Yukon 2009 Workplace Safety Record Called ‘Horrific’
The president/CEO of the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board says 2009 was a dark day for workplace safety in the territory.
With four worker deaths in a population of about 33,000, the territory has Canada’s worst workplace injury rate, according to Valerie Royce. She noted that the number of head injuries had tripled over the previous year.
“This is completely unacceptable. It’s horrific,” she told CBC news.
Royce says Yukon workers and employers aren’t paying enough attention to safety.
Read MorePolice say Hardhat Saved Worker’s Life
A construction worker in Ontario, Canada, survived a hit to the head, face and upper torso from a falling metal support beam weighing as much as 70 pounds (32 kilograms).
Police credit the use of a hardhat for saving the 31-year-old worker’s life. The beam fell eight stories before striking the worker, who was taken to hospital with serious injuries.
EDVAC Contracting Ltd. of Brampton, ON, was issued an order requiring it to take steps to ensure that beams cannot fall from buildings.
Read MoreCompany Fined in Connection With Supervisor’s Death
A Toronto-based company has been fined $150,000 more than two years after a 55-year-old plumbing supervisor was fatally struck on the head by a piece of falling metal.
While workers were moving an outrigger platform from the 23rd floor of a high-rise building to the 22nd floor, a worker noticed a 30-centimeter (12 inch) piece of cast-iron piping rolling toward the roof edge.
The worker tried to reach the moving piece of metal, but it fell over the edge and struck a plumbing supervisor working on the third floor. Although the victim had been wearing a hardhat, it was destroyed by the impact.
Maple Leaf Structural Ltd., now operating as Structform International Ltd., pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that an outrigger platform was moved in a manner that did not endanger a worker.
Ontario Ministry of Labour investigators found that the mezzanine had not been secured or taped off while the platform was being moved, nor was there any overhead protection, signage, or person warning workers of the potential hazard above them.
Read MoreHelmet Saves Worker From Serious Knock
Had a Natick, MA, construction worker not been wearing a helmet, the knock he received from a metal bar could have been fatal.
The worker at the Natick Mall jobsite suffered a head injury when a metal bar fell and struck him. In a daze, the victim was taken to a local medical clinic.
Firefighters said the man’s helmet likely saved him from serious injury.
Info to go:
For information on head protection and hardhat safety click on the link at www.SafeSupervisor.com
Read MoreFatality at a Wholesale and Retail Tire Service Company
REGION 1
Penalties totaling $132,500 have been proposed. An OSHA investigation is conducted after an employee is fatally struck on the head while inflating a tire. Two willful citations were issued for failure to remove from service any restraining device or barrier exhibiting damage that would decrease its effectiveness, and failure to ensure all inflation operations are done inside a tire restraining device or barrier. Other alleged violations include allowing employees to over-inflate tires while seating tire beads against rim flanges, failure to ensure that employees demonstrated and maintained the ability to service rim wheels safely, and having unguarded machinery in operation on the premises. [T.O. Haas LLC, Imperial, NB. Release No. 07-44-KAN, Jan. 12, 2007].
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