When a worker is badly injured on a construction site, adjusters or investigators are often hired to determine pursuit or defense of a subrogation case. This slideshow gives an overview of several real-world investigations and helps viewers understand some of the issues involved in construction related subrogatable incidents. Read More
As an experienced safety consultant, I have investigated many incidents in my career in which a worker “falls through an opening.” The majority of these incidents have occurred at construction sites and most of the ones I investigated resulted in a serious injury or death. Read More
We get to work with some really cool guys and from time to time, we do some really cool things; “things that make you go hmmm,” (as Arsenio Hall used to say). Read More
I recently finished working on a case where an operator received a right hand injury when an unguarded, rotating mixer shaft caught his gloved hand between the right index finger and middle finger, twisting it around the shaft causing the index finger to separate from the hand and the middle and ring finger to be dislocated. The mixer contained an unguarded rotating shaft, which created an uncontrolled motion hazard when rotating at speeds up to 450 RPM. Read More
Recently, we had the opportunity to observe a semi-annual inspection of a commercial cooking fire suppression system. Before we get too far into this we would like to point out that we talked with one of the company’s owners as well as the technician about our presence there and the questions we would ask the technician. Neither of them had a problem with this request. Read More
In recent years, with Hurricane Ike in Galveston, TX in 2008 and Superstorm Sandy along the New Jersey and New York coastline in 2012, we have had the opportunity to see firsthand the destructive power of storms like these. We were “boots on the ground” literally days after the initial coastal strike. The damage observed to residential and commercial structures was far reaching, diverse and some preventable. We want to share some “lessons learned” from these observations for these two CAT events. Read More
One of the most common features of machinery, consumer products, and assemblies of any type is the bolted joint. Sometimes the joint fails, with results ranging from inconsequential to catastrophic. The design of a joint is in the purview of an engineer, who must consider the material to be joined, the geometry of the joint, the loads imposed on the joint, the strength of the connectors (i.e., bolts, screws) environmental effects (i.e., temperatures, corrosion) and perhaps other factors. Read More
The unusually severe 2014 winter in the eastern United States has reminded many people and businesses that when water in a pipe freezes, the ice will expand and burst the pipe or pipe fitting. Large losses will result from flooding when the temperatures rise. Insulation will help, but not prevent freezing. Insulation simply slows down the rate of heat loss. The time of exposure to subfreezing temperature is an important factor. Read More
In Part One, I shared a case of a machinist blinded while using a computer numerically controlled (CNC) machining center. The equipment, which was safeguarded, contained a known hazard, but the machine manufacturer included an interlock guard to help protect the operator during the machine’s intended use. Read More
Machine equipment manufacturers are called upon to study potential risks of equipment before selling it in the marketplace. In addition, ANSI machine tool standards further address equipment hazards and risks that cannot be eliminated by design. In one case I investigated, the depth of that critical risk assessment became an important factor in a claim involving a machinist blinded while using a computer numerically controlled (CNC) machining center. Read More
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