On August 27, 2010, at 6:00 p.m., injured worker and Paralympics medalist Josh Dueck took to Empire Field and the Pacific National Exhibition in British Columbia to attempt to break a world record for the “most High Fives by any individual in 24 hours.” The record attempt was part of WorkSafeBC’s Raise Your Hand campaign — an annual initiative to increase young workers’ understanding of their safety rights and how to stay safe at work.

Dueck became paralyzed from the waist down in a workplace accident at the age of 23. Since then, he has become a world-champion para-alpine skier. He has won national and international competitions and recently won a silver medal at the 2010 Paralympics Winter Games. And as a member of the WorkSafeBC Paralympics Speaker program, he has shared his experiences with youth across British Columbia for the past several years.

Since 2007,  the Raise Your Hand campaign has used its website at RaiseYourHand.com, street teams that travel to high schools and universities around the province, and other means to raise awareness about workplace safety to the province’s 350,000 young workers.

Edmonton-based equipment dealer Finning Canada faces four counts for violations of Alberta’s occupational health and safety code in the wake of a worker’s death two years ago.

On July 8, 2008, a worker was killed on the job at Suncor Energy Inc’s Millennium mine site near Fort McMurray, when he and other Finning workers were moving a disabled hauling truck to the shop for repairs. The worker was run over by the vehicle and fatally injured, and two other workers also sustained minor injuries in the accident. One was treated on-site, while the other was taken to hospital in Grande Prairie, where he was treated and released.  A stop-work order was issued at the time, restricted to the immediate area around the site of the accident.

Finning released a statement on its website calling the worker’s death “truly a tragic incident – one that will forever impact Kevin’s family, all those who worked alongside him in the oil sands and our company as a whole.” The statement goes on to say that “at Finning, safety is a core value that influences everything we do. We remain committed to achieving and sustaining health and safety excellence in all of our business operations.”

The charges the company faces include;

• Failing as an employer to ensure, as far as it is reasonably practicable to do so, the health and safety of workers engaged in the work of that employer, as stipulated under section 2(1)(a)(i) of the provincial Occupational Health & Safety Act;
• Violation of sections 7(4) and 8(1) of the Act. Section 7(4) states that an employer must ensure that a hazard assessment is repeated at reasonably practicable intervals to prevent the development of unsafe and unhealthy working conditions.  Section 8(1) stipulates that an employer must involve affected workers in the hazard assessment and in the control or elimination of the hazards identified.
• Violation of section 15(1) of the Act, which demands that an employer must ensure that a worker is trained in the safe operation of the equipment the worker is required to operate.

The company is scheduled to first appear in Fort McMurray Provincial Court August 30 .

A Toronto researcher is looking at ways to reduce the number of falls on ice, by trying to develop what she refers to as “winter tires for feet.”

Jennifer Hsu, (her name is pronounced “shoe” — no lie), a PhD candidate in biomedical and mechanical engineering at the University of Toronto, has spent a large portion of her summer inside of a cold lab at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute,  trying to find out more about why and how people fall during the winter months, in the hope that she might design shoes that could ultimately help to  prevent falls.

Hsu has been concentrating on falls by postal workers in the past, because they work outside in all conditions and often lose work time because of injuries suffered through falls on ice. More specifically, she’s looking at the cleats Canada Post provides for mail carriers.

Coat wearing volunteers in the climate-controlled lab,  which is typically set to temperatures as low as –20°C, traipse over walkways  designed to imitate surfaces such as steep ramps and stairs, while sensors record their movements. Each volunteer is equipped with a safety harness to prevent them from being injured.

In addition to researching the materials and design of the shoes, Hsu is also examining how people walk while wearing different types of footwear.

Past research has shown that most falls occur at a temperature of about 0°C outside, when a thin layer of water ices over, or after a thick layer of snow falls on top of ice . It is estimated the injuries due to falls cost the Canadian health care system about $2.8 billion a year.

Hsu’s research is being conducted with the help of an Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board grant.

Following a recent  90-day safety enforcement blitz of more than 2,800 construction sites that uncovered what the Ontario Labour Ministry considered to be an unacceptable number of safety infractions throughout the province,  the government has launched a new campaign aimed at worker safety education.

The blitz found violations ranging from missing guardrails to inappropriate use of scaffolding, and laid bare a marked lack of worker and supervisor training.  As a result, the ministry has ordered a culture change of sorts, and have made a new commitment to constant prevention and protection.

The new safety campaign will focus on education, and features posters with X-rays of broken bones with the tagline “Don’t let these be the last pictures someone takes of you.” The ministry will also operate a toll-free line, 1-877-202-2008, for anyone to report unsafe conditions on a work site.  To encourage absolutely anyone who sees something unsafe to call the line, all calls will be anonymous, and all will be passed on to inspectors for investigation.

The ministry also intends to pass on the message through its web-site and Twitter, as well as in ethnic newspapers, where it will be delivered in 10 languages.

Beer drinkers say they like their beer with a good head on it, but this probably isn’t what they mean.

It seems that a tiny crack in a fermentation vat at the Okanagan Springs brewery in Vernon, B.C., was the culprit in a small explosion that caused more than 32,000 litres of cream beer foam to cover a downtown street. Okanagan Springs is the largest craft brewery in British Columbia and the third largest brewer in the country.

The beer blast, which occurred in the middle of a Thursday afternoon July 22, was powerful enough to tear an aluminum loading door off its hinges. It also caused structural damage to an outside wall.

Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, although WorkSafeBC is investigating the incident after one worker at the brewery suffered a minor hand injury.

By chance, a perfectly-timed rainstorm flushed most of the beer that had spilled into the streets down into sewers, although the brewery’s operations manager shut down most of the brewery for almost a full day as workers cleaned up the remains from several hundred beer bottles smashed by the blast.

Alberta’s provincial government has decided it’s time to get tough in its approach to occupational health and safety.

In a decision intended to send a message to every company that fails to comply with health and safety rules, Employment Minister Thomas Lukaszuk has announced that “the hammer is coming down,” so beginning this September,  the safety records of Alberta’s scofflaw companies will be posted online.

The announcement comes in the wake of increased criticism for what many consider to be its lax enforcement of occupational health requirements. Over the next several months, the province will make procedural changes designed to step up enforcement, and ensure that workplace safety directives are more effectively enforced.

The overall objective is to make sure all employers in Alberta understand the consequences of non-compliance with occupational health and safety rules. In addition to the online publication of the names of non-compliant companies, the province will also hire eight more workplace safety officers, and has started a pilot project to inspect workplaces at night and on weekends. It will now be tougher to ignore the rules.

Eight years ago, the government promised to publicize businesses’ workplace safety records, but decided privacy rules prevented it from doing so. Lukaszuk, however, claims that he recently checked with experts and found that to be untrue.

In April, the Auditor General’s office lambasted the government for allowing a relatively small group of employers to routinely violate occupational health and safety orders. Those companies were found to have had worker injury rates three to four times higher than the provincial average.

Ontario courts continue to slam companies with huge fines for violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Wal-Mart Canada Corp., for example, was hit with two fines totaling $120,000 in less than a month; a $45,000 fine on June 23 and a $75,000 fine on July 16.

The $45,000 fine resulted from an incident that occurred on September 27, 2008. A worker was operating a forklift outside a Wal-Mart store in Barrie, to place skids of bottled water near the main entrance. While doing so, the forklift struck and injured a customer’s feet.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the worker did not have full view of the forklift path of travel and its load.

In that case, the company pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the operator of material handling equipment has a full view of the intended path of travel of the equipment or its load, and to failing to make sure material handling equipment is only operated as directed by a competent signaler who is stationed in full view of the operator with a full view of the intended path of travel of the vehicle and its load.

The $75,000 fine resulted from an incident that occurred on January 19, 2009, when a worker employed by a Wal-Mart store in Welland climbed a ladder to get five boxes of toys from a shelf. As the worker began to climb back down with the boxes held in one arm, he missed a step at the bottom of the ladder and fell, injuring his arm.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the worker carried the boxes in such a way that his or her safety was endangered by not keeping the required level of contact with the ladder.

Wal-Mart Canada Corp. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that materials required to be lifted, carried or moved were lifted, carried or moved in a way that did not endanger the safety of any worker.

Also on July 16, Concord-based Welded Tube of Canada was fined $140,000 for an incident that occurred on July 31, 2008, in which a worker was injured as he prepared a two-and-a-half ton bundle of steel tubes and sent them down a conveyor to be processed for shipping. That worker and a co-worker then began to make a mechanical adjustment in the path of the conveyor. The bundle of tubes needed to be rearranged, so it was sent back on the same conveyor, where it struck the worker and injured his leg.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the conveyor was not protected by a guard to prevent access to the path of travel while it was in motion.

Welded Tube of Canada pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a machine with moving parts that may endanger a worker is equipped with a guard or other device which prevents access to the moving parts.

And on July 9, 2010, grocery store operator Metro Ontario Inc. was fined $100,000 for an incident that occurred on January 18, 2009. A worker at the company’s North Bay location was using a band saw to cut beef in the meat department, when his hand slipped, and the saw’s blade partially amputated some of his fingers.

That Ministry of Labour investigation found that the machine’s blade was improperly guarded, and Metro Ontario Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the saw was equipped with a guard that prevented access to its moving blade.

In addition to the huge fines levied in the cases above, in each case the court imposed a 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act, which is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime.

A coroner’s inquest was held late last month, looking into the death of worker Roger Hill, who died from severe injuries after being trapped in a rock crusher. The inquest determined that the tragedy was at least partly caused by missing and ineffective safety mechanisms on the rock crusher.

The accident happened late in the afternoon of January 21, 2008 at a Ridgemount Quarries site in Fort Erie, Ontario owned by Walker Industries in Thorold, Ontario, which had a contract with the now-defunct Hard Rock Group of Companies (the worker’s employer) to set up a portable crushing plant at the site.

According to coroner’s counsel Graeme Leach, at about 4 pm on that day, a massive rotor weighing several tons – with outer bars capable of spinning at 100 miles per hour – stopped working. Hill and two co-workers each took turns trying to get the machine restarted. Unfortunately, the clutch re-engaged while Hill and a supervisor were still in the impactor chamber.

According to Leach, several safety violations contributed to the accident. Lockout and tagout procedures were not followed and the engine in the impactor chamber was left running.  Also, while Hard Rock Group safety procedures mandated that a “safety bar” be placed between the bars of the rotor to prevent spinning,  the company had “two impactors, but only one bar, so the bar would be shared between the two and the bar was off-site on the day of the incident.”

The crusher was also equipped with a limit switch, which had become inoperable. “If it had been working properly, it should have automatically killed the fuel to the engine. … The evidence in my mind was unclear if it had been broken and just never repaired or had been deliberately tampered with.”

As a result of the inquest, the coroner’s jury issued nine recommendations, including:

• That the Ministry of Labour (MOL), Infrastructure Health and Safety Association and provincial safe work organizations (SWOs) continue to work together to educate workers, supervisors and employers on the “extreme importance” of compliance with ‘lock and tag‘ procedures and maintaining and testing equipment safety features by referencing the potentially tragic consequences of failing to do so;
• That MOL and SWOs review the effectiveness of the Internal Responsibility System and undertake an mandatory audit of surface mining operations to ensure that senior employer representatives conduct routine and regular safety checks on employees at remote workplace locations (with the results reported to SWOs when safety deficiencies are discovered);
• That the MOL and Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities work together to develop a system to track what mandatory OH&S training workers have and alert workers, employers and the MOL “when workers have not completed mandatory training within the required time periods;”
• That the MOL continue conducting regular spot checks of all safety features of dangerous equipment and consider imposing an obligation on employers to periodically certify that safety features have been tested and are in good working order;
• That the MOL investigate the feasibility that where ‘lock and tag’ equipment is deficient or absent, an immediate stop work order be issued.
• That all surface mining workers be required to have core training and, if mandated, specialty training modules prior to workers being permitted to commence work on a surface mine;
• That the number of inspectors for surface mining be increased; and, consider the requirement for a minimum number of workers before an oh&s committee or designation of a safety representative is mandatory.

Several bystanders and Winnipeg firefighters are credited with saving the life of a worker for Winnipeg-based Fox Contracting who was pinned in a narrow trench under a 700-pound chunk of concrete last week.

At around 9 a.m., the worker was crouched in the hole, which was about half a metre wide and three metres deep,  as he worked to repair the foundation of a 105-year-old house in St. Boniface. Suddenly, a long, narrow piece of concrete broke off and fell on his back, trapping him in the hole.

Five bystanders, led by an infantryman who had just returned from Afghanistan, heard the cries of that worker and a co-worker, and worked quickly, tying a rope around the three-metres-long concrete slab, and used all their strength to lift it just enough to prevent it from crushing the worker. Though the rope kept slipping and caused some rope burns, they managed to hold on for at least ten minutes until Winnipeg Fire Department emergency personnel arrived on the scene.

As the bystanders held on, firefighters used a jack to lift the concrete slab slightly, then tied a second rope around it so as to lift it just enough for the worker to crawl to safety. At that point, two firefighters pulled the worker from the trench.

The worker was then taken to Health Sciences Centre, where he was in stable condition.

Police and Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health officials are investigating the incident.

The Ontario courts were busy last week, and in the space of four days, worker accidents cost three companies a lot of money.  Take a look at the details of each accident; every one of them was easily preventable with just some basic safety training and worker awareness.

1. In one case, elevator and escalator manufacturer Kone Inc. was fined $90,000 for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that caused a worker to be injured.

The fine was for an incident that occurred on September 11, 2008, when a worker was repairing an elevator circuit board at the University of Western Ontario. The worker stood on a ladder in the pit and shaft area of the elevator while the elevator’s power was still on. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the worker wasn’t using rubber gloves, mats, shields, or other equipment to protect against electrical shock. Of course, when the worker touched the back of the circuit board, the resultant electric shock caused him to fall to the concrete floor of the pit, resulting in wrist and facial fractures.

Kone Inc. pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the worker used rubber gloves, mats, shields and other protective equipment and procedures adequate to ensure protection from electrical shock and burns.

2.  In another case, a $60,000 fine was imposed on Tri City Materials Ltd., a company that works with aggregates, after it, too, pleaded guilty for a violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act that caused an injury to a worker.

The incident that led to this fine occurred on December 30, 2008. A worker was cleaning out a trailer that acted as a hopper for various materials. Because the hopper’s chute needed power to stay open, the truck attached to the trailer was left running.  Unfortunately, when another worker shut off the truck during the cleaning process, the chute gate immediately closed and caught the worker’s leg.

A Ministry of Labour investigation found that the company’s procedure for safely cleaning the trailer required that it be locked out with its chute gate manually wedged open. They determined that the worker was improperly trained, and was unfamiliar with this procedure or the hazards associated with cleaning out the trailer.

Tri City Materials Ltd. pleaded guilty to failing to acquaint the worker with the hazards associated with cleaning out the trailer.

3. Within days of the above fines, Abitibi Consolidated Company of Canada, owner and operator of a paper mill in Fort Frances, was slapped with a $125,000 fine for their violation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act for an accident that injured two workers and a student.

That incident occurred on August 20, 2008, when two of the paper mill’s electricians were changing the power box for part of a paper machine. In this case, the power to the box itself was locked out, but the power to the cabinet containing the box was not shut off or locked out. As the electricians removed the power box, they noticed a cable inside the cabinet that needed to be moved, so one of them reached into the cabinet with a metal tool to remove a clamp holding the cable in place. In doing so, the tool made electrical contact with a live conductor inside the cabinet, creating an arc flash, which in turn caused another arc flash from the live conductors overhead.

The accident caused both electricians to suffer first, second and third degree burns. At the same time, a student who was standing nearby and watching them suffered first degree burns.

Abitibi Consolidated Company of Canada pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that a tool was not used near a live electrical installation to prevent electrical contact with a live conductor.

In addition to the $275,000 in fines in the three cases above, the court also imposed a 25% victim fine surcharge, as required by the Provincial Offences Act. The surcharge is credited to a special provincial government fund to assist victims of crime. That puts the total cost to these three companies at more than $343,000, all for accidents that could have been prevented with a little health and safety awareness.

Proper health and safety training doesn’t cost. It pays.