September/October
2013
Ground-level
slips, trips, and falls can result in serious injuries. To keep employees on
their feet, pay greater attention to training, environmental conditions, and
equipment, floor, and ground surfaces.
An employee slipped on motor oil that had spilled on the floor of
the mechanics shop and hurt his back. The health insurance claim was $26,000. A
worker walking through the scrapyard tripped over a hose that a colleague
forgot to put away. She sprained her ankle trying to avoid a fall. A driver
exiting his truck cab caught his heel on the step and fell, face front, to the
ground. He broke his wrist and was in a cast for six weeks, during which time
he was unable to work.
Slips, trips, and falls in the workplace might seem innocuous
enough, but they are the largest single category of workplace accidents,
constituting nearly 25 percent of all accidents, according to the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (Washington, D.C.). That’s about 3.8 million
disabling work injuries each year, according to SAIF Corp., a nonprofit,
state-chartered workers’ compensation company in Salem, Ore. Worse still,
slips, trips, and falls cause 15 percent of all accidental workplace deaths,
second only to motor vehicle accidents, OSHA reports. In addition to their
human cost, these accidents can result in serious monetary costs: They are the
source of 15 percent of all workers’ compensation costs, with the average claim
about $22,000, SAIF reports. Same-level slips, trips, and falls are nearly 11
percent of annual workers’ compensation claims, totaling $1.4 million a
year—only a fraction of the total direct and indirect costs of those injuries,
which might include loss of productivity, increased industrial insurance
premiums, and costs associated with training replacement workers.
Slips, trips, and falls are three distinct actions, SAIF notes. In
a slip, there is too little traction between your foot and the walking surface.
In a trip, your foot collides with an object, causing you to lose your balance.
In a fall, you lose contact with the walking or working surface. The good news
is that all three types of accidents are largely preventable when employees
understand what causes them and how to avoid and prevent them. For same-level
slips, trips, and falls, three interrelated hazards are often the cause:
equipment and floor conditions, environmental conditions, and human error.
Scrap facilities can avoid most of these injuries by paying attention to their
work and surroundings, following safe work practices, and insisting on good
housekeeping.
Surface
Problems
The very nature of a scrapyard—in which material is constantly
moving—can create a physical environment rife with slip, trip, and fall
hazards. “What was an empty spot yesterday is covered with scrap today. …
That’s the nature of the place,” says Jeff Wilke, director of safety at Alter
Trading Corp. (St. Louis). “So employees must be aware of their actual, current
surroundings at all times. And managers must constantly remind them.” It’s
important to identify pathways where workers and visitors can safely walk
around scrap—not over or through it, says ReMA Director of Safety John
Gilstrap, though he admits it can be difficult to do so. He recommends painting
or otherwise marking the floor or yard surface to clearly delineate the walking
path and instructing workers to keep materials, vehicles, and tools away from
the marked area. Use barrels or other barricades to create a detour path when
needed.
Scrapyard walkways and working surfaces—both inside and
outside—can be uneven, and it only takes a ¼-inch change in elevation for
someone to stub a toe and lose balance. Weather
conditions can cause walking surfaces to change as well. Ruts and potholes form
in wet weather, harden in dry weather, and fill up with water that freezes in
cold weather, posing risks for slips, trips, and falls at every stage. Also
hazardous is ponding water, which can conceal holes, says Charlie Keeling,
safety director at Gershow Recycling (Medford, N.Y.). Regular yard-surface
maintenance can reduce these hazards: Remove standing water, or fill the hole
with sand or dirt, and repair other damaged surfaces promptly or barricade them
to prevent accidents until you can make the repairs. Though precipitation can
make ground surfaces slippery at any time of year, when it’s combined with
freezing temperatures in the form of snow, sleet, hail, or ice, it brings a
greater risk that requires a multipronged effort to mitigate. The frozen
precipitation risk extends inside a building, too, Wilke points out. “Because
buildings can be cold as well, ice can form there, especially at the
entrances.”
Safety managers recommend having—and quickly implementing—snow and
ice removal procedures as well as treating walkways, parking lots, and working
areas with sand or salt. (Once the weather warms up, it’s important to sweep up
the salt and sand because they can pose slip hazards as well.) Overall, Wilke
notes, during winter storms, “there’s only so much one can do to keep the yard
clear. ... We cannot control all areas, and that elevates the possibility of a
slip, trip, or fall,” he says. “Every year, we focus on training, reminding
people to look where they are stepping.”
Training also is a continuing focus at E.L. Harvey & Sons
(Westborough, Mass.). For example, every truck is equipped with a bucket of
sand in the winter, says Jerry Sjogren, safety director, so drivers can
alleviate slippery conditions at their customers’ facilities, but that only
helps if the drivers use it. A driver who fell and injured his shoulder “knew
that the area he had parked in was slippery, but he didn’t take the time to
sprinkle sand for his own safety in conditions where exiting a truck was
particularly hazardous,” Sjogren says.
Good Housekeeping
Debris cluttering the floor, cords piled in the middle of a
walkway, spills not mopped up, burned-out light bulbs not replaced—these
situations and many more are slip, trip, and fall hazards created by poor
housekeeping. Housekeeping is everyone’s responsibility, from top executives on
down, safety managers emphasize. At its most basic level, that means everyone
should clean up after himself or herself. It’s such a simple measure, yet
managers can’t stress it enough. For housekeeping to be effective, it must
become part of the culture, part of the company’s mindset. It must be
reinforced by practices and programs that are monitored and audited, safety
managers say.
Employees often don’t recognize the inherent value of the material
they’re producing, Wilke explains. They feel it’s “just” scrap, so why bother
to pick it up? “The challenge is to get employees to understand we are a
production business, not a junkyard,” he says. “We are a manufacturing
process.” The product doesn’t come off an assembly line in nice, new boxes, but
it’s still valuable, he points out, and when scrap spills or scatters and
doesn’t get sold, that’s money lost.
As it does with all occupational hazards, OSHA expects workplaces
to engineer slip, trip, and fall hazards out of the environment whenever
possible. Rumpke Consolidated Cos. (Colerain Township, Ohio) examined its
operations and found places along its processing lines where there was no
reason for debris to collect, says Jerry Peters, corporate OSHA compliance manager.
For example, at its materials recovery facilities, the sides of the overhead
conveyors were not high enough to contain the materials moving on them, which
was spilling over and falling to the ground. The simple engineering solution
was to raise the height of the walls. Also, where one conveyor joined another,
there was a 90-degree turn that created a bottleneck and the wall was not high
enough to contain incoming loads. Here, Rumpke installed a higher, angled wall
that keeps conveyed materials from falling to the ground—or hitting people
walking nearby or working under the conveyors.
Scrap on the ground around machinery can cause a fall even when
the worker is standing still. “Often debris accumulates on the floor around
alligator shearing operations,” Gilstrap says. “If the operator moves or shifts
balance, he has no clear place to put his feet to catch himself.” A container
next to the shears keeps the cut material from accumulating underfoot. It’s no
surprise that trips and falls occur when items are not where they should
be—when people leave debris on the floor or leave tools out. Sjogren’s pet
peeve is when people use extension cords or hoses by throwing the entire length
in a tangle in the middle of a walkway or working area. “That’s just laziness,”
he says. “It’s far better to leave the excess near the beginning—at the wall
near the socket or source—and play out the hoses or cords in a straight line,
then return [them] when finished.”
Liquids that collect on workplace grounds also can create slip and
fall hazards. Motor oil and grease can spill in the maintenance shop or spill
or leak from equipment, and it’s important for employees to clean up such
spills quickly. Every scrap facility should have cleanup tools that can handle
the facility’s liquids—such as mops and absorbent material like kitty
litter—and warning signs or barriers. Once the area is clean and clear, any
safety barriers that were erected should be removed.
A less obvious housekeeping need is sufficient light. “Lighting
can be a concern in closed buildings,” Peters says. OSHA regulations and state
and local building codes set various minimum illumination requirements for
different kinds of work areas. Outdoor lighting can be an issue in winter,
Sjogren points out, because it’s dark in the early morning and late afternoon.
Alternatively, some yards operate at night to take advantage of cooler
temperatures or lower energy costs, increasing their need for outdoor lighting.
While housekeeping might seem like an informal task, it’s actually
an OSHA requirement for work and walking areas.
To comply with this requirement, some companies make housekeeping
procedures part of the daily routine. “Many managers will dedicate 20 to 30
minutes at the end of the shift to cleanup,” Wilke says. “For unscheduled
cleanups, managers should judge the urgency of the situation. For example, if
ball bearings have been dropped, they must all be retrieved immediately.”
Managers at all levels should allow and encourage the use of company time for
housekeeping, he says, as well as point out and remedy unacceptable delays in
cleaning up. “It is possible to spot what has accumulated in the course of an
hour or two and what has been accumulating longer,” he says.
Peters suggests having workers clean up their immediate work area
a few minutes before their break. If the area to be cleaned seems daunting,
break it into sections, he adds. “Instead of using two people to clean 100,000
square feet, for example, break the building down into a grid. Make each person
responsible for one 10-by-10-foot or 20-by-20-foot section of the work
environment,” he says.
Heightened awareness is the key, Wilke says. “Remind employees
that if they enter an area where they see a hazard, they should let management
know. Also, at the end of a shift, as part of housekeeping, it is vital to
clear away obstacles in walking areas in the yard. If something is left out of
place and there are several inches of snow during the night, people can fall
over those items the next morning.”
Focusing on
Feet
Much of the work to prevent slips, trips, and falls must focus on
the working environment, but additional risk reduction comes from appropriate
personal protective equipment—work boots—and walking defensively. OSHA requires
employers to ensure their employees wear appropriate footwear that’s in good
repair and replace it when worn out. In a scrapyard, “work boots with steel or
composite toes are the minimum requirement,” Gilstrap says. Oil-resistant,
anti-slip soles help mitigate this specific hazard, but the boots should
protect against puncture wounds, side cuts, and falling material as well.
Managers must determine the best height and other requirements for boots, such
as the need for shanks, based on the yard’s hazards, he adds.
Some companies have programs to defray the cost of protective
footwear. E.L. Harvey’s policy is to pay the first $70 toward a pair of work
boots in the form of a voucher workers can redeem at one of two stores or from
a shoemobile that visits the facility twice a year. Many boots cost about $90
to $100, Sjogren says, so the company will deduct the remaining $10, $20, or
$30 beyond the voucher’s value from the employee’s paycheck over time. “We
realize that for many people, $70 or $80 is a lot of money, and it’s possible
to go through two or three pairs of boots a year,” he says. “If we don’t
encourage people with this voucher system, some will have worn soles and torn
shoes.” Employees must take care of the boots, too, Wilke adds, for them to
serve their protective purpose. Oil and other slippery substances can get on
the soles, so it’s important to regularly wipe them clean.
How you walk in the workplace is just as important as the shoes
you wear, according to the Texas State Office of Risk Management (Austin,
Texas). Those who are rushing or running are less likely to spot a trip or fall
hazard—or to spot one at the last minute and lose their balance while trying to
avoid it. At the same time, managers must ensure employees don’t feel the need
to rush by giving them enough time to do their work. Heightened attention to
careful walking and other safe practices is especially important in light of
the fact that the work force has more and more older workers. “People are
staying on the job longer—or even re-entering the work force after retirement,”
Peters says. With older workers, the results of slips, trips, and falls can be
more serious. “When you fall and you are older, injuries can be more severe and
may not heal as fast,” Sjogren says. In fact, Gilstrap observes, “a shoulder fall
could mean a shoulder replacement.” Older workers could have balance and
stability issues or could be slower to react to a hazard or to adapt when
moving from lighter to darker surroundings.
Defensive walking techniques include those for safely carrying a
load so that employees can see where they are stepping and for stepping over
obstacles that cannot be avoided. SAIF Corp. prescribes turning sideways, like
you would when getting out of a bathtub, to step over obstacles that are higher
than mid-calf or when walking in slippery conditions. Starting in a sideways
stance with both feet planted on the ground, first move the foot closest to the
obstacle over it. Plant that foot on the ground, then move the other foot over
the obstacle. This way, when the second foot is in motion, you can still easily
see it to make sure it clears the obstacle.
Defensive walking becomes even more critical when there’s snow or
ice on the ground. Snow could conceal ice or other hazards, such as potholes,
pieces of scrap, and tools that should have been put away. Black ice can be
hard to detect. At E.L. Harvey’s winter safety meetings, Sjogren reminds staff
to shuffle on slippery surfaces, shortening their gait, with toes pointed
slightly outward. In other words, he says, “walk like a penguin. Penguins don’t
slip or fall.” Clip-on ice cleats or similar traction aids over work boots also
can help workers get a grip on icy surfaces. Such traction aids cost about $18
a pair, Sjogren says. The company started providing them after two of its
drivers suffered shoulder injuries from falling; each accident cost the company
more than $50,000.
Training
and Monitoring
To keep slip, trip, and fall hazards—and the housekeeping that can
prevent them—at the top of the workday agenda, these safety managers recommend
continual training, safety checklists, audits, and other tools. Checklists
include line items like keeping work areas and walkways clear, making sure
employees are using PPE, and specific housekeeping tasks. Audits can expedite repairs
and follow-through and provide opportunities for training. (For examples, see
“A Helping Hand” on page 115.)
Yards that do a stellar job with the work environment still fall
victim to slip, trip, and fall injuries due to human error: the failure to follow
safety rules and practices, haste, a moment of inattention, laziness, and more.
Keeling decries the complacency—and injury—that come when an employee has done
something a thousand times. Eventually, the worker thinks it’s all right to
take shortcuts, he says, and not follow safe working procedures. In addition to
continually training employees in safe behavior, employers must ensure there is
no real or perceived payoff for unsafe behavior, like temporary production
gain, fitting in with co-workers, or impressing managers who don’t value
safety. Rumpke managers and supervisors conduct weekly and monthly safety
audits, and regional safety personnel perform quarterly audits. At Gershow, in
addition to performing regular inspections, managers observe and correct risky
behavior every day, Keeling says. “They sometimes [give] ad hoc instruction one
on one [to] explain what an employee is doing wrong and what the results can
be. This is especially important given the day-to-day changes in the
configuration of what is in the yard.”
A relatively new but highly effective tool for auditing slip,
trip, and fall hazards is the smartphone, which puts a camera in nearly
everyone’s pocket. “When we do audits, we take photos of problem areas, such as
clutter in a room. The photo is uploaded into the safety report,” Wilke says.
Then, “the question we ask is, ‘How are you going to fix this and keep it
clean? [Does it require] retraining? Additional shelving?’ It helps that the
president of the company is a big advocate of proper housekeeping,” he adds. Requiring
employees to report not just injuries but also near misses can prove
instructive. In Alter’s program “Employees Speaking Up for Safety,” workers are
divided into teams, Wilke says. If a team reports an unsafe practice or
procedure or a near miss, it gets points. If its members take actions to
mitigate the hazard, they get more points. Every quarter points are tallied,
and team members can earn $30 Walmart gift cards for their efforts. At Rumpke,
employees who were not hurt but had a near-miss incident send in “FYI Reports,”
Peters says. “We get far more of these than actual injury reports, and we
monitor them very carefully,” he says. “It comes down to looking at what almost
happened and putting in simple corrective actions.” Employees also can report
serious safety infringements or examples of noncompliance to a confidential
hotline that a third-party firm operates on Rumpke’s behalf. It takes an
ongoing commitment to housekeeping, equipment maintenance, training, and hazard
prevention to keep workers safe from slips, trips, and falls. The task might
seem overwhelming, but Peters offers the reminder that “the best way to eat an
elephant is to take one bite at a time.”
Anita
Blumenthal, a freelance writer based in Potomac, Md., contributed to this
story.
Safe
Vehicle Entries and Exits
Many workplace slips and falls occur when drivers are getting in
or out of the cab of a truck or other equipment. As with ground-level hazards,
preventing such injuries requires training workers in safe practices, reminding
them of and enforcing such practices, and ensuring the equipment is in good
repair.
“The greatest problem [that leads to such injuries] is that a
driver or worker fails to use the three-point stance,” says Commodor Hall,
ISRI’s transportation safety manager. “That is, have both hands on the grab
handles and one foot on a step—or if you have to take one hand off the grab
handle, you have both feet on a step or the ground.” Other safe vehicle entry
and exit practices are not complicated, Hall says. “Do not use the door frame
or door edges rather than the grab handle. Never climb onto the tires or wheel
surface; always use the steps. Never carry anything in your hands [while
entering and exiting]. And finally, always face the vehicle, every time, when
ascending or descending.”
Even if they’ve been trained to do it the right way, “drivers
typically exit [a vehicle] like they are walking down steps,” Hall says.
“Moreover, at the end of the day, people tend to rush rather than descend
slowly. Often, they jump. But for a 200-pound man, jumping from the cab puts
more than seven times that amount of stress—1,400 pounds—on his joints, knees,
and ankles,” which is a recipe for injury. Managers should continually instruct
and remind drivers of proper procedures and even install reminder decals in the
cab, Hall says. “It’s not reiterated enough–employers do not talk about it
enough,” he adds. “They are focused on other matters and take it for granted
that the driver knows these things.” Further, he says, managers must ensure
drivers don’t see a real or perceived benefit for unsafe behavior.
Managers and drivers share the responsibility for making sure the
equipment allows the use of safe entry and exit practices, Hall notes. Managers
must inspect each vehicle or piece of equipment for steps and grab handles that
are properly secured and in good order and ensure employees wear work boots.
Vehicle operators must call equipment issues to the manager’s attention and
keep the cab clean so they don’t track dirt and oil from the cab onto the
steps.
A Helping
Hand
For ideas on slip, trip, and fall safety training and preventive
actions, consult the following resources:
--The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Washington,
D.C.) regulations on slips, trips, and falls are on its website, www.osha.gov.
The site also offers supporting documents such as fact sheets, FAQs, and
PowerPoint presentations on safety checklists and audits, as well as training
guidelines. To find them, search the website for “slips, trips, and falls.”
--SAIF Corp. (Salem, Ore.), the state-chartered, nonprofit
workers’ compensation insurance company for Oregon, has a free 49-page booklet
on preventing slips, trips, and falls, including sample safety checklists and
guidelines for training employees. Search its website, www.saif.com, for
“slips, trips, and falls booklet.”
--The website of the Texas State Office of Risk Management
(Austin, Texas) defines same-level slips, trips, and falls and offers training
suggestions to help mitigate such hazards.
Go to sorm.state.tx.us and search for “same-level slips, trips, and falls.”
--New Pig Corp. (Tipton, Pa.), which sells a wide range of
spill-control and related products, offers floor-safety checklists and other
helpful guidelines on its website, www.newpig.com.