By Josh Cable, Occupational Hazards Magazine

If yours is the type of office where computers, printers, monitors, scanners, lamps, CD players, cell phones and iPod chargers typically are plugged into one inexpensive, overloaded power strip, the nonprofit Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI) cautions that such a practice not only is unsightly but also dangerous.
According ESFI, overloaded electrical circuits pose both an electrocution and fire hazard. While the number of outlets in offices often is a factor that is out of employers’ – and employees’ – control, ESFI recommends these steps to stay safe from electrical hazards:
 
If you must use a power strip, use a name-brand product from a reputable retailer. Low-quality or counterfeit power strips may contain wiring that isn’t adequate to carry the load.

• Place power strips where there is plenty of air circulation to disperse heat.
• Do not attempt to plug grounded (three-prong) cords into ungrounded (two-slot) outlets.
• Do not bind, kink or knot electrical cords.
• Never run power cords under rugs or where chairs can roll over them.
• Keep cords close to a wall to avoid trip hazards.
• Keep all non-critical electrical items unplugged until you need to use them.
• Consider charging battery-operated devices in another area.

If your computer screen flickers or fades, or you detect a burning smell, power down and immediately contact the building engineer.

If you work from home, have a licensed electrician conduct an electrical inspection.

For additional electrical safety information, visit the foundation’s Web site or call (703) 841-3229.

WHILE a majority of U.S. adults think about home safety often, very few actually take action to make their home safer from the five leading causes of home injury — falls, poisonings, fires and burns, choking/suffocation and drowning.

The findings are a result of a new survey conducted as part of the Home Safety Council’s Hands on Home Safety campaign. The survey polled U.S. adults to reveal the public’s level of awareness around the most common home dangers and determine the safety actions they have taken to protect themselves and their families.

While the majority of U.S. adults (82 percent) indicated that they are very knowledgeable or somewhat knowledgeable about what they can do to make their homes safer, only one-third (36 percent) were able to name a safety action they have already taken. The survey also found that more than a quarter (26 percent) of U.S. adults said they are not worried that an injury may occur in their own home.

“These findings speak directly to the need for additional education to increase the public’s level of awareness around the leading causes of home injury and the actions they can take to protect against injury risks,” said Angela Mickalide, director of education and outreach for the Home Safety Council. “Each year in our nation home-related injuries result in nearly 20,000 deaths and 21 million medical visits, many of which are almost entirely avoidable with proper education and a few simple home modifications.”

Falls Prevention:

Key Findings: When asked to identify which type of injury they are most worried might happen in the home, only about one-fifth (19 percent) of survey respondents were concerned about falls — the leading cause of home injury death.

Home Safety Tips:

• Have grab bars in the tub and shower.
• Have bright lights over stairs and steps and on landings.
• Have handrails on both sides of the stairs and steps.
• Use a ladder for climbing instead of a stool or furniture.
• Use baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs, if babies or toddlers live in or visit your home.

Poisoning Prevention:

Key Findings: Poisonings are the second-leading cause of home injury, yet less than one-fifth of U.S. adults (18 percent) have put safety locks on their cabinets or posted the Poison Control Hotline on or near all phones. Just more than one-third (39 percent) of survey respondents indicated that they have installed carbon-monoxide detectors near sleeping areas in their homes.

Home Safety Tips:

• Lock poisons, cleaners, medications and all dangerous items in a place where children can’t reach them.
• Keep all cleaners in their original containers. Do not mix them together.
• Use medications carefully. Follow the directions. Use child resistant lids.
• Install carbon-monoxide detectors near sleeping areas.
• Call the Poison Control Center at 1-800-222-1222 if someone takes poison. This number will connect you to emergency help in your area.

Home Fire Safety:

Key Findings: Fires and burns are the third leading cause of unintentional home injury death and account for 3,400 fatalities each year. The new survey found that while almost all U.S. adults (93 percent) have a smoke alarm in their home, only one-quarter (26 percent) have a fire escape plan in place.

Home Fire Safety Tips:

• Have working smoke alarms and hold fire drills. If you build a new home, install fire sprinklers.
• Stay by the stove when cooking, especially when you are frying food.
• Keep space heaters at least three feet away from anything that can burn. Turn them off when you leave the room or go to sleep.
• If you smoke, smoke outside. Use deep ashtrays and put water in them before you empty them. Lock matches and lighters in a place where children can’t reach them. \
•  Only light candles when an adult is in the room. Blow the candle out if you leave the room or go to sleep.

Choking & Suffocation Prevention:

Key Findings: Home Safety Council research shows that choking/suffocation is the second leading cause of home injury death for children under the age of 14 and the fourth leading cause overall. When asked about safety behaviors followed in the home, the new survey revealed that only 39 percent of respondents require children to be seated while eating, putting them at risk for choking.

Home Safety Tips:

• Things that can fit through a toilet paper tube can cause a young child to choke.
• Keep coins, latex balloons and hard round foods, such as peanuts and hard candy, out of children’s reach.
• Place children to bed on their backs. Don’t put pillows, comforters or toys in cribs.
• Clip the loops in window cords and place them up high where children can’t get them.
• Read the labels on all toys, especially if they have small parts. Be sure that your child is old enough to play with them.
• Tell children to sit down when they eat and to take small bites

Water Safety:

Key Findings: Drowning presents a sudden and silent danger, yet according to the new survey, less than half (49 percent) of U.S. adults actively supervise children when they are in or near water.

Water Safety Tips:

• Stay within an arm’s length of children in and around water. This includes bathtubs, toilets, pools and spas — even buckets of water.
• Put a high fence all the way around your pool or spa. Always keep the gate closed and locked.
• Empty large buckets and wading pools after using them. Keep them upside down when not in use.
• Make sure your children always swim with a grownup. No child or adult should swim alone.
• Keep your hot water at or below 120 degrees Fahrenheit to prevent burns.

For more information on ways to avoid injuries and protect loved ones in and around your home, visit http://www.homesafetycouncil.org.

Many businesses today have some form of compressed gas on-site.  As a scuba diver, one of the incidents we fear the most is a blown valve on a scuba tank.  The blown valve will let 3000 pounds per square inch of compressed gas come out a hole, the size of a dime.  The tank will become a torpedo.  The US DOT’s PHMSA considered any compressed gas a hazardous materials, even a fire extinguisher.  OSHA has safety standards (1910.101) when dealing compressed gases.  Even Homeland Security is developing new standards to deal with the threat of compress gases such as chlorine gas.  Compressed gas safety can prevent serious injury or death.

If your company transports compressed gases in commerce, the company must comply with US DOT shipping requirements and training, and if you use compressed gas on-site, such as acetylene, you must comply with OSHA standards and training.  (more…)

It’s that time of year when we can shed the winter hats, coats and gloves and focus on cleaning up and renewing our fire safety plans. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), a structure fire is reported every 62 seconds and a fire death occurs every two hours and 23 minutes. Are you prepared in the event of a fire? This year, the Fire Equipment Manufacturers’ Association encourages everyone to focus on rituals that will improve fire safety in the workplace.
Do some spring cleaning and take stock of storage areas and discard unneeded packaging, cardboard and paper. Sweep storage areas, server rooms, stockrooms and properly store hazardous materials. Make sure exit ways aren’t blocked and clear areas at least three feet from electrical equipment and heat sources.  Check your fire extinguishers. Make sure there are fire extinguishers located throughout your workplace and inspect pressure gauges to make sure they are fully charged. If they are not charged, contact a local fire equipment service company in your phone book to help you. Around your work area, assess where the closest fire extinguisher is located, as well as the standpipe fire hose station. Make sure they appear to be operational and not tampered with.
Focus on education and provide employees with information on how to use important fire equipment at http://www.fireextinguisher.com/, http://www.rackhosetraining.com/ and http://www.firesystemstraining.org.
Take the time to learn about the critical role fire extinguishers play in fire safety: Download printable materials on fire extinguishers and post them in a central location at work. You may even consider hosting a fire safety training event with the local fire department. They can hold actual fire extinguisher demonstrations upon request.

The Role of Fire Extinguishers

Each year, there are approximately 1.6 million fires reported in the United States. These fires cause 3,600 deaths, 18,000 injuries, and $10.7 billion in property damage every year, according to NFPA.

Portable fire extinguishers can mean the difference between life and death — a single flame and a tragedy. When a fire is put out in the first three minutes, lives are saved and property loss is minimized. A portable fire extinguisher is your first defense against fire when it is small, contained and everyone is safe.

While fire extinguishers are inexpensive and do not take up much space, they do require that you know how to use one properly and that they be inspected every year to ensure they are still serviceable. Take notice if a fire extinguisher appears to be tampered with or damaged at work. Call a local fire extinguisher maintenance company to inspect the unit. Portable fire extinguishers are an inexpensive insurance policy that hopefully will never be used. But when a fire strikes, it is not the time to learn how to use one. Use the spring cleaning season as the time to focus on basic fire safety rituals. Also take a moment for fire extinguisher education. It could save your life.

THE National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has developed a new guide that provides general information to assist in identifying the needs of people with disabilities related to emergency evacuation planning.

According to the U.S Census Bureau, nearly 49 million Americans had one or more disabilities in 2000. The guide addresses the need for evacuation plans to include everyone, and highlights the needs, criteria and minimum information required to incorporate appropriate planning strategies for people with disabilities into these plans.

“Other than preventing an emergency before it happens, having a plan and practicing it is the best way to prepare ourselves for the unexpected,” said James M. Shannon, NFPA’s president. “NFPA developed this guide as a resource for creating an all-inclusive evacuation plan that considers everyone’s needs for evacuation, including the needs of people with disabilities.”

The document is a valuable resource for people with disabilities as well as employers, building owners and managers, and others involved in developing emergency evacuation plans. Critical information on the operational, planning, and response elements necessary to develop a well-thought-out plan for evacuating a building or taking other appropriate action in the event of an emergency are covered.

Five general categories of disabilities covered in the guide include mobility impairments, visual impairments, hearing impairments, speech impairments, and cognitive impairments. Four elements of evacuation information needed by occupants are: notification, way finding, use of way, and assistance. Basically, in the event of an emergency, a person would need to be notified of the emergency; identify a way out; assess if they can get out on their own, with the help of a device, or with assistance; and identify and express if assistance is needed and what that would involve.

Materials include a personal emergency evacuation planning checklist that building services managers and people with disabilities can use to design a personalized evacuation plan.

The Emergency Evacuation Planning Guide for People with Disabilities is available for download at no cost from NFPA’s Web site: http://www.nfpa.org/evacuationguide.

NFPA National Study Finds Some Improvement, Yet Ongoing Needs Persist In America’s Fire Departments

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) announced on March 15 the results of a second comprehensive study examining the needs and response capabilities of the nation’s fire service and accompanying reports on each state in the country. The studies, completed for the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA), also compared the needs reported from the first assessment, conducted in 2001, with the resources requested under the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program and looked to see if the needs identified in the first survey had been substantially reduced as a result of the special funding.

“NFPA was pleased to conduct these follow-up studies as a way to illustrate not only the challenges facing today’s fire service, but what steps can be implemented for safer and more effective responses,” NFPA President James M. Shannon said. “The reports show only slight improvement and that is simply not good enough. The Fire Act grants have been well targeted, as the studies show, but they are dwarfed by the size of the needs. It is essential we provide the nation’s fire service with the tools to protect themselves and all of us in both traditional and extraordinary situations.”

Homeland Security Preparedness

The survey asked whether the fire department’s responsibility included a building collapse scenario and a scenario involving release of chemical or biological agents, each with a defined number of casualties or occupants in need of rescue. If the answer was yes, the survey asked whether the department could address such emergencies with local trained personnel and specialized equipment and whether the department had a written agreement to coordinate any non-local resources that might be needed in response.

• None of the homeland security related equipment needs showed marked improvement, nor did any of the personnel needs related to those situations.
• There was improvement in the existence of written agreements to coordinate the use of outside personnel and equipment in a homeland security response.
• The overall percentage of departments with written plans for a building collapse scenario increased by 7 percentage points (from 19 percent to 26 percent).
• The overall percentage of departments with written plans for a biological or chemical agent scenario increased by 9 percentage points (from 21 percent to 30 percent).

Safe and Effective Firefighting

Many of the estimated needs for personal protective equipment — self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), personal alert safety system (PASS) devices, and personal protective clothing – were reduced but there continues to be a need for additional personal protective equipment.

• The percentage of departments without enough SCBA to equip a shift declined by 8 percentage points (from 36 percent to 28 percent).
• The percentage without enough PASS devices to equip a shift declined by 13 percentage points (from 42 percent to 29 percent).
• The percentage where not all firefighters have personal protective clothing was 8 percent, but nearly 100,000 firefighters serve in those departments.
• The majority (53 percent) of departments that provide structural firefighting have not provided formal training to all their personnel involved in structural firefighting, and 42 percent of U.S. firefighters serve in these departments.
• Formal training also has not been provided to all involved personnel in the majority of departments providing emergency medical service (53 percent), hazardous material response (71 percent), wildland firefighting (74 percent), and technical rescue (88 percent).
• Despite modest progress, three-fifths to three-fourths of the nation’s fire departments still do not have enough fire stations, or the firefighters to staff them, to achieve widely recognized response-time guidelines and lack key equipment, prevention programs and training. More specifically, the estimates are 61 percent of fire departments protecting communities of 50,000 to 99,999 population do not have enough fire stations, as do 65 percent to 75 percent of fire departments protecting communities of 0 to 49,999 population or 100,000 to 499,999 population. For the small number of fire departments protecting communities of 500,000 population or more, the estimate is that 82 percent to 92 percent of those fire departments do not have enough fire stations.

Regardless of the type of need — equipment, training, apparatus or personnel — the needs are greater in smaller communities and are greatest in rural America (communities under 2,500 population).

The full national reports “Four Years Later — A Second Needs Assessment of the U.S. Fire Service” and “Matching Assistance to Firefighter Grants to the Reported Needs of the U.S. Fire Services” — and individual state reports are available at www.nfpa.org/needsassessment. The Website also has information on NFPA codes and standards of use in homeland security preparedness and the assurance of firefighter health and safety.