Safety Tips

A 20-year-old plasterer or drywall installer died after falling through a 24-by-48-inch plastic bubble-covered skylight.

A 49-year-old subcontracting pipefitter was hit in the chest and knocked backward by a pressurized 12-inch diameter vertical section of a polyvinyl chloride pipe during a hydrostatic pressure test of a fire suppression system.

Wearing a facemask to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 can present obstacles to communication, “an important and complex transaction that depends on visual and, often, auditory cues,” says Debara L. Tucci, director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

Use of compact fluorescent lightbulbs can save money, conserve energy, reduce waste and lower greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. However, CFLs contain mercury – a potent neurotoxin that, in small amounts, can cause serious health problems. At room temperature, mercury is a liquid and can readily evaporate into the air.

Nearly half of all work-related injuries involving mechanical power presses result in amputation, statistics compiled by OSHA show. Around 60% of amputations involve a worker’s fingers or arm getting caught or compressed by a press or other machinery such as a conveyer, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Employers in the automotive service industry can reduce workers’ risk of exposure to COVID-19. Ensuring workers disinfect keys, key fobs, steering wheels, vehicle controls and all other commonly touched surfaces are among the recommendations listed in guidelines from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (also known as Cal/OSHA) as well as in a poster recently published by federal OSHA.

Do you carpool to work or use a ride-hailing service? Or maybe you’re a ride-share driver? To help protect you from contracting COVID-19 or spreading it to your fellow commuters, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers the following tips.

A certified field technician was killed after he climbed into a mechanical vertical storage unit to make repairs.

Whenever muscle damage occurs – whether it’s the result of a work-related incident, heat exposure, overuse or other cause – rhabdomyolysis can follow. Also called “rhabdo,” the condition develops when damaged or dead muscles break down and release cell contents into the blood, according to NIOSH.

A best practice to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other viral respiratory infections is routinely cleaning and disinfecting/sanitizing surfaces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.