found her around 2 a.m., with her long brown hair caught in a lathe, Dufault was already dead—strangled by the pressure that the lathe, pulling her hair and skin taut, had put on her throat

Although neither Smith nor Dufault were on the job when they died, federal OSHA and Cal/OSHA are conducting investigations.

Federal OSHA is looking into Dufault's death because university employees also use the machine shop where she died. Cal/OSHA is examining Smith's death because its Elevator Unit has jurisdiction in the BART station case.

Entanglement Hazards

Entanglement hazards receive the greatest publicity in the agricultural industry, where nearly 4 in 10 injuries are entanglement related. However, employees operating or working around equipment in industrial settings are also at risk.

Machines and equipment can pose an entanglement hazard if they have:

Pinch points, where two or more parts move together, and one of them is moving in a circle (pulley and belt systems, including conveyors and the escalator that killed Michael Smith fall into this category).

Crush points, where two components move toward each other, as happens in three-point hitches and hydraulic cylinders.

Wrap points, created by exposed rotating components (the lathe that killed Michele Dufault falls into this category, as do power take-off shafts, augers, mixer blades, and other rotating equipment).

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