Like many others in the past, this Safety Talk tells of an incident in which a roofer was injured on the job. When reading about what happened, think about the roofing jobs that you have been on in your career. Have you made similar mistakes and placed yourself at risk?
Max and Keenan are roofers and worked for a commercial roofing contractor in Georgia. One day during the Spring of 2009 they were working on a roof of a 2 story school building on the outskirts of Atlanta. In keeping with their company’s policy and the work they were performing, Max and Keenan were wearing safety boots, hardhats, eye protection, and cut-resistant gloves. The two roofers were the only two on the roof and were charged with performing a relatively minor repair which required that a section of sheet metal be installed. Although they brought a piece of sheet metal that had been fabricated in their company’s shop, it needed to be trimmed to fit.
Keenan was overweight, and perspired quite a bit even on a mild day. However on the day of this incident it was unseasonably hot. Sweat kept getting into his eyes, and Keenan kept taking off his safety glasses and wiping the sweat out of his eyes with his forearm. After a while, he simply decided to trim the sheet metal without the hassle of his eye protection. But only seconds after taking off his safety glasses and placing them on the ground where he was kneeling to work, a piece of metal flew into his eye.
Max, his coworker, saw what happened and helped Keenan off of the roof and into the school to see if the school nurse could help. Fortunately the nurse was able to safely remove the sliver of metal, but sent Keenan to the hospital to be checked-out. He was in pain for a few days and had to wear a patch over his eye for 10 days. Fortunately there was no permanent eye damage. Keenan was lucky – this time.
DISCUSSION NOTES:
Sweat kept getting into Keenan’s eyes and was allegedly the reason that he took off his safety glasses. What could he have done differently to keep the sweat out of his eyes? What do you do to keep sweat out of your eyes?
What is our company policy for wearing safety glasses?
Keenan only took his safety glasses off for a moment before he was injured. Far too many times people don’t wear the personal protective equipment that is needed because they are only performing a quick task. Can you think of an incident that happened to you when you took a “safety shortcut?”
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