The headline out of Jacksonville, FL reads, “OSHA: Roofing worker’s death ‘preventable’”.  As an EHS professional, I feel like I should be able to come up with a better retort then, “Well, duh,” but it seems to be awfully appropriate here.  Preventable incidents – preventable deaths –...

As safety professionals, our focus needs to be on prevention: proactivity keeps workers from being hurt in the first place.  In recent years, with incentive programs under fire, there has been a push for companies to focus on leading indicators (such as safety meetings attended, near misses...

For many years now, falls have been the leading cause of death on construction sites.  From small residential projects to large commercial structures, people continue to add to the fatal fall statistic – regardless of the focus placed on this epidemic.  Sometimes this is the result of a...

Fear of falling is natural.  Once believed to occur only as a result of a traumatic experience, it has more recently become considered a condition you are born with.  Most people fear falling because – well – gravity.  We can’t fly.  We don’t bounce.  We fall, we land – sometimes...

Homeowners and building managers cannot be expected to be experts in every area of maintenance and repairs that need to be performed on their building.  Day in and day out, contractors around the country are hired to perform such work because they are the experts.  Some of this work takes...

Fall hazards are abundant and varied, making them difficult to protect against.  Every single situation is different and employers need to work with employees to ensure that the correct solution is in place.  The solutions may be easy or they may be complex but, either way, we have the...

I’ve been in many warehouses.  Many, many warehouses.  The difference in safety culture from one to the next is as varied as the products they store.  Some are in pristine, new buildings with clear lines painted on the floor, have only safe, certified forklift operators driving the...

Things go wrong.  Equipment fails.  Accidents happen.  When discussing the inevitability of injuries in the workplace, these are reasons you will hear to argue against the belief that all incidents are preventable.  While a manufacturing defect could occur without forewarning, the vast...

Industrial Ergonomics: What Is It and Why Should I Be Concerned?

Ergonomics is defined as “the study of people’s efficiency in their working environment.” Yet in the world of health and safety, it tends to denote fitting a job or a task to a person. This is done for many reasons:...

Back when I began in the field of safety, self-retracting lifelines (SRLs) were frowned upon by workers, not because the function wasn’t preferable, but because they were big, bulky, and very heavy.  Over time, things have changed.  Technology has improved.  And while the cumbersome...

When the conversation turns to fall protection, railings, skylight screens, horizontal lifelines, and mobile anchor points are often discussed , but what about vertical lifelines?  We tend to not hear as much about this solution, yet there are many situations in which a vertical lifeline...

Inspections are required of every piece of equipment, but often overlooked in the rush to get to work.  If your personnel are not properly trained and monitored, there is no telling what condition the equipment making it out in to the field is in.  Many incidents involving equipment failure...

Personal fall arrest systems are often thought to have three parts: a harness, a lanyard, and an anchor point.  In reality, there is a 4th part – one that isn’t always utilized, but is always necessary – a fall rescue plan.  When dealing with fall prevention, this isn’t...

People tend to interpret regulations and laws in whatever way suits them best.  Speed limits, for instance, are treated as a bare minimum while safety regulations are treated like a goal to attain – a maximum level of performance.  In both cases, the opposite is actually true.  Speed...

We spend a good deal of time discussing equipment in this blog, from fall protection to work platforms to scaffolding and lifts. Notice, however, the title of this blog post - specifically the word “habits”. In the end, it’s often our behavior at work that contributes to incidents,...

There are obviously times when somebody will need to access the roof of your building or facility, whether it’s maintenance workers, contractors, or inspectors.  As we’ve discussed, roofs are inherently dangerous, so we develop policies to direct the behaviors of our employees and...

Because stepladders are such a common tool, even in the home, it is often taken for granted that employees know how to properly use them.  This is a dangerous assumption.  Most people don’t thoroughly inspect their ladders at home and many wouldn’t know what to look for if they did.  Many...

Who is responsible for your safety?  Is it the safety manager?  Is it your supervisor?  Is it the owner of the company for which you work?  Sure, each of these people plays a part in building a framework that allows you to perform your job in a safe working environment, but in the end, the...

Extension ladders: who hasn’t used one to access the roof of their home, praying every moment that it won’t fall back, slip to the side, or just buckle under your weight?  A tool so common can still be extremely dangerous and the facts are alarming:

If you are responsible for maintaining rooftop HVAC equipment, you have probably run into a common problem: technicians need to safely cross piping, ductwork, conduit, or elevation changes just to reach the equipment they service every day.

The confusing part is that most buyers do not know...

Certainly, cold weather poses hazards to anybody working outdoors, but the higher you go, the more intense the conditions can get.  Workers on the ground are facing different hazards than workers on the roof of an office building, who are facing different hazards than construction workers on...

Maximum Arresting Force (or M.A.F.) is a term you will hear frequently used in association with fall protection, so it’s better to understand the term before you encounter it (if you’ve already encountered it, better late than never!).  In simple terms, M.A.F. is exactly what it sounds like:...

Falls cause the most worker fatalities and injuries during rooftop ice and snow removal. Workers can fall off roof edges, through skylights, and from ladders and aerial lifts (OSHA source). If you live in a...

Go to You Tube, search any topic, and you’re bound to come up with videos showing what you’re looking for.  Fall protection situations are no exception.  With a little searching, you can find videos showing good examples of fall protection, bad examples of fall protection, complete lack of...