Equipment World

October 2016

Equipment World Digital Magazine

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EquipmentWorld.com | October 2016 43 safety watch | by Tom Jackson | TJackson@randallreilly.com I t was his first day on the job and his first day with the com- pany. This 34-year-old Hispanic man spoke Spanish, but the rest of the three-man crew was from Brazil and only spoke Portuguese, even though they were working in New Jersey. According to the in- vestigation, the victim's instructions were communicated in "broken Spanish." The crew was tasked with mov- ing large concrete blocks from a supply stack to the retaining wall they were building. The blocks had embedded chain hooks in them that the crew members at- tached to a backhoe bucket. Once the blocks were chained to the bucket, the backhoe operator car- ried them a short distance and, with the crew's help, positioned the blocks in the wall. None of the crew was wearing reflective vests or personal protective equipment. After doing this most of the day, the crew was walking back to the staging area with the chain while the operator repositioned the backhoe. Not knowing that the victim was standing inside the swing radius of the boom, the backhoe operator swung the boom around for the next block, but struck the victim and pinned him against the stack of blocks. The victim suffered major blunt force head injuries and was pronounced dead shortly afterward. How this accident could have been prevented: • Job hazard analysis should be done prior to any work to iden- tify any and all potential dangers. • Job-specific training should be conducted with all employees, including temps and day labor- ers, in a language they under- stand. • All employees should wear reflective vests and personal pro- tective equipment (PPE), includ- ing hard hats. • Backhoe operators should be trained to scan both sides of the swing radius of the boom and insure than no people are in the path of the boom. • Crews working around a back- hoe should be trained to stay out of the swing radius of the boom when it is moving, and to establish eye contact with the operator before entering the danger zone. A video tutorial on the dan- gers of backhoe operation can be found at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=6YnV0Xmf6w8. For more information and re- sources on how to prevent these types of accidents, see the full NIOSH FACE report at: www.cdc. gov/niosh/face/pdfs/14NJ074.pdf. Date of safety talk: Leader: _____________________ Attending: Illustration by Don Lomax A backhoe's danger zone

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