USA
Read the latest articles and insight from Safe Supervisor US
Rail Company Fined Over Level Crossing Deaths
Network Rail in England has been fined the equivalent of nearly $1.6 million and ordered to pay $95,000 in costs after admitting health and safety breaches that contributed to the deaths of two young teenage girls. The two friends, ages 13 and 14, were killed instantly when they were struck by a train while crossing a railway line in southeast England. Although a series of risk assessments highlighting the dangers of the Elsenham Station crossing in Essex had been undertaken, the company had not acted on a recommendation for the installation...
read moreOSHA Requests Concrete Comments
OSHA is seeking comments from employers regarding how to prevent injuries and deaths among workers involved in reinforcing concrete activities in construction, general industry, agriculture and the maritime industry. It is also interested in hearing about how employers go about preventing injuries and deaths relating to vehicles and mobile equipment backing into workers in those industries. Between 2000 and 2009, more than 30 American workers died while performing reinforcement concrete activities. They were killed as a result of impalement,...
read moreConstruction Superintendent Sentenced for Misleading Investigators
A construction site superintendent from South Dakota has been sentenced to six months’ house detention with electronic monitoring for willfully violating an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulation with regard to the fatal fall of one of his workers. The 29-year-old victim, Carl Beck, fell 42 feet (nearly 13 meters) while helping install a motel roof in the Pittsburgh, PA, area in 2009. Superintendent Robert Christopher Kennedy, 60, pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to protect employees with anchored safety lines...
read moreOSHA Embraces Global Chemical Labeling System
The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says that its plans to align its Hazard Communication Standard with the United Nation’s Globally Harmonized System of Classifying and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) will benefit workers by reducing confusion about chemical hazards. Once fully implemented in 2016, OSHA expects that the alignment will prevent an estimated 43 work-related deaths and 585 worker injuries and illnesses each year, along with boosting US productivity by an estimated $475.2 million. To facilitate understanding...
read moreUnusual Incident Claims Worker’s Life
The construction industry experiences a large number of struck-by injuries and fatalities, but an unusual incident recently took the life of a young father of two children. Victor “Bo” Towery, a 34-year-old heavy machine operator employed by A & A Grading and Hauling in Bessemer City, NC, died after being struck by an excavator set into motion by a large pipe that bumped one of its control levers. Towery, of Clover, NC, was standing in front of the five-ton excavator when it moved, crushing him. He was alive at the scene, but died...
read more
