Using a Utility/Razor Knife Safely!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

We recently had an employee sustain a puncture type injury and laceration to his left hand while using a utility knife while trimming drywall overhead.  Fortunately this was a no lost-time injury, however, the employee had multiple sutures and was placed on one-handed work restrictions which we are accommodating. 

We want to report out on incidents like this to help prevent reoccurrences from happening to other employees. 

We had installed drywall on ceilings with 24" x 48" openings for light fixtures.  Apparently we were provided with the wrong size measurements for the drywall openings and had to go back and cut them open slightly larger.  Our employee was performing the work while on a 6' portable step ladder.  He had his left hand holding onto the overhead drywall grid to help get leverage and support.  He had his fingers holding onto the overhead grid and his left palm was exposed.  He was using a utility knife in his right hand to trim the opening to make it larger.  He was pulling the utility knife in the direction towards his left palm.  The utility knife slipped off the drywall and he stabbed the palm of his left hand with the razor end of the utility knife.  He sustained a puncture type wound and a subsequent laceration which required multiple sutures.  Fortunately there was no tendon or nerve damage. 

The following are the corrective measures that our company came up with to help prevent this from happeing to you. 

The first corrective measure that would have prevented this injury in the first place would be for I.D.I. to have been provided with the correct measurements for the drywall opening for the light fixutres.  If we had the correct measurements we would not have had to gone back to create a larger opening.  The second measure to help reduce the risk of the task would be to perform the work from a baker scaffold or a scissor lift.  This type of equipment provides a more stable surface to get better leverage from and would be safer as an employee could fall after a stabbing type incident like this.   The third measure is; when using a utility knife, cut away from your body.  Don't have body parts, such as fingers and hands in the line of fire meaning in the direction of the of the way the utility knife blade is cutting towards.  After completing your drywall cuts, secure the utility knife in your tool pouch with the blade pointed down towards the bottom of the pouch.  Do not leave the utility knife with an exposed blade unattended.  Lastly, gloves provide a layer of protection from laceration type hazards.  If gloves can be worn and don't create a greater hazard, then gloves would be recommended to help reduce the risk of injury. 

Below is a photo showing how trimming drywall should not be done as your hand is in the line of fire with the utility knife.

Please contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete with any questions at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Red Tape on All 3-Pronged Electrical Tools & Extension Cords as of 7/1/15!

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees:

We begin a new quarter on Wednesday, 7/1/15 for our Assured Grounding Program.  We are to switch over our cords from green tape to red tape. To all Safety Coordinators - please help keep our employees safe and help keep us OSHA compliant by following our assured grounding program. Please inspect, test and color-code with red tape all 3 pronged electrical tools and extension cords. All electrical tools and cords need to be visually inspected. If you see any defects in the cords such as bare wires, severe kinks, missing or damaged ground prong, the cord pulling away from the plug end-housing, etc., then that tool or cord would need to be immediately removed from service and reported to the lead person. If your tool/cord passes the visual inspection, your next step is to test the cord with a receptacle tester. First, you should test the oulet that you will be plugging your cord into to ensure that it is properly wired. You should see 2 yellow lights lit up on your tester and the red light should be off. This means the outlet is working appropriately. Next, plug your cord into the outlet and then test the cord with the receptacle tester. Again, you should see the same light pattern as mentioned above and this would mean the cord passed the test and it is good and safe to use. Any other light pattern means that there is a problem with the cord and the cord needs to be removed from service and reported to your lead person. If the cord passes the visual inspection and the cord tester test, you should then remove the previous quarter's green electrical tape and install the red electrical tape about 1" down from both plug ends. Your cord is now in compliance with our 3rd quarter's Assured Grounding Program. The red tape shall remain in place from 7/1/15 through 9/30/15. You are not quite done yet! All employees now need to visually inspect all electrical cords and tools on a daily basis and if any defects are found, the cord needs to be immediately removed from service. 

Thank you for taking the time to ensure your electrical tools and cords are in safe working order. Your actions may prevent one of our family members from sustaining an electrical shock type injury or worse yet and electrocution. If you have any questions regarding our Assured Grounding Program, please call our Safety Director, Peter Graham, at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

 

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees,

 

I attended a safety seminar last week on hearing protection.  The keynote speaker on hearing protection was a woman named Theresa Schulz from Honeywell Safety Products.  Theresa is a Past President and active member of the National Hearing Conservation Association and has many other credentials including a PhD.  Theresa was very informative on hearing protection and she knows her stuff.  Below is some helpful information on hearing protection that was provided.

 

Foam earplugs offer more protection from noise than earmuffs?  Answer = TRUE…
...with one qualifier: properly fit roll-down foam earplugs offer more protection than the typical earmuff. Bigger is not necessarily better in terms of blocking noise in the ear; a well-fit earplug seals the ear canal from hazardous noise, and is less likely to allow “acoustical leaks” than an earmuff. This is evident in the higher attenuation values of foam earplugs. But to achieve that good fit, a user must follow basic rules for proper insertion:

1) Roll the earplug into a small crease-free cylinder
2) Reach over the head to pull up and back on the ear to straighten the ear canal
3) Insert the earplug deeply
In fact, a poorly fit foam earplug actually offers little or no protection from noise.

Below is a video to demonstrate the correct way to insert foam earplugs.

 

 

The following is more information that was provided:

 

It's not safe to put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear?  Answer = FALSE!
You may have heard it from mom, but she may have had hearing loss! It is true we should not try to clean inside our own ears by inserting cotton swabs, erasers, pen caps, paper clips or the like. But when it comes to protection from hazardous noise, earplugs are designed to be a safe distance from the sensitive eardrum, even when deeply inserted. Mom would be proud of you for protecting your hearing!

If you have any questions, please contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete at pgraham@4idi.com.

 

Have a Safe Day!

Volunteer Quarterly Safety "Make-Up" Meeting - 6/17/15 at 4:00pm (Ladder Safety!)

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

As you all know, we held a volunteer quarterly safety meeting this past Saturday, 6/6/15. We offer a volunteer make-up meeting for those that could not attend the regularly scheduled safety meeting either due to working for I.D.I. on the Saturday of the meeting or due to unforeseen circumstances, etc.

The volunteer quarterly safety make-up meeting is being held on Wednesday, 6/17/15 at 4:00pm at our Barrington office. The safety topic for this meeting is Ladder Safety!

We are asking everyone to help spread the word to all of our employees so they have the opportunity to attend.

Also if you are planning on attending, please contact our Safety Director, Peter Graham, no later than Tuesday, 6/16/15 at 5:00pm to let him know as we need an approximate head-count for the meeting as we have to prepare materials and for chair rental purposes. Peter can be reached by e-mail at pgraham@4idi.com or text to (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Final Reminder - Volunteer Quarterly Safety Meeting, Saturday, 6/6/15 at 7:00am (Ladder Safety)

Good morning to all I.D.I. employees,

Just putting out a final reminder that our next volunteer quarterly safety meeting is being held this coming Saturday, June 6th from 7:00am to 9:00am. We have finalized our safety training topic and it is going to be on Ladder Safety. We have had a few incidents over the past couple of months involving employees incorrectly using ladders, which fortunately did not lead to any injuries. We will have a representative from Werner Ladders at our meeting helping out with this safety training session.

Ladder related fatalities are one of the number one killers in construction. It is difficult to find current exact data on how many construction workers died involving a ladder, however, in 2011 there were a total of 34,500 employees of companies who sought medical care for ladder related injuries. There were 15,460 employees of companies who had lost-time injuries involving ladders and 113 ladder related fatalities. We don't want for our employees/family members to become one of these statistics.

Please mark your calendar for June 6th at 7:00am. The meeting will be held at our usual location at our office located at 28059 W. Commercial Ave., Barrington, IL.

Final note - our last 2 volunteer quarterly safety meetings went way past 9:00am and that can be aggravating to those who expect to get out of there by 9:00am. We understand this aggravation and we will ensure that our June 6th meeting is over by 9:00am.

If you have any questions about this meeting or about safety in general, you are encouraged to contact our Safety Director, Safety Pete at (847) 417-1689.

Have a Safe Day!

Painting Company Cited for 30 Violations, Fined $199,000 Following Fall Fatalities

Good afternoon to all I.D.I. employees:

Please see the article below.  This is why we preach safety - so that all of our family members can: "Go Home Alive and in The Same Condition as You Arrived, Your Loved Ones Count On it!"

 

April 27 — Two painters killed in a fall in Ohio might have survived if they had been provided safety equipment, according to the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which has issued proposed fines of $199,000.

The painters, who worked for V&T Painting LLC, died when an electric suspension scaffold failed and they fell from a Southwest Ohio Regional Water District water tower they were painting in Butler County, OSHA said in a statement April 22.

Following the October 2014 deaths, OSHA investigators identified 17 serious safety violations at the site, as well as 13 others at a nearby V&T Painting work site.

At the time of their deaths, the painters weren't wearing safety harnesses, the Butler County Sheriff's Office said. They fell about 100 feet.

Ken Montgomery, OSHA's Cincinnati-area director, said in the prepared statement that "making sure protective equipment is in use and working properly is a common-sense way to save lives and prevent injuries. Companies that put their workers dangerously high above the ground must provide protection to stop their falls."

OSHA inspectors found that, apart from failing to protect its workers from falls, V&T used scaffolds that weren't designed by a competent person; the scaffolds' U-bolts weren't installed correctly; and damaged wire ropes, slings, electrical cords and other faulty equipment were in use.

In addition, the company didn't inspect rigging equipment and scaffolds before use or conduct regular job-site inspections, OSHA said. The company also failed to train workers about fall protection equipment and standards.

Suspension scaffold support devices didn't rest on surfaces capable of supporting at least four times the load imposed on them, the agency found, nor were they inspected for visible defects by a competent person before each work shift.

OSHA has directed the Farmington Hills, Mich., company to correct all of its serious safety violations by June 2.

V&T Painting declined to comment to Bloomberg BNA on the citations.

OSHA said falls continue to be a leading cause of death for construction workers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bebe Raupe in Cincinnati at braupe@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jim Stimson at jstimson@bna.com

Source: Bloomberg BNA

From the "I Caught You" Series

At International Decorators, we have a habit of catching our employees working safely. Below are a few action shots of our employees being caught in action working in a safe manner.

Great job everyone! You are helping us to live up to our safety mission statement which is:

"Everyone Goes Home Alive and in the Same Condition as They Arrived; Your Loved Ones Count On It."

Rodrigo Galvan was caught working safely on a ladder while tied off with fall arrest equipment using a Spider Bolt concrete fall protection anchor, retractable lanyard and safety harness.


Great job - Rodrigo!

 Jamie Martinez was caught doing the exact same thing as Rodrigo mentioned above.

You guys are doing it right!

Also, great job to Reynaldo Lagunas for coming up with this fall protection plan for this challenging situation!

Nelson Martinez was caught appropriately tying off with fall arrest equipment while working on a roof that has a low parapet wall.

Nelson is using a Standing Seam Roof Anchor as his 5,000 lb fall protection anchorage point along with a 30' cable retractable.       Great job Nelson!

Framer, Vince Cavanaugh, was caught working safely on a concrete roof while building a parapet wall.  Vince had some help with his fall protection planning from our "Competent Fall Protection Person," Kent Cutshall. Great job with planning and implementation - gentlemen!

 Drywaller, Jose Perez was caught using a portable A-frame step ladder in a safe appropriate manner.  Alejandro has the spreader arms fully open and in the locked position and he is standing on the ladder at a safe rung level height.  Jose remembered that you cannot stand on the top 2 steps of portable step ladders!

 Our tapers at Centegra Hospital have installed rebar caps over the end of their mud mixing paddles to serve as impalement protection.

Great job - Gildardo, Rafael, Fernando and the rest of your crew!

Filimon Mendez was caught safely tying off with fall arrest equipment while climbing in and out of a shaft at Centegra Hospital.

I asked Filimon what he was doing and he said - "Safety Pete, I am just hanging around."

This is what International Decorator's safety culture is all about and it is our employees/family members that make it happen!

Have a Safe Day!