
3 Common Workplace Injuries and How to Prevent Them
Thousands of people get injured in factories, industrial worksites and construction sites every year in the US, and yet, these numbers are almost trivial to how things were even just five years ago. Unfortunately, a lot of the fatal and non-fatal accidents are often a result of negligence on either the employer’s or the employee’s part and in some cases, both parties share the blame. By going through the five common workplace injuries listed below, it is possible to prevent them from ever happening in your own factory or site and in turn, save the lives of your workers.
Machine Entanglement
One of the worst, and most horrifying accidents, which everyone dreads in a workplace that deals with heavy machinery, is machine entanglement. This is a terrible scenario where a part of the worker’s body or clothing gets inside a moving part of the machine. Death and loss of limb and other body parts is almost a surety in such accidents and that’s exactly why factories and industrial worksites with heavy, potentially dangerous machines now have mesh curtains. The ejection curtains protect employees working with powerful hydraulic press machines by standing between the two as a safety barrier, but without restricting easy access to those machines.
Falls
The most common injury at a workplace is of course, falling. They are common even in comparatively safer, office environments as well, but in an industrial manufacturing plant or at a construction site, a fall can be lethal. The rule of thumb and pretty much a standard safety measure these days is wearing the safety lines while working at elevated heights, along with the other standard safety gear. Even in offices, it is mandatory now to have the “Wet Floor” sign up as wet floors are often the culprit behind regular slips and falls.
Overexertion
It doesn’t matter how experienced or strong a person is, if they are human, they have a limit and it is important for the employee and the employers to know human limits and schedule the work accordingly. In order to prevent severe injuries due to repetitive motions and even death due to overexertion, your managers must ensure that none of the employees are overexerting themselves above the set standards. Meaning well won’t matter much when a tendon snaps from overworking or trying to lift something that’s too heavy.
How to Prevent Them
There is no universal way to prevent each and every possible injury from ever happening at your workplace, in spite of the best efforts, but they can certainly be lessened in occurrence. There are really just two ways to make workplaces safer and they are as follows:
Employee Training: Each and every employee working with machines need to be properly trained in order to handle the equipment safely and efficiently. When new equipment comes in, even experienced employees may need a bit of training to get accustomed to the changes.
Safety Equipment: It starts from the humble hard hat and from there on, the safety equipment for a certain job depends on the job itself. It is the duty of the employer to provide a safe working environment for the employees, so as long as the right safety measures are in place, accidents should be rare.
Make sure you have the right safety procedures in place to avoid injury.…