Health & safety bulletin
Hand injury
1st February 2008
Xmo Strata has received a bulletin from ABB / ExxonMobil, detailing an injury that occurred on a site because protective gloves were not worn.
Working on site without gloves is completely unacceptable, and ExxonMobil have now made it clear that there will be a zero tolerance policy to anybody found not wearing gloves.
Wear gloves – your hands, and your job depend on it!
DESCRIPTION:
A dispenser Service Technician was scraping decals from a dispenser with a razor scraper in preparation for replacement. The blade he was using slipped, causing a laceration to the thumb on the hand that was not holding the scraper. He was not wearing gloves. The laceration required five stitches and was certainly preventable. He informed his supervisor of the incident and immediately went to a Medical Clinic for treatment. A JSA for general dispenser work existed and called for gloves. The technician reported that he knew he needed gloves, and he had some leather gloves on his truck, he just chose not to wear them.
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| Decal to be removed | Scraper used |
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Hand position when incident occurred |
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LEARNINGS:
- Develop and use task specific JSAs. Be sure to read, understand, and follow the JSA that you have.
- A Safe Performance Self Assessment should be done for every task to assess risks associated with those tasks to:
- identify alternative ways to complete the task, or
- identify alternative tools (heat gun verses a scraper) and
- PPE that may be required
- Safety is of the utmost importance, and wearing appropriate PPE is not optional.
REMEMBER - Safe Behaviours, Hazard Recognition and Proper PPE