Spooky Safety and Killer Causes
Inattentive blindness, complacency, and the OSHA's Fatality Inspection Data. What could make a Halloween episode more scary? On today's Fractional Safety episode of the MEMIC Safety Experts Podcast killer causes and how to avoid them are the topic of discussion. 00;00;04;03 - 00;00;28;20 Pete Koch Hello out there in podcast land. You're listening to the MEMIC Safety Experts podcast. I'm your host, Peter Koch. Workplace safety can be scary or it can be when its principles, practices and policies aren't followed or ignored. While any time is a good time to review workplace hazards, Halloween provides an interesting backdrop to examine some of the more frightening ones. 00;00;29;19 - 00;01;00;14 Pete Koch Did you know that there were around 116 fatal workplace injuries reported to OSHA between January and August of this year 2022? If you are great, hopefully you've taken a look at them. But if you haven't. Let me tell you, the list reads like a bad horror novel. But instead of the killer hiding somewhere with an ax or a chainsaw and the victim makes bad choices, well, the victims are all regular people, and the killers are. 00;01;00;26 - 00;01;34;16 Pete Koch Well, they're more common than you think. The victims in these reports are all normal, everyday working men and women who came to work and never made it back home to their friends, their parents, children, partners or spouses. And they left a hole in the lives of those who are around them. The killers aren't crazy or extraordinary either. You're not going to see one of them crashing into your life like a marvel villain or smashing his ax through the door, like in The Shining or some supernatural force that you never saw coming. 00;01;34;27 - 00;02;01;23 Pete Koch They are, or at least most are hiding in plain sight. And if you pay attention, not even very carefully, but with an eye for potential, and not through the lens of experience or repetition, you can see them everywhere. And I guarantee one of you listeners has encountered one or more of these already today. And if you haven't yet, I expect you will. 00;02;02;25 - 00;02;22;24 Pete Koch So from the list, if you read the list that OSHA has got out there, by far the most common killer cause is, well, of course, falling and usually falls from height or some sort of height, but it can be a fall on the same level. So take, for example, a fatal fall that occurred back in January. Well, not that far away. 00;02;22;25 - 00;02;45;21 Pete Koch January of 2022, according to the OSHA investigation, a worker was unrolling a power washer hose on a roof when they fell through a skylight 30 feet to the floor and died from blunt force trauma injuries. I bet you you can relate if you've ever had that feeling of one moment, there's solid ground under your feet, in the next you're falling. 00;02;46;07 - 00;03;07;18 Pete Koch Maybe that feeling has come when you've taken the one inch mile fall. You know that one. I bet you were. You step down in the surface is just a little lower than what you expect. There's that split second feeling like you're falling a rush of adrenaline, a sizable contraction of every muscle while you try to regain your balance. 00;03;07;18 - 00;03;32;14 Pete Koch Then your foot, finally, after it seems an eternity, finds the lower level. And once you catch your breath, all is good in the world again. Those are bad enough. Well, stretch that first split second into almost two, which is an eternity in an unintended freefall. Increase your speed to almost 30 miles an hour and then break your fall. 00;03;32;15 - 00;03;56;20 Pete Koch Well, with whatever part of your body hits first, because that's not something that you can plan. Falling toward the earth at 30 miles an hour and then all is definitely not right with the world again. After that happens. And so where do I get that information? Well, if you do the math, you start thinking about how far or how fast am I going to be going if I fall 30 feet to the floor? 00;03;